Bárbara Lennie, Those who laugh are saved

This article is published in number 21 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until May 24, 2022

His first time in Cannes had nothing to do with cinema: Bárbara Lennie she was engaged in a shooting aboard a yacht. This year, the Spanish actress plays El aguaElena López Riera’s first feature film presented in the side section of the Festival Directors’ Fortnight. “Cannes is a world reference point: if things go well there, they go well with you everywhere,” he says. And he is right: in 2018, at the Festival with two films, Petra by Jaime Rosales, e Everybody knowsby Asghar Farhadi, had won over critics and especially Cate Blanchett, president of the jury that year. “After the screening, I meet Blanchett and the other jurors in a parking lot. She calls me aside and tells me: “You are very good”. And I think: “Here, take it and take it home!” ».

I reach Lennie at Café Barbieri, in the most authentic Madrid, a few steps from the Centro Dramático Nacional where he will be staged with Los farsantes, by Pablo Remón. 38, the daughter of Argentine political activists who arrived in Spain in the 1980s to escape the military dictatorship, Lennie realizes that she wants to become an actress after watching a six-hour long play: The trilogie des dragons by Robert Lepage. But love also has to do with it: “As a teenager I watched a lot of movies, because my first boyfriend was a great cinephile. Well, it still is “, he says referring to director Jonás Trueba. Known in high school and partnered with him for 10 years, who had encouraged her to show up at the casting of More punishment that glory (2001) by Víctor García León, in which she plays a “sensual and unattainable” woman. At the time she Bárbara was already a more than promising artist, but she is with the hypnotic Magical Girl by Carlos Vermut who, in 2014, won the Goya award for best actress.

Recently Lennie has also been noticed on TV: in the cult Netflix series The chaos after you of 2020 is Viruca, a teacher who has a dark relationship with a student played by Arón Piper, the sex symbol of Elite – probably the most explicit teen series on Spanish TV. “We understood each other very well. I tried to play down the few sex scenes, if we had done more, it would have been more fun, “she jokes.

In life Lennie is linked to the artist Diego Postigo, ex-husband of Bimba Bosé, who died of cancer in 2017 and with whom he had two daughters, Dora, 18, and June, 11. «A tragedy: for some girls, losing their mother is one of the hardest experiences that exist. It was a very intense journey. For about a year now, we’ve all been well off, ”says Lennie.

The one with Diego was “A casual but cosmic encounter: we fell in love instantly,” he says. Today the couple lives with Dora and June in the Retiro area, one of the most beautiful and peaceful in Madrid, in a house where everyone has found their own space. «We understood the dynamics of a family like ours, in which everyone has different schedules and commitments, and we also found the meeting points. Dora is an adult, she comes in, she goes out. June is a child, with her universe of hers. I learned that there are many ways to love each other, to be a family, to take care of each other. In our case, there was a great grief to process, we had to make great efforts to understand each other. And it was this that defined us as a family. There is a lot of love, otherwise we would not be here ».

As she talks, Lennie plays with a pendant she wears around her neck, a green heart that her cousin gave her. It must be some kind of amulet. “I am Taurus ascendant Taurus. I got my astral chart done and it gave me a lot of information. Working in an ethereal environment, how can I not believe in astrology? “she says amused. A lock of white hair stands out on her temples which, surprisingly, gives her a youthful and friendly air. “Bárbara has a comic soul: she is an actress with many registers, which perhaps has not yet come out enough for that aura of mystery on which some of her films of her have focused,” says the co-star of Los farsantes Javier Cámara, confirming what Bárbara says about himself: «I am a funny and funny person. Humor is one of the most important things in life, humor saves ».

This fall, Lennie will be out with the film adaptation of the best seller Los renglones torcidos de Diosby Torcuato Luca de Tena. She plays Alice Gould, a sort of Leonardo DiCaprio on a Spanish-style Shutter Island. The filming was so intense that Lennie began to suffer from insomnia, a problem she is addressing with meditation. «It was a very strong experience, I can’t wait to watch the final result».

We have to break up. Lennie drinks coffee and leaves for the theater. “With Los
farsantes people are dying of laughter, they have to come », he tells me, but until June it is sold out. The opera will prevent her from being in Cannes: «The theater is demanding. If it were a musical, I would have a replacement ». And perhaps the only thing she misses is this: a musical.

Photo: Rocío Ramos
Service: Joana de la Fuente

Glasses-mask, lace dress and earrings,
Louis Vuitton.

Top and skirt, Dries van Noten.
Dress and accessories, Louis Vuitton.

Juan Luis Ascanio collaborated. Make-up and hair Iván Gómez. Assistant María Verano. Production Natalia Torres and Pilar Grosso. Digital assistant Dani Gallar. Lighting assistant Mario Val.

translation by GIULIA ZAVAGNA

Source: Vanity Fair

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