Filming of ‘Football Days’, which celebrates its 20th anniversary and is considered one of the best comedies in our cinema history, collects a handful of good anecdotes. Few Spanish films have managed to amass so many talents, as the actors, many of whom were formerly close friends, have received more than eleven Goya awards and numerous nominations:
– Fear of Willy Toledo: Toledo would become one of the key characters of the movie as he will play the resentful bus driver of the gang, Ramón, and Roberto Álamo would become the indecisive actor Charli. But a month before rehearsals began, the film’s director, David Serrano, learned that Toledo was going to make a movie with Gerardo Herrero. “I remember getting off the plane and reading in the newspaper that Willy was going to shoot another movie and he was putting us in a tight spot.” Finally, Roberto played Ramón, a role he had previously rehearsed, and Serrano chose Pere Ponce for the role of Charli. In the end, it was a huge success. And Willy continued to appear in the footage, precisely in one of the most legendary scenes, the fight scene at the barbecue in the park.
– “Were you an actor? Well, don’t play me. Don’t move me”: The confrontation of the character of Fernando Tejero with the character of Pere Ponce is undoubtedly one of the most iconic phrases of the movie. “This phrase arose one night when we were at a disco on the ground floor of Goya at eight o’clock in the morning. We went out a lot back then. And that day Roberto’s older brother (Álamo) came with us and told this to Father Ponce when they were introduced. It was so funny. Serrano, who is the creator of another of the most symbolic sentences of the cinema of that decade, is also the creator of the phrase “I am the ‘melon boy’” in “El otro lado de la cama”. he was a screenwriter. It was also narrated by director Nacho Vigalondo, who heard it from a Chinese bracelet seller. “David is always knowing how to get references from people,” Álamo says last week in a meeting with EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA with Serrano in a cafeteria where ‘Días de fútbol’ was recorded in La Elipa.
– Ernesto Alterio’s reluctance: Already very successful in ‘El otro lado de la cama’ (2002) and various plays, and already nominated for Goya for ‘Los años bárbaros’ (1998), Alterio showed his doubts before he started shooting the film. he went so far as to say, with a few sequences, that he never saw himself playing the main character, Antonio. The relationship between him and Serrano was very close. In fact, the director asked Alterio which character he wanted to write in the next movie, that is, in this movie, while he was shooting ‘The Other Side of the Bed’, and Alterio replied, “The one from Big’s Carlos El Yoyas”. Brother”.. “I had my doubts until the end of the shoot. They were very good conditions, but the way I saw the situation at that moment was out of insecurity. It was a powerful challenge. I couldn’t have done it without your trust, to see if I could do it. I didn’t see what I could do”, Alterio confesses to Serrano in the film’s production video about that very violent but kindhearted character Antonio.
– Packets: The entire cast, with the exception of Roberto Álamo, was a football-playing disaster. They had been training for a month and had parties with acquaintances. They lost all games except one, right on the day the director wasn’t there. “I think they fooled me,” says Serrano, who had to change the script because the idea was that everything that went wrong for the characters in life went well when playing football. “We were training for a month to start getting bad,” Alterio would soon admit. “Ernesto was so obsessed that he finally managed to hit the ball,” Álamo explains.
– Alterio’s concentration, Álamo’s relaxation: All the players were from Cristina Rota’s school, but each had their own way. Alterio got into character from the start, always very focused; The Alamo, on the contrary, was very calm. “For Ernesto, this was a very important film,” explains Serrano, remembering that even Alterio had repeatedly apologized for one of the scenes he had just recorded. “This is the worst thing I’ve ever done in my career.” “I said they were going to nominate him for a Goya. And indeed they nominated him. For Álamo, his acting style “doesn’t contain any mystery, it’s not a talent, everyone has the tools”. “And in my case,” he continues, “if I am confident in my means as an actor, the last thing is to be insecure on set. It helps me. Insecurity helps others, in insecurity they are safe”.
– Elbow to go out by plane: The cast was so large, and in some scenes there were so many protagonists at the same time—up to seven or eight—that they elbowed to get a better position, like in the baby in the bar sequence, for example. “Alberto suddenly freaks out to get out on a plane that doesn’t land, I’m arranging and I see Alberto appearing crouching under Ernesto. [en una escena de partido] and ‘how did it get there?’ I say, says Serrano.
– Second part: After the failure of the next film by David Serrano with the cast of ‘Días de Fútbol’, the director’s professional relationship with the Animalario group was severed. Despite this, he managed to write the script for a second installment with Diego San José, although “Telecinco didn’t want it”. “I remember Ernesto’s character trying to adopt a child and what he did was picking up a child from juvenile detention center. There was also the pair exchange, of course something we wrote at the time”, Serrano excuses himself. “If they tell me today that we’re doing the second part,” admits Álamo, the two Goya winners, “I’d be happy because they offer me some comedy and they do it with people who are my best friends, imagine.” Stop.
– Nathalie Poza’s slap: In one scene, Nathalie Poza, whose husband in the movie lost her baby, slaps Fernando Tejero. Tejero’s face is a poem and super real. Because the slap was real. And, as the director admitted, he gave the actors conflicting versions. “I told Fernando I was just going to mark him, don’t worry. But I told Nathalie that Fernando wanted me to hit him as hard as I could. Imagine the look on Fernando’s face.”
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– Bus scene: Another legendary scene from the movie is the “Ramón calvo bastard” scene where Alberto Sanjuan meets Álamo on the bus. On that day, both actors remember, neither was well for personal reasons. “It was a terrible day,” the Alamo recalls one emotionally charged scene. “I rolled a bit from the agony,” Sanjuan later assured. They had to stop to de-stress before the final shoot.
– Springboard for the Alamo: Until ‘Football Days’ this Villaverde Alto actor hadn’t played a big role, but this movie was a big opportunity, as it was for pretty much everyone else. “When you make your first major movie, it’s the presenter. If you do this with your friends, it’s a fantasy few people have. With ‘Días de fútbol’ I started making a small hole”. In 2008 he won the Actors Guild Award for Best New Actor for ‘Urtain’. A role that Álamo gambled on as he received a “very crazy” offer for the lead role in ‘Águila Roja’ and turned it down because he was representing the European heavyweight champion boxer. “He was broke, not even enough to drink coffee, but he bet he would play Urtain and he became a fashionable actor there.” “I was not broke, because before I had nothing, I had not lost anything,” Álamo said. His role in Urtain was so good that the directors of the television series tried to sign him again. And they did.