Cecilia Roth: "Trump and Milei think they're Superman, but they're just insecure men who live off misogynists."

Cecilia Roth (Buenos Aires, 1956) no longer has a home in Madrid, so we meet at the luxurious hotel where she's staying. It's the perfect setting for the diva she is, even though she doesn't want to, like to, or behave like one. She came to what was long her hometown one week to promote "Furia," the series premiering on HBO Max on July 11.

She orders a juice, jokes about my non-alcoholic beer, and turns a routine "How are you?" into a real question: "Yesterday I was asked a question that sounds like the same thing, but it's not. They asked me what I'm like. I don't know how to answer that one, but I do know yours. I'm happy. Being in Madrid, with the series, and with my circumstances. This city does me a lot of good. I come here a lot, and it always seems too little."

The series, about five women on the edge, is a comedy, but it freezes your smile.

It is very uncomfortable because it is life itself, because it is the pure essence of this moment in which we live.

In what sense?

The anger is shared in response to a global situation beyond the personal circumstances of each of the characters. Never before have we reached such a state of rage as we are now, I think. The world is angrier than ever, bordering on hatred. Hatred has become a common feeling, and that's terrible. I've never seen us like this before.

And you've seen some pretty amazing things, because you came to Spain in 1977, escaping the military dictatorship.

Yes, and yet I still don't understand the level of general anger there is now. People consciously hate and show it. They flaunt it as if it were a source of pride, as if it were a good thing to despise, to insult... The right is in fashion, even the far right. The rebellion of youth is now right-wing. Not all of it, luckily, but a majority, especially among young men. Most of the extremists are males between 15 and 28 years old, and that has a lot to do with not knowing how to relate to women. The feminist movement has unseated the cultural patriarchy inherited by these children, and they have a misogyny that has never existed at such a level or been so openly expressed. These misogynists thrive on leaders who think they're Superman and are just insecure gentlemen like Trump or Milei.

You recently had a confrontation with Milei. You complained about censorship in Argentina, and he responded by calling you a "failure."

Argentina is a bad experiment right now, and Milei finds a lot of people to confront, all of us who don't think like him. All of us. Especially all of us. He doesn't like women very much. He was much gentler with me than with other people. He called me a failure, and luckily, I didn't get hooked, but I find it bizarre that a president is constantly insulting citizens.

Your character in 'Furia' is an emerging actress. You started working in Spain around that time.

Yes, I arrived when the films of María José Cantudo, Susana Estrada, Barbara Rey were just starting out. I remember that very well because it surprised me. All the magazine covers were full of naked girls. Spain was revealing its breasts, as if Franco had covered them up forever and women had never had them.

Did you have any offers to make those kinds of films?

Yes, but I went the other way. I made "Pepe, Don't Torment Me," and there's a moment in the film where I appear naked with the Yankee flag painted on my ass. It was a kind of parody of those kinds of films, but even though it's a mockery, something shocks me when I see that scene. I remember turning 23 during filming and my boyfriend came to see me and couldn't believe the flag painted on my ass. I didn't mind getting naked at all, but there was a really brutal culture of objectification. It didn't matter whether nudity was necessary or not; it was required of us. And not just in movies.

What are you talking about?

My manager at the time, and she was a woman, told me I had to take nude photos.

For a magazine?

No, no. To send them to the directors and producers. I had to say yes, and I remember I did them with a pair of cotton panties I had in my suitcase, no lace, and a hairpin in my hair. I looked like a little girl. The truth is, I was really embarrassed about that because, clearly, cinema had nothing to do with it; it was a catalog of nudes. Besides, I wasn't into that; I wouldn't have made a film like that in which the woman had no role other than being naked to be mocked. I've been naked in tons of movies, but it had nothing to do with that. You know the difference? In films like 'Arrebato,' the man, Eusebio [Poncela] in that case, was also naked. That changes absolutely everything.

In some quarters, including many artists who lived through that era, there's an idealization of the 1980s as a freer time. Was that the case?

