Vicky Luengo (or Victoria, as the actress prefers to be called now) and Hovik Keuchkerian They overlapped in ‘Antiturbios’ but had almost no scenes in common. Inside ‘Red Queen‘ more than repays that debt, spending nearly the entirety of the Amazon Prime Video series starring Antonia Scott and Jon Gutiérrez, tacked together, straight out of best-selling books. Juan Gómez-Jurado.
Have you read the novels on which ‘The Red Queen’ is based?
Victoria Luengo: I didn’t know the book. This came to me via social media from readers who thought I could play the character. They told me so much that I decided to buy it. When I finished, I wrote to Juan Gómez-Jurado that I had written a great character and that I imagined playing him, and he replied: “You will laugh. But give me your cell phone because I want to suggest something to you.” So the circle is closed.
Hovik Keuchkerian: Juan, who dedicated the book to me, came to me through a mutual friend and said: “I present to you Jon, I hope you like it.” Since I had other readings waiting, I left it at home and finally read it.
Did you imagine yourself as Jon when you read it?
Hovik: I started reading detective novels from this country, through César Pérez-Gellida, the author of ‘Memento Mori’ and a brutal brotherhood between them. So my name was there to play Ramiro Sancho [uno de los protagonistas de ‘Memento Mori’] and then came ‘Red Queen’. Yeah, when I read it I saw myself walking up the stairs [una de las primeras escenas de Jon en la serie].
Has the responsibility of creating the characters that millions of readers imagine in their minds become heavier?
Hovik: No, because they are not the same. On the first date with Amaya [Muruzabal, la creadora de la serie] and Koldo [Serra, el director] We already had a ‘hook’. I told them they signed me to play Jon. So there was no responsibility. Because in the novel there is a Jon Gutiérrez for every reader, but I created the character audio-visually.
Victoria: It’s impossible to please all these people. If we did this thinking about what people would say when they saw it, we would suffer. I think one of the things that makes projects beautiful is having fun while doing it. There was this responsibility because I care about the public reaction, but it did not affect my work.
Hovik: Also Juan [Gómez-Jurado] He has repeatedly said that the series enhances the novel. So why do we always think about the negative? Thinking about this, I would say: I hope people see the show and say that Jon and Antonia are in a place they never imagined, that we healed them.
Victoria, what was it like playing Antonia Scott, the smartest person on the planet? Because in the series, for example, we see that he walks with a stoop.
Victoria: It’s funny even though it doesn’t look like it because she’s so sad and worried. I was able to follow a very interesting arc and make decisions about things that I never could before. I’ve never shot with color schemes, I’ve never fought imaginary monkeys, I’ve never done car chases… I’ve never played a character with an IQ of 242. My job is so fun because I play the same game as when I was a kid and I learn things I would never learn. For example, what it feels like to be a highly skilled person. If you noticed that Antonia is hunched over, it means that something is coming from her.
Is it documented?
Victoria: Yes, I’ve read a lot of books and talked to two people who are very close to them and another who has high intellectual abilities and is on the autism spectrum to some extent. I stayed with him for a few days and he helped me a lot. With his permission, I copied many of his gestures, body expressions… When I decide to portray a character, it seems to me that you need to respect what you are doing, and in this case I think so. important. It is not something that is brought to the screen in such a respectful, cliché-free way.
Speaking of gestures… At the beginning of the series, Antonia does not look Jon in the eyes.
Victoria: This was a proposal I made to Koldo Serra because the two people I looked at for documentation had done this. I suggested Antonia not to look into the eyes of people she doesn’t know, and as she got to know that person, she started to look. I mentioned this to Hovik and it was hilarious, because he and I decided at what point the characters would first look into each other’s eyes.
They made a good duo.
Victoria: Working with Hovik was a dream because everything I suggested he said: What if we add this to it? For example, in the final sequence, Hovik suggested something in the script that added an incredible dimension to my character. We were able to agree on so many little things between the two of us, and I think it’s those little things that make great iconic couples.
Hovik, Jon, is an unusual police officer in fiction with his ‘mammitis’.
Hovik: He’s Basque and a gay police officer, that’s how unconventional he is. He is a man without a father and all the values he has have been transferred to him through his ‘amatxu’. Amaya Muruzabal described him very well: He is an honest man in a world of sons of bitches. This is already a bombshell in itself, right?