Andrés Parra: Platino Awards are uniting Ibero-America

by Maribel Arenas Vadillo

Bogotá, Apr 20 (EFE).- For Colombian actor Andrés Parra, the Platino Awards are the accolades that are “most uniting” the Ibero-American audiovisual industry. He returns to the event’s 10th edition as a nominee in the Best Supporting Actor category for the Mexican mystery miniseries “Belascoarán.”

“In terms of Ibero-America, I don’t think there’s another award where you can meet so many friends and colleagues and share,” the artist said in an interview with EFE when discussing the gala to be held in Madrid on Saturday, April 22, which he is “very sad” not to be able to attend.

This time, his Platino nomination comes from his portrayal of a “lonely misogynist” and “psychopath” with no conscience, “Cerevro,” a serial killer with a peculiar speech pattern who smokes German cigarettes after strangling his victims in 1970s Mexico.

Based on the work of Mexican-Spanish writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II and with two Platino nominations, the miniseries tells the story of Héctor Belascoarán Shayne, a young man who, under the premise of “evolve or die,” decides to leave his entire life behind to train as a detective through a correspondence course.

Parra already has a Platino Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or TV Series for his role in the Colombian production “El robo del siglo” (The Great Heist) (2020).

EXPOSING THE “BROKEN HUMAN BEING”

Certain that “if I were not an actor, I would be an actress,” Parra maintains that despite being primarily known for portraying Pablo Escobar in the series “El Patrón del Mal,” he made the decision 12 years ago not to accept “drug lord roles” again because his goal now is to expose the “broken human being.”

“I continue to search for human misery, the lost, empty, depressed, and alcohol-soaked human being,” Parra stated while emphasizing the importance of portraying such characters on screen so that “broken people can identify” and know that “they are not alone.”

In his case, he insists on the need for people to experience “great suffering” or “success” so that they can feel “the emptiness that we are,” confront it, and begin to fill it, as he did, through meditation, ancestral medicine, therapy, and even “solitude as an encounter with hell.”

“My big change came a year ago as a result of my divorce. That was what led me to ‘I have everything, but I no longer have anything,'” he told EFE, celebrating that “we are entering an era in which mental health is finally starting to be taken seriously.”

This shift in his acting career coincides with the role he will take on in “Los Iniciados,” a new film project in which he will play Frank Molina, an “alcoholic, bipolar, and totally peripheral journalist” drawn from the works of Colombian writer Mario Mendoza.

COLOMBIA ON THE “INTERNATIONAL STANDARD” FOR AUDIOVISUALS

Regarding the more than 10 nominations that Colombia has received at the Platino Awards with productions such as the film “Los reyes del mundo” (The Kings of the World) and the miniseries “Noticia de un secuestro” (News of a Kidnapping), Parra stated that the country’s production levels “are at a completely international standard” due to the potential of its “human talent behind the cameras.”

In this regard, the actor pointed out that the competition within Ibero-American productions lies in crafting compelling stories, as that is what “ultimately hooks people.”

As for the well-told stories nominated for the Platino Awards, Parra predicted a “bright future” for “Los reyes del mundo,” “Noticia de un secuestro,” and “Argentina 1985.” However, he admitted, with a laugh, that he is, in fact, a “terrible television viewer.” EFE

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