More than 35 years after the arrival of Carlos Menem a series of the controversial Argentine president (1989-1999) starring Leonardo Sbaraglia is releasedwho acknowledges that he got “inside the human being” and tried to “understand and not judge it.” “I really feel that I entered him or he entered into mine,” says Sbaraglia about his interpretation in this pRoduction of six episodes, which on July 9 premieres on the Amazon Prime platform and that takes to the screen passages of public and deprived life of one of the central and controversial figures of the recent Argentine history.
Carlos Saúl Menem He was born in 1930 in La Rioja, province of which he was governor and the one he represented in Congress. He arrived in President in 1989 And it was re -elected, years in which the country's economic and social matrix was transformed from neoliberal reforms that stabilized the previous inflation scenario but increased poverty and inequality.
No one in Argentina is indifferent to Menem's figuresomething that the creators of the series, Ariel Winograd (director) and Mariano Varela (producer), tried to present from a different angle, even falling into contradictions before such a controversial figure.
“It is almost a series about a politician but does not talk about politics. Well, saying that he does not talk about politics, you are talking about politics. But we try to feel like a documentary, there living closely to these characters, “says Winograd. And Varela adds:” In the Menem series there is no ideology behind, we tell a story, we put the narrative over historical events. “
The actor, the director and producer of the 'Menem' series were young during Menem's governments. In the case of Sbaraglia chooses to divide between his personal experience of those years and what he had to compose in the character: “At the time I gave my opinion about him, but here I got inside the human being and tried to understand it and not judge it. He is a tremendously varied character.” “Carlos Menem was many, many things and the series tells them very well. I think it is very transparent about what happened in Argentina in those years,” adds the actor, to which Winograd adds: “This was a trip to the 90s.”
Director Ariel Winograd, actor Leonardo Sbaraglia and producer Mariano Varela
How to become Carlos Menem
According to Winograd, Sbaraglia's commitment to compose Carlos Menem's character reached unexpected limits: “There were times when I was filming and sometimes he said 'Carlos' instead of 'Leo' … He entered and greeted as if he were the president, we had to ask for 'Leo, Pará, Paraá' “.
“The most visible, As the behavior, the way of walking and moving, all that, I was watching through many videoswhile I worked with a phoniatrician“Sbaraglia explains about his remarkable performance and how he gets the tune or accent Riojan, of abundant dragged erres, very different from his marked Buenos Aires accent.” I had never done such a complete job for a character, “says the actor, and adds that he has anecdotes” to write a book. “
Face to face with history
Mariano Varela is the origin of the 'Menem' series, who nurtured the realization through the registration and memory of multiple conversations with the ex -president In the years before his death in 2020, an unusual experience for most Argentines.
Menem, Varela said, showed no concern for his legacy: “With him they were rather personal talks, asking him things that I always wanted to know, about whether he regretted something. And looking back, such a wise person, almost 90 years old, said yes. “
Varela He denied that there has been interference in the script of the series by any of the members of Carlos Menem's familyincluding Eduardo (known as 'Lule') and Martín, his nephews and both prominent members of the current government of Javier Milei. “We always feel that we could do things freely,” explained the producer.
