PEDRO ALMODOVAR

‘I’V E BEEN TRYING TO NOT REPEAT MYSELF. IT ’S IMPORTANT TO ME’

All About My Mother, Talk to Her, Volver, Bad Education… every Pedro Almodóvar movie is pure European event cinema. His new work, Strange Way of Life, with Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, sees him venture into English to create a unique queer western. Total Film meets the man to talk sex, drugs and Barbie…

When Total Film last met Pedro Almodóvar, at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival for Pain and Glory, the Spanish maestro was offering up selfies like confetti. Dressed in a bright yellow shirt, he was wearing two watches. Why? One to tell the time and one to track his step count. Today, over Zoom, TF can’t resist asking the 73-yearold how that’s all going. ‘Madrid, it’s more than 40 degrees,’ he sighs. His home is a ghost town, the streets empty, making it impossible to get those steps in. ‘Generally when it’s not so hot, I reach 4,000 to 5,000, but I don’t reach 8,000. This is a failure. I’m sorry!’

It’s about the only thing Almodóvar has failed at over the decades, in a career that began with 1980’s Pepi, Luci, Bom with Carmen Maura, whom he had met when he moved to Madrid in the Franco era, pursuing filmmaking while working other jobs. His second feature, 1982’s Labyrinth of Passion, was his first collaboration with then-fledgling actor Antonio Banderas. They have reunited multiple times since, notably in 1988’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the chaotic comedy that broke Almodóvar in the US, earning him a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nod.

His early work was known for its garish design and outlandish subjects. Dark Habits (1983) stirred up controversy with its tale of sinful nuns; Matador, again with Banderas, conflated sex and murder; Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! was given an ‘X’ rating in America. But as he has aged, Almodóvar’s tone has shifted, with films such as Live Flesh, All About My Mother, Bad Education and the Oscarwinning Talk to Her seeing him tackle more serious subjects. Only when he came back with 2013’s fun-but-farcical I’m So Excited! were audiences treated to a glimpse of the Almodóvar of old.

Yet, despite constant offers, Almodóvar did not direct an Englishlanguage film until the 2020 short The Human Voice with Tilda Swinton. Now he returns with another, Strange Way of Life, a queer western that also marks his first collaboration with Yves Saint Laurent’s creative director Anthony Vaccarello (so you can imagine how stylish it looks). Ethan Hawke plays Jake, a sheriff on the hunt for a murderer. During his investigation, he runs into an old compadre, Silva (Pedro Pascal), a former lover and drinking buddy. With discreet nods to The Wild Bunch, it’s exactly how you would imagine an Almodóvar western: an emotional ride into the sunset.

When TF chats with the white-haired Almodóvar, sitting in his office at home in front of a huge bookcase stacked with texts and the odd major award, he seems delighted by the end result. A book of his short stories is due, in English, next year, but the real excitement will come when he finally makes the leap from shorts to a feature in his second language. For the moment, he simply needs to keep an eye on that step count. We need him fighting fit to keep making movies…

What was it that led you to writing a queer western?

Sometimes I start writing without any purpose. Just for the joy of writing. I mean, sometimes, I’m bored. And then I start. Many times, this is the origin of something bigger that I develop into a short tale or a script. The first thing that I wrote, I was thinking about a play more than cinema. It was just a dialogue, a long dialogue between two men – acrazy night of sex and alcohol. One is having a bath. And the other one is trying to look for the underwear. And in that situation, after that night of sex, I wanted to express how different they are, and also how different their reaction is in the face of desire, and all that. This is the first thing that I wrote. I didn’t know what to do with that. So I keep it in my computer and I add that these two guys were old cowboys in the past. For me, it was more interesting if they were these kinds of guys than contemporary guys. I keep it, like many short tales that I have, in my computer.

I don’t know how many months after, casually, I met Anthony Vaccarello, the creative director of Yves Saint Laurent, and he proposed to me to make something together. And he said he would take care of the costumes and they just wanted to produce something – one of my projects. As soon as he proposed this, I thought of this script that I have that was more like a play. And so I just added some content to the beginning and some content to the end. And that became the 31 minutes that they have now, that Vaccarello produced as Strange Way of Life. What I’m trying to say is that there was never a moment, a clear moment, where I said to myself, at this point in my career, I want to make a western. It was just the set of circumstances that came together in such a way that the western just happened.

