We speak with Jaime Lorente, protagonist of El Cid: “I wanted some kid to identify with the character”.
We had the opportunity to speak with Jaime Lorente, protagonist of El Cid, the new Amazon Prime Video series, in the role of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar.
“Campeador, campeador, campeador!”, To the shout of the soldiers in arms with Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar we received the launch of El Cid, the new and great Spanish production of Amazon Prime Video that opens on December 18 for more than 240 countries. We have already had the opportunity to see the first season of El Cid and we have analyzed it for you in the criticism of the series, but today we come to tell you about the heart of this fiction: Jaime Lorente in his role as Ruy. We have had the opportunity to speak with the actor from La casa de papel or Elite, among other productions, along with colleagues from other media to discover what it has been like to be part of such an ambitious project.
The new amazon series he has built his story around a character who is more person than legend, more human than myth. Thus, Jaime Lorente has put on the chainmail to interpret Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar more than El Cid, with “the complexity of a character so well known to all, that all people recognize as a hero, but he is still just another human being.” “I wanted to get some kid in his house to identify with the character, to say: ‘I could end up becoming a hero because I’m a normal person like he is,’” he confesses Jaime Lorente.
If something defines the origins of El Cid is that he was “a guy with very strong principles who forges himself, without having any kind of privileges or any kind of power, and only through effort and work can I get some of the things he thinks he wants.”
In the first season of El Cid We discover the origins of a character who has been told all kinds of stories, some real and others sweetened, to reach the legend that we know today, so it was inevitable not to obtain any learning in its preparation. Thus, Jaime Lorente assures that on a personal level it has been taken that “one can fail and continue to be a hero, that one can be the hero of one’s own life despite betraying oneself every day as I betrayed myself (…), but that there is the capacity of the human being “.
In this humanization of the character, the actor says that “the only way he had to build a real character, a real human being, was to deconstruct the figure of the hero and the legend, to end up being a legend despite oneself” , with the added complexity of the information so crossed that exists on his figure.
They say that one of the most beautiful moments of this art is when the actor finds himself in the character he plays, and this is one of those cases: “I felt very identified (…) and in the sequence when I come back from Graus and the people ‘Campeador, campeador’ are there, and they say ‘Enjoy the recognition’ and he says ‘I don’t want it’, to me, to Jaime, that was happening to me “. “It has been a gift to play this character,” he concludes.
In one of the chapters of the series, it happens the great battle of the first season in which hundreds of horses participated to build a brutal sequence, chaotic and, inevitably, dangerous. During the filming, Jaime Lorente’s character is surrounded by enemies, disturbed earth and horses that march rearing up on the battlefield, and he has to get out of there alive, so the actor assures that “there are moments in which you get to suggest, because there is action and sometimes it takes a long time until it is cut because there is a lot of choreography “.
“I remember (…) being in the middle of the battle of Graus, giving action, starting to look around, all smoke, horses, people hitting each other, I couldn’t locate the camera, I couldn’t see it and I said ‘That’s it, well … I’m really going to die ‘(laughs), because there comes a time when you believe it, “Jaime tells us.
The first season of El Cid premieres on Amazon Prime Video on December 18, created by Jose Velasco (Illimani, the jewel of the Andes, The city of the scribes) and with a cast headed by himself Jaime Lorente, Carlos Bardem (Ines of my soul, Diaries of the quarantine), Elia galera (The prince, Saturn through the telescope), Ginés García Millán (Freedom, the curse of the handsome), Jose Luis Garcia Perez (Secrets of State, Hospital Valle Norte), Juan Echanove (Disappeared, The area), David Castillo (The enthusiasm) and Lucia Diez (Rag girl).
