Elisabet Benaventthe Spanish queen of romantic novels, has a new series in Netflix based on one of his books, after ‘Valeria’. Is about ‘A perfect tale’, with Anna Castillo (‘I’m alive’, ‘Easy’) and Alvaro Mel (‘La Fortuna’) teaming up with a common purpose: to win back their ex-partners. Although it is already known, it may be that, after all the adventure, the touch makes the affection.
Margot and David seem, at first, to have little to do with each other.
Anna Castillo: Margot is the heiress to a chain of luxury hotels, a very contained and responsible girl. She has two sisters that she loves very much and a rather rigid mother. She is at a point where all the pressure she has to do things well at work, to be respected and valued, of the wedding that is coming up with the person who a priori is supposed to be perfect for her , causes it to crash. And at that moment she meets David.
Álvaro Mel: And David is the other way around, very outside, even though he is conformist and doesn’t have many ambitions. He works three jobs to make ends meet, he shares a flat and was the lapdog of the girl he was dating. Until he meets Margot, he goes to Greece and prioritizes other interests and other goals.
Do you think one makes the other better?
Álvaro Mel: Yes, they know each other and make each other better, with sincerity involved and with the idea of getting their ‘ex’ back.
Anna Castillo: But then things get complicated. For me there is something very physical about Margot. At first she’s like choking, she’s very anxious, and suddenly she meets David, who is much lighter than her, and Margot starts to breathe.
Did you read the book on which the series is based before shooting it?
Álvaro Mel: We read the script first and then the novel to see what background the character had. Because from the book you can get a lot of things about his behavior and his attitudes.
Anna Castillo: Being able to read the novel gave us a depth of character that normally doesn’t exist in a script.
Were you intimidated that readers had already made up their own idea of Margot and David?
Anna Castillo: It gives me pressure, yes.
Álvaro Mel: It is intimidating because playing a role that people have already imagined in their heads and that may be different from you puts a bit of pressure on you. Although what could give me the most insecurity was that there wasn’t the chemistry that exists in the book between the two characters, and I think that it is.
Why are Elísabet Benavent’s novels so successful?
Álvaro Mel: I think it’s a bit because of everyday life that he is able to reflect on the characters all the time and the ability he has to make people feel reflected in the situations he shows. In other works they are more idealized and then they are not like that, but in his books everything is more mundane, more face to face.
Anna Castillo: She manages to laugh a lot at the characters, and that makes readers laugh too and identify with them, breaking clichés. And there is something very cool in his books, which is the ode to friendship, to the people who accompany you and who love you.
One of the distinctive elements of Benavent’s novels are the sex scenes, as we have already seen in Valeria. Is it like this in the series A Perfect Tale?
Anna Castillo: There are some.
Álvaro Mel: All with their discomfort in between and with what they imply. Also with the help of the intimacy coordinator and with Chloé Wallace’s version [la directora]which is very aesthetic.
How bad are the sex scenes?
Álvaro Mel: Not bad, but there is always tension and it is something intimate and complicated, because you are very vulnerable…
Anna Castillo: They always cost me a lot. Also, I am very modest with love and intimacy scenes in general. Being well, surrounded by the team and by your partner, is super important to me. And here they have respected us a lot.
Are you into romance novels and movies?
Anna Castillo: Yes, I love them. I have grown up with the romantic comedies of the 90s and 2000s. I feel comfortable with them, at home.
Álvaro Mel: For me they are not my favorites.
Elísabet Benavent says that it is a genre that is still not sufficiently valued. Do you agree with her?
Anna Castillo: I think romantic comedies have been a bit mistreated, in general, and undervalued. Also because they have always been reduced to clichés, stereotypes and things that we have seen a thousand times. But I think that the fictions that are being made lately are much more interesting because they are being deconstructed, the patterns and many issues that have to do with gender, identity and love are being reviewed. I think the romantic comedy is still underrated, but we can go in a better direction and, in fact, we are.
