“Now, live, for all of you, we are going to put the mayonnaise on it, the same one we made yesterday.” The phrase, said in unmistakably Argentine Spanish, draws attention in the first minutes of True Detective: Night Landthe fourth installment of this series, starring the actress Jodie Foster and whose initial part has just premiered on HBO Max.
The one who says the mayonnaise phrase is the character of the biophysicist Molina, played by the Argentine Pablo Frana, while filming, in the best YouTuber style, preparing a sandwich. “Do you want to see the final product? Yeah? Do you want it? Good perfect. Ready? Tadá! ”Says the scientist, showing his work of art to the front camera of his phone, just before the tension begins.
The biochemist Molina in the middle of preparing the sandwich. (Photo: HBO Max)
Pablo Frana He is a 38-year-old theater teacher who was born in Azul, grew up in Junín, studied in Buenos Aires and has lived in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, for two and a half years. Encouraged by his sister, María Emilia, he finally made the decision to leave Argentina in the middle of the pandemic. “As a theater professor, he had begun studying the specialization in genders and sexualities at the University of Buenos Aires. I’ve almost finished it, I’m missing the thesis,” he clarifies. He also taught classes in various institutions, for example, in unit 33 of Los Hornos, the prison for women with children. But he never made it, especially financially. When the pandemic arrived, of course, everything was over.”
First he returned to Junín. But that was when María Emilia, with a more traveling spirit, told him to “stop breaking his balls” and to follow her, that he had a plan for her. They started in Italy, where they applied for European citizenship, and spent four months there.
Pablo Frana has lived in Iceland for two and a half years. (Photo: Courtesy Pablo Frana)
Iceland was one of the first countries to open its borders to tourism and, although Pablo had never worked in the field, it could be a good opportunity to start. “I had to say he had experience. They interviewed us in English. My sister stayed and said that if she couldn’t go, she wouldn’t do it. That’s how I started working in the hotel where I am currently,” she recalls. He also remembers that at that moment he put his acting side on pause. He needed to stabilize himself and have another perspective.
The fact that Pablo knows better than anyone is that the winter of 2021 was the worst in the last 20 years in Iceland. “It rained, it snowed, there was a lot of wind. For three months there was no sunlight. Anyway, the sun doesn’t come out here. In December and January, around 11 in the morning, there is daylight. But at three thirty in the afternoon it is already night“.
Pablo, on a walk and with mate in Iceland. (Photo: Courtesy Pablo Frana)
The first months were the hardest. She went to work at 5:30 in the morning and had to walk two kilometers from his house. “I rethought my life every day,” she says, laughing. Three months ago she moved to an apartment that has a window that overlooks a small forest, but for the first two years he was living in a room whose only view was a wall. “It was hard to adapt because I didn’t come as a traveler, to explore, I needed to work.”
Today, fortunately, Pablo goes to work a little later. He works 12 hour shifts. He gets up at 7 in the morning, has breakfast, goes to the hotel and leaves after 8 p.m. “The first thing I do when I finish working is go for a walk to the gym, because I spend twelve hours sitting there serving guests.” From time to time, he plays soccer with people from Iceland and around the world: England, Italy, Spain, Israel and, above all, Venezuela, a community that is growing in the Icelandic capital, according to him. He says that football is a kind of common language. “I am aware that we are the cheap labor force of Iceland because, in everything that is hospitality, you do not see Icelanders working”, he reflects.
Pablo on vacation with María Emilia, his sister and main promoter. (Photo: Courtesy Pablo Frana)
An Argentinian in True Detective
His appearance in True Detective We owe it, once again, to María Emilia. It was her sister who encouraged him to try his luck with his own business. “I have my reel [N.del E.: no se refiere al reel de Instagram, sino aun video resumen de su trabajo] of what I did in Argentina. I found out where to send it and they called me right away. ‘We show your reel and your photo, the director wants you for an ice cream advertisement. We are waiting for you on Friday.’ I didn’t even have to do a casting,” says Pablo, still amazed. He played the role of him and stayed in contact with the production company. “Four months later they called me again. ‘There’s a Serie. You have little dialogue. Do you know Jodie Foster?’”.
The ice cream advertisement that Pablo filmed in Iceland. (Photo: Courtesy Pablo Frana)
Without giving him too much information, they told him that he had to improvise and that it was just a scene. At first, she didn’t really like the idea. He didn’t want to be an extra. But he ended up accepting because it was a good chance.
They sent him instructions and he recorded three or four videos for the director, the Mexican Issa Lopez. “The circumstance is that you are preparing a sandwich, you see someone who is having a spasm and you don’t know what’s wrong with them. That. I didn’t know what it was about, but hey, I’m a theater teacher, I had to do something”says Pablo.
This was the casting sandwich (Photo: Courtesy Pablo Frana)
In total, there were nine days of work in the big leagues of entertainment. The series is set in Alaska, but was filmed entirely in Iceland. What surprised her most was the organization and the treatment she received. “I’m not Jodie Foster, but the director treated Jodie and me the same way.. Not just her, those who work with sound, light, everyone. There is a very cordial treatment, a very good energy. They all eat together. The extra, who goes there one day, eats two meters from the director. Also, the professionalism they have, the issue of schedules. I had a driver for me, for whatever I want. We ate in a place and 20 meters away was the place where we had to take the shots. The driver told me: ‘Stop, I’ll take you.’ Friend, I have it right here, relax, I’m walking, I told him. I could not believe it. The catering always has many options. You even had your own trailer with your name, your kitchen, your bathroom, your mirror, your bed. “It’s that level.”
After recording, Pablo had to add the audio to his character. (Photo: Courtesy Pablo Frana)
Pablo says that at the beginning, when things were difficult, the remote support of his family and friends was key, as was the monitoring of his psychologist from Argentina. He now feels more stabilized. “It’s not that I was doing badly and now I triumphed by being five seconds in a series. “I never lowered my arms,” he says and remarks: “You can be an actor in different ways, in different areas. I like acting, it keeps me alive, it’s a passion. The fact of having a stable job is something that never happened to me in Argentina, although I taught classes, it was always for periods. So, now I have a peace of mind that I didn’t have before. Besides, I’m already 38 years old. “I approach castings in a different way, much more relaxed, with a job that allows me to do it.”
2024-01-19 22:22:55
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