How did you arrive at casting Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, and do you feel Pedro is having a real moment in his career right now?

Yes, yes. I mean, he has become a bigger star since we shot Strange Way of Life. I knew him before when he was doing King Lear with Glenda Jackson on Broadway. And also, he sent me some messages when he was shooting Narcos, because he was with some friends of mine. So we had a communication between us. The main thing, when I finished the script, I needed two very different kinds of actors. Not only physically but those that belong to different cultures. So my first choice since the beginning was Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal. Casually, I knew both of them. I saw Ethan in theatre directed by Sam Mendes. He was in The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov. So I sent them the script. They were very happy with that, they loved it. And they also wanted to work with me, so it was very easy.

When we were shooting, I really discovered that they were absolutely perfect for the different roles. I mean they were completely different. Fortunately, there was a huge chemistry between them that makes everything easier.

‘PART OF IT HAS BEEN I WAS VERY SCARED TO SHOOT IN ENGLISH ’

They turned out to be the perfect people for those characters. One a bit more Anglo, the other one more of a Latin personality and they likewise react so differently to the events of that night.

I’m not surprised about this explosion Pedro Pascal has had. He’s become such a huge star. When I interviewed him for the part it was right before he started making The Last of Us. And then he came to shoot the film after he had finished making The Last of Us. And he just sort of exploded onto the scene.

But he has always demonstrated that he’s been quite a versatile actor, right? In TV series, he gets a lot of these sort of epic, hero-like characters, but he’s someone that has also demonstrated that he could do comedy, and he could do things that are quite different. I mean, in Strange Way of Life, he represents a character that is very different from the kinds of characters that he gets for these TV series.

So again, I’m not surprised at all about the success he’s having. And just to reiterate, he’s a very good dramatic actor. He’s a very good comedic actor. And so what I wish for him is that people start giving him these kinds of roles – roles that are more like human beings, which I think is what I’ve done. I’ve given him a role, human size, rather than these epic, heroic kinds of characters that he’s been cast in.

Is there any reason you made this film and The Human Voice with Tilda Swinton both in English? Are you building up towards maybe an English language feature at some point?

This is one of the reasons, to make these two shorts in English. Just to have the experience. Part of it has been I was very scared to shoot in English, to know that I could direct actors in English, and this is in fact one of the reasons that I’ve turned down some projects that have been offered to me in English. [For these shorts] I just wanted to try my hand at directing actors in English and the experiences have been very good and so my fear has subsided and I feel more ready to shoot something longer in English. But the more specific reason for what I’ve shot, the format of the short has allowed me to recover a kind of excitement around shooting. I discovered a new-found liberty around making films. And not to say that I don’t have that liberty because I have all the liberty in the world to make my features. But there’s something about the format of the short that the feature does not permit you. The feature, in some way or another, you have to retain a link to reality. In a short, you can be more playful, and it’s a little bit more exhilarating. I find it to be more joyful, more playful, in ways that the feature does not entirely allow me.

I’ve recovered a joy for filmmaking in making the shorts. For example, if you think of what I did in The Human Voice, where I really was fascinated by shooting the set. I shot inside, outside, you could actually see the contours of the set in which Tilda Swinton had to inhabit. I could not permit myself to do the same kind of thing in a feature-length film. It’s something that I can explore in a short but not so much in a feature.

Did it remind you, in some ways, of your very, very early days when you were making Super 8mm shorts?

Yeah, I think you’re completely right. I think that the newness of making shorts, how stimulating I found them, did transport me to the beginning of my career. And that’s very healthy.

After making a western, is there a genre you would love to tackle that you haven’t already? Science fiction, maybe?

I have several stories that I didn’t finish. But I have two stories that are science fiction. I started writing them a long time ago. And technology is advancing so much, and so fast, that I have to re-write what I wrote, but it’s completely possible. The only problem is that I don’t want to make a big production. And usually, science fiction is big-budget movie. I don’t want to make big movies. I will lose some part of my liberty, my independence. But it’s a genre I would like to approach.

Maybe you could direct Pedro Pascal in an episode of The Mandalorian?

Well, first of all, they have to ask me! But it’s a pity that he’s almost always masked. Because he’s very funny. And he has a very good face to show. I’m thinking now about my next project. But I really would like to work with them again, with the three of them – with Tilda Swinton, and with Pedro and also with Ethan. I’m very happy and I was extremely satisfied with them as actors.

