The actress Blanca Portillo, in a basic white t-shirt, jeans and sneakers, went on stage excited between laughter and tears. The actress took advantage of her thank you speech for the South Award at the 26th. edition of the Malaga Film Festival in Spanish in this city to launch some powerful messages about her profession and the (non) importance of the physicist in it. She received the award last Sunday, March 12, the night of the Oscars, which is why her powerful speech went unnoticed. “I have had to fight against my lack of beauty”, launched with a prepared text in hand.

“I want to thank you for this award. Really, I thought they were wrong,” he began when he went up to receive the award. And then came a whole declaration of intent: “I love this city, I love this festival. Therefore, I have decided to write this speech.” The actress assures that she does not usually go with a prepared text, but the occasion deserved it.

Then he addressed the public to explain why he appeared in jeans: “You may be wondering What is this mamaracha doing dressed like that on a night of luxury and splendor?“, he said and then he moved away from the lectern to show the clothes he was wearing. It is a “very thoughtful” decision because that night Portillo was not “to defend a character or a specific job”. “I am here because you have valued the work almost 40 years old, almost unhealthily dedicated to acting”, he added and then said he wants to receive the award “as a person not as an actress“. “And this is quite simply what I am, Blanca. A person, a human being stripped of luxuries and disguises.”

The theater director and producer is also a 59-year-old woman who, according to her, “the most of the time he is afraid and cold; who desperately needs love and support. She defined herself as a woman “who prefers jeans to fancy suits, hanging out with friends over partying. Who prefers love to admiration”.

Physicist and beauty in her profession

Before finishing the speech, the winner of the 2022 Goya award for best actress for ‘Maixabel’ made a comparison between herself and the actor Brad Pitt: “Brad Pitt and I”, she said, causing the audience to laugh, and continued: “We have some things in common. We are the same age, we have exactly the same nose, identical. Four of her own are taken out of mine, but they are identical.” She later joked that “it’s a shame she was born in Oklahoma and not Burgos, for example, because he has missed knowing the love of his life”.

This comparison gave rise to an acid criticism of the importance given to physique and beauty in her profession. Portillo assures that both “have had to fight for their acting activities to be valued” and not their physique. “Only – he adds – that the other way around. He has fought against his beauty to show that he is more than a face and a beautiful body and me against my lack of beauty to show that without it you can also be an actress“, he expressed.

Portillo explained that this speech, which has been widely applauded on social networks, takes advantage of it to send a “message of strength and hope to everyone who has ever been told that they need the physique to dedicate themselves to this profession. “. “To dedicate yourself to it, what is needed is love, effort, training, the ability to dream, courage, respect, culture, work and devotion. All this increases with the years and practice, everything else takes time“, finished the actress.