Yes, Vanesa Romero is as beautiful as in the photos. I would say more, because, unlike other beauties, hers looks natural, although, certainly, some reinforcement can come from a good study of aesthetic medicine, and is accompanied by the mastery of gesture and body deriving from her past as a model and athlete. They meet at their home, a designer chalet in a wealthy municipality of Madrid, in whose living room three little dogs chat, littermates, whose elderly canine father has accompanied their owner all his life. On the table, books signed by the landlady, with titles such as Reflections of a blonde AND only with me, and fashion magazines with her brilliant face on the cover.
As we chat, a messenger arrives wearing a suit borrowed from a company for a red carpet. Romero flies tonight to Argentina, whose Mar del Plata film festival has chosen his short film, Sex at 70as the only fiction (the short won the award last night). A “nice way” to celebrate, at 47, 30 years of a career that began at 17, in the living room of his parents’ house in his hometown, Alicante.
How was it?
I remember that day perfectly. One afternoon I was returning from sports class and found some people from the festival committee at home who wanted my sister, four years older than me, to be the Pretty from the neighborhood bonfire. I arrived exhausted from training, sweaty, with my braid half loose, they saw me and, since my sister didn’t want to and I was about to turn 18 just before the holidays, they told my parents: well it must be her.
And did you want it?
I said yes subconsciously. To experience the celebration of my city in another way. And to explore other avenues. Right at that moment I was in a moment of change. My life was sporting, I was an athlete and I specialized in speed: I ran the 100, 80, 200 meters, and I was good: I became the best athlete in the Valencian Community. Running was my passion, it felt like I was flying and I distracted myself from everything, but the injuries were starting to weigh on me. When they proposed it to me, it seemed like a way to try other things too: I enrolled in a school to learn how to walk, how to pose for photos, I started modeling, then came television and then acting. It was all natural.
What did you get out of running? About the bullying you confessed to having suffered?
Completely. Sport shaped me. He taught me to motivate myself, to manage frustration, to have discipline. It’s today and my hair is still standing on end. At school I was very studious, one of the top in the class, and I was starting to feel rejection and isolation. They changed my school, and in the new one it happened again. I wondered what it was in me that made this happen to me, I didn’t understand. By doing sport I escaped and felt free.
Have you noticed them looking at you since you were little?
What I noticed, from a very young age, was that my eyes attracted attention. Everyone told me that. I was the girl with the pretty eyes, but that didn’t protect me from the other thing. I always wore a braid and I remember that one day, in the courtyard, the whole school started throwing water balloons at me to wet my hair and see if it was curly. A teacher came by and said that those were things for children. I felt very alone. This, at a time in your life when you are developing, is something that stays deep within you and stays with you for a long, long time.
And, suddenly, that girl becomes a model, is on the cover of magazines and the actress of There is no one living here AND What’s coming. Was it his revenge?
What happens? You don’t feel that way inside. Beauty is nothing without self-esteem and it took me many years and a lot of work to achieve it. It was a long process of self-discovery. If you don’t feel good about yourself, it doesn’t matter how many times they tell you how beautiful you are. For me, fashion and TV were work, I worked a lot and, as in sport, I did it based on discipline. Now I know who I am and what I am, but that didn’t happen until I was in my 30s.
Was there a click?
There were a lot of little clicks. Above all, there was in me the humility of wanting to learn, the curiosity to do other things, to discover myself in other facets. I have tried to write, I have written since I was a child, I have kept a diary since school, and I continue to do so: it helps me position myself, discover myself. In the breaks of What’s coming, Instead of going to the dressing room to study the script, or to rest, I stayed on the set and watched the technical team, the cameras, everything. I would sit with Alberto (Caballero, director of the series, who was her husband for a year) or Laura (Caballero, also director) and I would be amazed. I think that, without knowing it, I learned a lot and, with all that, I dared to direct.
He has been living it for 30 years. He must have done something.
And it wasn’t easy. I thank life because I was lucky enough to be able to live off of this. But it’s also true that I didn’t stop. There the honor of sport emerges again. If you lose, you get back up, work harder and move on. I reinvented myself. I have been a presenter, model, performer and now also a director. It was a big step to discover that what motivated me was to create.
How did you choose the theme for your short film? Sex at 70?
Because I don’t want to go without trying things. And, one day, thinking about possible topics to discuss, talking to my mother, like every day, I started thinking about what intimate relationships between parents would be like and I asked her directly.
What do you tell me? But this is the great taboo of children.
Well, for this reason, the first for me. But at that moment I had the courage to ask, and I began to pull the thread. I understood that there was a problem there, I spoke to many more people and I met everything: from women who had never enjoyed sexuality, to others who, when they grew up, had found a new partner and were discovering it. I decided to approach the topic through comedy, because I’ve been doing it for so many years, I’m very good at it and I apply it to everything in my life.
Time passes for everyone. How do you get on with the mirror, are you friends?
Sometimes not. And it doesn’t always have to be this way. I look at myself and obviously there are changes. I’ve taken care of myself my whole life. It’s like what we said about sexuality, it’s going to change and you can’t fight it. It will come and I have to accept that, as time goes by, you gain some things and lose others. But every body can be desirable at all ages.
How many times have you felt prejudiced as a professional and as a person because of your appearance?
This is the topic. People are free to think what they want. There comes a point where the only opinion that matters to me is the one I have of myself, my environment, and my family. But I also tell you: there is my job. They are no longer there. The criticisms I received helped me analyze myself and learn to know myself. For me the basis of success is self-esteem. The important thing is how you felt doing that job. And what I’m sure of is that I gave it everything. Everything else is what needs to be exposed.
Can you enter a place and go unnoticed?
Honestly no. And this is also difficult to manage. It’s not easy. There are days when you need your space, your time, your story, but you learn to live with it. Maybe I’ve normalized it a lot, but when I have people around me you realize that you focus on them too, and it’s not easy, but I’ve learned to accept it. That said, everything has its A side and its B side. I am very grateful for what life has given me and I have learned to live with what I have.
THE GIRL WITH THE BEAUTIFUL EYES
So says Vanesa Romero (Alicante, 47 years old) who everyone around her called her during her childhood and adolescence. The entire adult world, not her classmates who, as she still remembers with a shudder, excluded and marginalized her at school. A good student and good athlete, track sprinter, Romero was undecided whether to dedicate herself professionally to athletics or to a university career when, once again, her beauty decided for her. He prepared both his task and Pretty from the bonfire of her neighborhood in Alicante who, with that background, started as a model, then an actress, and has never stopped since then. These days he aspires to his second short film as director, Sex at 70be nominated for the Goya.