Talking of actors, how grateful do you feel that over your career, you’ve had long relationships with the likes of Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz, Rossy de Palma and Carmen Maura?

They are like a part of my family. For example, Antonio, the first time that he was in front of a camera, it was with me behind. He made his first movie with me. He was extremely young. It is very interesting to take the same actor to play in Pain and Glory, someone that is 60 years old. With the passing of time, just to have the possibility of expression through the same faces, through the same actors, is very appealing to me. In any case, it’s that magic reason. I mean, if you find someone and you understand each other very well, there’s a lot of work you’ve already done with that mutual understanding. It’s a question of pragmatism as well. They’re your friends. But anytime that I think of a character that I have – [that] actors that I have worked with in the past can play – Ican go back to them because we already have that history. I already have that work done with them. So I can turn to Penélope Cruz, I can turn to Antonio Banderas. It’s not just a question of fidelity but also a question of pragmatism.

Do you miss those days when you were younger and making anarchic films like Dark Habits and Law of Desire?

I really miss that. I really missed the possibility of making something like Law of Desire or Dark Habits. And I really would like to go back to that style and to feel – Idon’t mean crazy, because I was not crazy. I mean, you have to write a script. And this is very serious, but to have this kind of explosion… I think everything is related to the passing of time and to the place where we are living – the political situation of your country.

At that moment, in the 80s, Spain was living in a new democracy. Franco died in the middle of the 70s. I was so lucky to be young at that moment, because we were enjoying every kind of freedom. I mean, we could do everything and this is an incredible experience. It is difficult to explain how we could live during the 80s. And my movies were part of that joy, and also that lack of prejudices, of that craziness. I was very interested in what was happening in the streets of Madrid, or in the nightclubs because it’s really the culture of those years. It was a nightlife culture, related with drugs, related with sex. But freedom in every term.

‘I THINK EVERYTHING IS RELATED TO THE PASSING OF TIME’

So my movies were the result of that, of being in the centre of that. And the situation now is very different. I mean, I suppose that I’m the same guy. Now I’m not a 20-something. I’m in my 70s. One of the things that has a lot of influences is just plain biology, right? Biology changes through the years. The country also changes through the years. So of course, I would love to return to the happiness of the 80s. I would love to be the guy who has not had back surgery, who [does not have] sometimes debilitating headaches. [To not think that] I live in a much more imperfect democracy, that I’m not as desirable as I was when I was in my 20s. I would love to go back to that energy of the 80s.

Your later film, Pain and Glory, saw Banderas as a heroin-taking film director. Were you ever tempted to take drugs, back in your younger days?

No, never. [When we were younger] we didn’t know what using a drug implied. And also many of our heroes, like David Bowie and Lou Reed, they were junkies and they were very beautiful so we loved them. Nobody told us the dangers behind the drugs, but I was never attracted. I was surrounded by people doing heroin but I was never attracted to that. Perhaps because since the beginning, I thought that it was not the type of drug for me, for my character. And also because I saw very soon the effects of heroin among my friends.

Were you surprised that, of all the movies you made in that period, it was Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown that became your international breakthrough?

On the one hand, I did not have time to be surprised because it all happened so fast. At the same time, I was already somewhat known in the US. My films had played in the art circuits – Law of Desire, Matador, Dark Habits had already played. So for a particular niche audience, an audience that really could engage with my movies, perhaps somewhat underground, I was someone who was already known. And yes, Women on the Verge, sometimes perhaps I’m surprised it became a movie classic. It played as a musical on Broadway, which unfortunately did not do so well. But then it later played in London to great success. And when I think about the films that were known in my early days, where there were sex scenes and people consuming drugs, these were things that were perhaps missing from Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. And it has to do with the fact that the core of that film is a woman who’s in a hurry to find her lover, and in that hurry, in that frenetic energy and almost comedic energy, where she’s sort of running around town looking for him, she does not have time to have sex or do drugs! And not having time to do sex and do drugs, it turned out to be a film that was quite palatable to a larger audience. And so the only drug that she’s interested in and is available in the film is the drug that she places in the gazpacho, that is going to put him to sleep so that he can stay with her.

In the 90s, people said films like The Flower of My Secret, Live Flesh and All About My Mother showed a more serious side to your work. Was this to do with this passing of time?

