Emanuel Soriano: who is he outside of his characters and how did he practice his profession as a communicator?


“I love working with clay.” The occasional exploration of Emanuel Soriano in pottery is, in addition to a step in the Expressive Arts Therapy course she is studying, a defense of her identity: she combines with her skill even outside of her acting roles. While Pantaleon, Montana and Gustavo —and so many others— rest in the collective memory, the 34-year-old Peruvian listens to Jorge Drexler, Alejandro Sanz and Residente, walks and envisions his next occupation. “The world is full of inventions to survive,” he says.

—Who is Emmanuel Soriano without his characters?

—Someone who is surprised by each new thing, but at the same time someone with a certain fear of the unpredictable. I am not entirely daring and I am allowing it with the projects, with the direction, with the writing. I am allowing that child who was forced to be highly disciplined to break those kinds of rules.

Emanuel Soriano, 4 years old. Photo: Emanuel Soriano archive

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That child was the school mayor at the Salesian Rosenthal de la Puente, the protagonist of Jesus Christ Superstar, the film debutant who, comfortable in the skin of Dominic Savio, swore he would be a saint. He was also, under his own terms, the “kill them quietly” in high school: a person who with skill and secret tries to get his way, according to the RAE. “I wasn’t the one yelling the joke. I told my friends the nickname and they were the ones who commented on it. But my goal was not that, but for them to have fun.

—Perfectionism can be seen as a quality, but it also becomes a wall. To what limits has it taken you?

—I think I’ve learned to let it go because the mistake is important, and I’m inviting myself to make a mistake. At some point, when I went to a workshop, they asked me what he was going to. “I come to make a mistake.” Because many, since they already know that I have done things, are waiting. So I try to let go of that expectation and surprise myself with what can happen at the moment, with what my partner or my scene partner offers me.

—What is your reaction when you hear that fragment from your first film: “I want to be a saint”?

—There is something that seemed super interesting to me: they made a song based on that and yes, yes, yes, I keep it to myself. The relationship with that holiness, which is to make something extraordinary out of the ordinary, is what I seek in some way to do with my work. And I think that holiness, if I bring it now, is like a way of meditating.

—And, speaking of holiness, are you a believer in any saint?

—Anyway from Saint John Bosco (…). That I believe in God, I do believe in God; that I have moved away from religion, I have moved away from religion: I am a little more spiritual. Where I feel that God manifests himself is in art and in nature.

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With international participation —he played Armando in “La reina del sur”— art now translates as his safe space. However, when he was 17 he was not. “The fear. The fear that suddenly I’m not going to do well as an actor”, Emanuel now argues before a vocational question: why Communication before Theater?

—Fear and career choice. Did you ever feel uncomfortable studying Communication when you knew that your passion was another?

—No, because it was linked. I think that was what didn’t make me sad. Also, while studying he took acting workshops. Bruno Odar gave me half a scholarship, then I was with Alberto Ísola (…). And also my parents supported me as far as possible.

Your mother’s support has not expired. She is certain because she has read “Pisar puddles” to her, an author’s story that has caused a mirror-impression: “She has not connected with my story, she has connected with her story, with that of childhood her”.

Emanuel Soriano at the gates of entering first grade. Photo: Emanuel Soriano archive

—Did you get to exercise your role as a communicator?

—The closest thing is the locution.

The locution is a facet championed by the intro of the ThunderCats. The mascot of the feline aliens, Snarf, stimulated an imitation exercise with her voice: Emanuel Soriano, as with the Chiki soda commercial, gorged and rehearsed for what would later be another economic channel. Radio La zona, Promperú, IPe channel, Radio Moda, Entel, BCP and Falabella turned on microphones and kept their diction.

Outside the commercial area, his tone vibrates among those who saw “Django: Blood of My Blood” (2018) and “Django: In the name of the son” (2019). “Where’s the legend?” Montana asks her father.

—What were you thinking when you complained to your father Django for his family absence?

—My (real) dad told me that he was suddenly telling him, because my dad went to the United States for a little over ten years to work. I sometimes visited him. It could probably be in my unconscious, but no, because I do not think about my things to act. In other words, what is called emotional memory, and that some work with it, I don’t use it because it distracts me.

—Which actors did you bond with in Django?

—With Giovanni anyway, because Giovani also chose me to be his son. He didn’t cast me, he saw me act. Sometimes we do another type of casting, in the sense that I go to see a play and see how someone acts and that’s it, for me that’s the casting (…). Before, he called me for a play, for “Avenida Larco”, the musical, where he played two extreme characters, he played an old man, a police station policeman, and a terrorist.

—Do you usually improvise in your texts?

It depends, it depends. There are projects that allow you and I am happy to do it. My custom was always to follow the text, but there are colleagues who invite you to improvise. But there are other projects that don’t allow it, not only because of the director, but also because of the text itself.

—I’ll quote something: “I’ve been very happy with 85% of the things I’ve done.” What does 15% comprise?

—The other 15% probably includes very few works. I could even dare to say one…

-Which?

I can’t say that (laughs). Unhappy not even with the job, but with the process. And there was also a movie that wasn’t very well known or anything because I didn’t understand what I had gotten myself into (…). However, they have also given me another type of gain. You have to go through those things to know what you don’t want to do.

AND Emanuel Soriano He has been through fights: he played Cristóbal, an autistic figure, in “The curious incident of the dog at midnight” at the same time that he recorded the scenes as Montana. Purity and perversity at different times. He acted —tragicomic, as he defines it— in front of Mario Vargas Llosa in “Pantaleón y las visitadoras”. In addition, he starred in a kiss with Jota in “Junta de neighbourhoods”.

“I knew there was going to be criticism from both sides. On the one hand, from all the conservative people and, on the other hand, from the same community by not being a gay actor.”

In April the critics also contemplate the agenda. The artist will launch a personal work titled “self portrait”. “For that text to come out, about ten texts had to pass, but I am allowing myself to be wrong. So I don’t know if the work will be liked or not liked, ”she confesses.

For now, he is filming “Family Album”, a film by Joel Calero, and has begun to teach the acting workshop in front of the camera at Arte & Escena. “Things appear at the moment and you have to decide what you take and what you leave.” To accompany him in his assessment is Amelia, a ‘adored calatita’ that he adopted in 2021, a book: “The body never lies”, by Alice Miller, and the possibility of repeating his cult material: “Back to the future” and “Stories wild”.

Source-larepublica.pe