Is there any character who liked to play?
PG: There is, though many, I would like being a singer, to represent the life of a singer.
Including sing?
PG: I must, already in a play I sang. But the music is very hard to enter in me, I have to rehearse a lot. I did the "Ai carmela" that had to sing alone zarzuela and was very complicated, because I'm not at all a tuned person. It is almost a professional obligation, the music is in my head as a kind of heart graphic and not to detune involves to rehearse a lot. I liked to do that in a movie. I like more and more dramatic characters and towards the conflict.
Other than linear?
PG: Yes, different, what interests has to the public is to see Paula Guedes, with 1.74 meters tall, dressed by Armani, by Olga Rego, or Diogo Miranda and have done nothing for the character? I would like to be so if it were silent movies, for example, that look, because the film has that part of the image that expresses more than a thousand words, but the characters that have nothing and every time is more so, it's all very mininalistic and I do not enjoy any of it at all. To give something to our audience has to do with soul and personality in the characters, from the shy to furious, because we all have these capabilities both laugh as we wept, are good as we are bad, it must be in the text, I am completely dependent on direction of actors or the director and then I have to give my selve if not nothing comes out.
Paula has as many actresses difficulty to see yourself in the screen?
PG: I have since I debuted when I started my career hated to see my image and I used to put my hands in my eyes when I went to see me in the movies. Then over the years loved my image and hated my voice and ultimately love my voice and less the image. So, I went back to the beginning.
Now let's talk about television, incidentally was one of the actresses who was at the beginning of television in Portugal.
PG: I was in "Vila Faia", the original, where did the first character on Portuguese television that was a crack whore and had the most success, I was hired for 15 days and then I got to stay at the end of the show. I remember I was in Paris, Nicola Breiner invited me and loved doing it, I made another then with Francisco Nicholson and then the "Residencial Tejo", with Maria do Céu Guerra which for me is the greatest Portuguese actress, this series had a fixed cast and also had much success. Now they are showing a program that I did long ago that is the "Sintra Code" and RTP memory is always showing "Cabaret" and the "Great night" of Felipe La Feria, this time was very good in terms television.
And doing another retrospective, this time on television, what do you think about it?
PG: I notice that there was an evolution in terms of Portuguese soap operas, but I think they have to work hard. There are beautiful actors, but notice that are completely astray. I think you have to do as the Brazilians, greater demand in text, costumes and direction of actors, though I saw the "Vila Faia" the remake I liked more the original. At that time there was a larger study of the characters, I think by being part of that first team and all involved were interested to avenge, I believe that the remake also had this intention, however the level of lights thought it was bad. I also think there needs to be research, an aristocratic can be dressed in silk, then passed to another plane and another character also is dressed the same way, it cannot happen. Whether the costumes, or the hair, people cannot be combed the same way, our society is not so, I think that televisions must go to the people, go to us, the Portuguese, to realize the difference. But is all the same, they all speak the same way, it's not that, a person who has an education, or had the good fortune of not being illiterate expresses in a certain way and this has value, is culture. I think the tv shows has to have something educational, that's why, I say that I like the Brazilian soap operas, our's I do not, because one character is silly, the other is more nice, is not like that, the human being has evolved significantly, Portuguese also and they have to show it more, in all fields.
This failure is only the direction of actors, or is also the script?
PG: It is also the text, I think it could be better.
There is also much talk about this new generation of actors who are cast without preparation and are then throw out later.
PG: This youth is not to blame, we all started in more or less preparation, if they entered a nucleus where those things I just said were well structure these young evolved, but they cannot because everything is like a 5 plate dinner, dressed by such store that provides production and it is ready, it's terrible what I'm saying, but it is true. It is even dramatic, because they enter into a project and then are thrown into the garbage, if you see a soap opera all people have almost the same voice, speak the same way, it is all the same, this is not playing and I love television. When I say that the first programs was all wonderful because there was this concern in residential Tejo, Maria do Céu went around all texts, even in "Vila Faia" the original, because there was this research and was the first, I do not forget that this tv show was released in the eighties. Everyone stopped to see, because they identified with something, now it is all the same, they show a picture of the Tejo, nature and that is it and you have to show the Portuguese with our bad and good temper, with defects and qualities, my profession has to enhance this aspect of the human being, we need to show these different lives that must be respected.