It is really ultimately about an evolution, my own artistic evolution. And I’m very proud of that evolution, and so films like the ones that you mentioned, in the 90s, really marked an inflection. I would also add [from the early 2000s] Talk to Her and Bad Education. And so, throughout the four decades that I’ve been making films, I’ve been trying to not repeat myself. It’s important to me that the movie that I’m making now is different from the movie that I just made. And so, at the same time, I do think that my films are all small parts of the same chain, and that in this chain, I have fortunately been changing. And I have been challenging myself, as of course my life experiences have also been changing. And I’ve wanted and needed to discover new things and explore different styles. And it is true that in this sort of later part of my career, my films are more sober, they’re more austere, right? And these are things that suddenly became attractive to me and that I also wanted to explore and, yes, I would love to go back to the joyous tone of the 1980s, but at the same time, if I were to go back to that tone, I would still like to do something that’s different than what I did in the 80s.

‘IT IS ULTIMATELY ABOUT AN EVOLUTION, MY OWN ARTISTIC EVOLUTION’

Behind you, on your bookshelf, we can see your Oscar and your BAFTA for Talk to Her…

Oh, yes, they are there. They are protecting me!

Was it a meaningful time for you, winning those awards?

These are the only awards that I have at home. The other day I read – because I didn’t know – that I won 168 big awards. The rest are in my office. And friends come to my place, they always ask me to take a picture with the Oscar. At the beginning, it was like they were my kids! It was more than an award. It was like I had a son and they wanted to have a picture with the son.

You have a book of short stories due in English next year. What can you say?

I never thought about publishing these stories, but I had a proposition from a publisher. My assistant, she kept all that I wrote [for years]. They made a selection of them. Stories from every decade. I mean, I could see myself during all that, because they represent a part of my life. And, for me, it was a very peculiar journey. Because I could see myself, when I was writing these, in different places in Spain. After 1977, I changed completely the style. There were many drugs, and many sexual scenes, full of joy, but also, that represented the change of Spain that I was living in. It was flattering for me, just to have a book. I mean, I always felt like a writer, but I don’t think I have talent enough to make a novel that I really would like. But it was very nice to see the book. The book is not auto-fiction, but there are some tales that talk directly about myself. It’s a mix of fiction, of biography, of essays, that soon you will have the possibility of reading. Here it’s been very successful. In two months, it’s in a fourth edition. So I’m glad for that.

How engaged are you with cinema now? Have you been to see Barbie or Oppenheimer, for example?

I don’t want to judge my colleagues. I’m very happy that these two movies demonstrate that audiences can see movies that are not sequels, prequels or Marvel stories. So that’s very positive. Also, it’s very positive that the box office is alive again. We have to thank them. I didn’t see Oppenheimer. I will see it. I saw Barbie. I was very impressed at the beginning, full of new ideas but – and this is not a review – there was a moment that I thought it was too much for girls than for me. I was not the specific audience for at least the last part of the movie, but anyway I’m very glad for Greta Gerwig, who I admire a lot. And also Noah Baumbach. I think he invented several things in the subject. Very, very interesting. And I’m happy that Barbie is so successful. I mean the whole world, we are very, very, very frightened about the situation of the box office. In Spain, it’s a tragedy. After the pandemic, we lost more than 50% of the box office. So this is very good news.

Did you ever come close to taking up a big American studio movie?

The closest was with Brokeback Mountain, the offer was proposed for me to do it. Larry McMurtry, the screenwriter, had the rights to the Annie Proulx story and asked me to do it. And that was the first time that I felt very close to making an American movie. But in the end, I was always insecure and I refused it. I was very happy with the movie that Ang Lee did. I loved that movie. He made a wonderful work. But that was the only time that I felt very close because I loved the Annie Proulx short tale. So I hesitated for three months.

Maybe Strange Way of Life is your own version of Brokeback Mountain?

Could be. I remember in Brokeback Mountain, one sequence where Jake Gyllenhaal proposes to Heath Ledger to live together and to hire a ranch and just live with animals. Then the character of Heath Ledger says this is nonsense. I mean, what can two men do, living alone in a ranch? And in my movie – this is the only relation I think – Pedro Pascal, at the end, he is [showing] what two men can do in this situation. So 20 years later, Pedro Pascal answers the question of Heath Ledger.

STRANGE WAY OF LIFE IS IN CINEMAS ON 22 SEPTEMBER.