Who says that? Calamaro, who's from VOX? Let's see, there are two things here. First, and this is obvious, is that there were no more freedoms and it wasn't a better world for women, for gays, for any minority. Then there's what they're referring to, that they can no longer make certain jokes because people get offended. I admit that sometimes it feels strange for me not to be able to say certain things, because it's a form of repression, and of course cancellation exists and it's horrible. It's not fair to put you in prison for life for an unfortunate comment, but it's also good to understand that a comment we previously considered normal is offensive, and we can learn, evolve, and not unnecessarily offend others. That's growth from a time when there was no more freedom and in which all knowledge was patriarchal.

Has that changed?

No, it still is. You hear a reggaeton lyric and it's breathtaking, it makes your heart sink, and guys and girls sing it. Some things, in this seemingly freer time, have become smaller, and music is one of them.

From Zulueta and Almodóvar to Los Javis, how have you managed to always be where you need to be?

I don't think it's where you're supposed to be; it's simply where I've been. It just so happens that, like Los Javis and Pedro, or Iván, I have a porosity regarding what's happening in the world. I'm very curious and interested in many things. I don't consider myself special because of it; it happens to many people, but it's kept me connected to what's emerging. It's good to grow up without aging, without the prejudices that age sometimes brings, and without being stuck with the fact that things were better in your time. It's very good to grow and change, to rethink what you were at one point and are no longer. Why aren't you that anymore? Why are you something else, being the same? I believe there are many deaths in life, that we die many times and are born many times, and that that girl we talked about earlier was me, but I'm not anymore.

What has changed the most?

Especially in my relationships, in relationships with men. I was much more submissive, without a doubt. Much more submissive in the sense of not wanting to lose them. As if you couldn't exist without a man by your side. That's totally sexist, and it doesn't happen to me anymore. Loneliness in women is frowned upon.

You've been living alone for a few years now for the first time in your life.

Yes, and I've never been happier. It's not loneliness, it's being able to be with yourself and not having to do what you don't want to do. Eating at the same time as someone else, wanting to go to bed at the same time, arguing about why I want chicken and you want fish... More than loneliness, the word is intimacy. I've never had this intimacy with myself, and I love it. I've rediscovered myself. And that doesn't mean not being in a loving relationship, just that afterward, everyone goes their separate ways. For me, it's the only possible state. Relationships, everyday life spent living with another loving person, erodes me and has always destroyed my relationships because you lose the mystery of the other person.

What have you discovered about yourself?

Now that I've discovered it, I'm going to tell you [laughs]. I've discovered the enormous joy of intimacy and the mistake of how I've lived my relationships with men. The fear of separating, knowing I wasn't right with them. What if I end up alone? What if I fall in love later? There was an obvious cultural thing: women have to get married, have a child, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was lucky enough to grow up in a very supportive environment. My parents are and have been very intelligent and very interested in what was happening in society, in the happiness of their children and how it differed from theirs, asking themselves what would have become of them if they had lived the way Ariel and I decided to.

Your mother, Dina Gutkin, was a singer and your father, Abrasha Rotenberg, is a writer.

Yes, he's 99 years old and a brilliant person. Talking to him is always a learning experience. He's a very curious guy, very interested in life and young people. He's taught me a lot as a man, and I think he's a total feminist, much more so than my mother. He's always explained to me that being with you means not being alone, although it took me a while to listen. The problem is when you refuse to see what you are, but when you're with yourself, you have fun, and you know the ten things you need to change because they're toxic, it's great to be alone.

Your father is a Ukrainian Jew who fled Stalin's USSR as a child.

Yes, we are non-religious Jews.

And how do you experience what is happening in Gaza?

That has nothing to do with Judaism; it has to do with humanity throughout history. For me, it's absolutely genocide. Milei, Trump, and so many warmongers we have, unfortunately, in positions of enormous power are literally endangering the world. Gaza is a humanitarian disgrace, and, in addition to the pain and madness, I'm deeply shocked by the justification offered by certain quarters for what Israel is doing. It pains me greatly. I am Jewish, and in my name, no.