Isn't there a certain complex to show this more Portuguese side?
PG: That is prejudice.
No, complex because we are a small country, with our ideossincrasias.
PG: Yes, the Portuguese have this aspect is either eight or eighty. But I think that while we are alive and here we have to show what we are and what we want from life. In this respect I think that the Portuguese improved even in terms of television, but we can work harder, because there are great series. You must evolve and this also applies to my class, not just to debit the role, it cannot happen, because in life we passed thru passions, love, hate and suffering and do it all differently, the actors have that obligation.
Going back a little at the beginning, to the theater, which has a long way, some argue that this form of art is not extint, because you cannot copy it, you think that's why many young people go to the theater?
PG: I realize that, because in the theather play of "8 Women" was a lot of young people to see it. I am actresses who argue that the great school is the theater, because that's where I know where I am, I do not rewind when I'm filming it can run or not and they choose my best shoot, on television they erase it, in theater no when the curtains opens it is you and the public, we are in the same places, they and me. I realize this appetite of the youth it's all technology, they see something live and this piece had lots of young people, the theater of the Trindade was always full, so I think it was great.
And other actors also indicate that the theater was not, or is in crisis.
PG: I disagree, I think there is a crisis in the theater in the cultural sense. There are actors who are doing theater for the first time and say that, but before there was a lot more shows on stage than at present and I notice now, there is a problem that did not arise before, what is the work place of the actors? It is the stage. And now I do not have it, because now there is the so-called cultural managers which has its cachet to the end of the month and that when you are doing a successful play they take it away to make room for other groups, because these performances are scheduled in advance of a year, I think it sucks, the play's have to breathe to the actors and for the audience. Some make play's for a day and find it great, I think it's terrible, I like to be on stage, I was six months in the theater of the "barraca" and always with public. But so are these times that I find it regrettable, because if you ask me where is your workplace? Before we had huge theaters and now everything is programmed and is serious, I do not agree with this idea.
So you do not agree with that a single entity manages the two major national theaters, the D. Maria II in Lisbon and São João, Porto.
PG: I think is that they cannot always be the same people, there must be a beautiful artistic director and invite them as they do now, inviting other companies, this is an opening is good. Now I cannot answer whether this is good or not be the same entity. I think what a lot of people that this people ahead of theaters do not understand anything about it, are these people called cultural managers who prowl about the world to see shows, maybe will not see ours, I do not know and then despite the theater is always full, send us away because it has to be on stage other people before was not so, the play was on display as there was public, an actor cannot rehearsal a month or two months to be in stage one day, we are multi-purpose, it is a great frustration, the theater evolves because it is a living art and rely heavily on public.
So what if you think it is necessary to recover the theater and to attract more public performances?
PG: I think this thing the economy, money and management in the arts is terrible because there are amazing things you can do with little money. I think theater should have an artistic director who exploited a play and then another. Now, take our workplaces I think it is bad, if I want to put a play right now I cannot do it because I do not have a stage, neither me nor my colleagues and there must be co-productions between the various spaces around the country because nobody buys our shows. The art and the quality has to be paid, of course yes, there must be people who venture, I think these people who have their wages in the end of the month, do not risk it. I still say that what is missing is a cultural policy, even for the younger generation, because they are the future and is serious because now are all connected to the new technologies and that's fine, but they have to be educated. The playful side exists in every human being and must be encouraged, but people are in crisis and never thought that my country came to this. I am very sad and we, the actors, we live very poorly and is not only in Portugal, who goes down this route is very painful and this is a make believe government that has no respect for citizenship. I am against what has happened in our country, I hope there is a light that comes to us all and we can go turn this over.
