Date at vermouth time, although he orders a rooibos tea, in a beautiful, and deserted, hotel cafeteria with privileged views of the crowded sidewalks of Madrid’s Gran Vía on Christmas Eve. It is here, a place that he asks not to reveal so that “it doesn’t get crowded,” where he usually meets with Aníbal Gómez for his personal and creative summits. He arrives a little late, “stuck and attacked”, between rushing and trying on the costumes and other necessary props for the ineffable Ojete Calor show at Madrid’s WiZink Center, with guests and surprise acts until April Fool’s Day itself, December 28. Areces, who is crying out for a break after two years of frenetic activity as an actor, predicts that perhaps this will be the group’s last mass recital. He said the same thing last year.
They are going to perform on the same stage and a few days after serving Paul McCartney. What less, right?
Well, two years ago The Cure opened for us, and that was a highlight. And the fact that it is April Fool’s Day, the only free Saturday left in December, is a great cosmic puzzle that finally makes sense.
Who is the brain and who is the body of Ojete Calor?
It is evident that we are both the body. We are one boy band with an unexpected twist: we are not good.
“Ojete Calor is a joke that has gotten out of hand”
Are you and Aníbal Gómez a couple, creative, stable? They have been together since 2005.
When we met there was an absolute, instant and inevitable crush. I heard someone comment that the only way to connect with another person is a sense of humor. If that’s real, I don’t think I know a couple I connect with more than Aníbal. The only thing that has changed in ours is stress. The relaxation that we had when this was a hobby than having to prepare a concert for 13,000 people. Suddenly the factor of anxiety, haste and professionalism enters, because we are stubborn for a while. Ojete Calor is a joke that has gotten out of hand.
Are the lyrics of your songs chronicles, satires, all together? What are they inspired by?
We are not dedicated to deciphering them. They are a caricature and extremely frivolous and if you want to find something underneath, great, but it is not essential. You can say everything from suck to really fun, and everything on the spectrum. We are inspired by what can inspire a 15-year-old teenager: friends, the gang, first loves, going out drinking, first farts. Look, for example, at the song Policysays: “Between the blues, the greens or the reds, I am going to vote for whoever best matches my eyes.” Chronicle? Satire? Up to you. That’s what we like.
Do they call their own “subnopop” to give or take away importance?
For me, there is nothing more fun than those artists who give themselves importance, as if they had discovered the cure for AIDS. At first they criticized us that ours is not music, and we said, we are going to agree with them, we are going to create our own genre so that no one feels offended. And “subnopop” is the word that best defined us. We are the first to call it.
The RAE has just accepted the word “spoilers” What do you think they haven’t accepted yet? oldcome, title of a song of yours from 2017?
I find it very unfair, to be honest, especially when another year he accepted “friend”, which no one says. What of oldcome It came about stupidly. We were in Albacete, in the apartment of some friends and to describe someone who was neither thin nor fat, I had a moment of inspiration, it occurred to me delgordoand things degenerated until oldcomewhich is that guy under 35 years old with the appearance, tastes or manners of an older person. Because, I also tell you: if you are 65, you are no longer old, you are old, face it, and that word has already been invented. Getting old is a bitch, but the alternative is leaving a beautiful corpse.
The other day, I was talking to a girl who is helping us with the concert and she didn’t know who Björk was. “Imagine if I told him about Angela Lansbury.”
And you, at 48, are you still oldcome?
Well, I can’t hold on to that anymore. But I have always felt older than I was, since I was 20. Be careful, not smarter, wiser or anything else, but with that sadness that the years give you. And that has only gotten worse. I feel older than I would like. The negative part of aging is that the body and skin suffer, and that your references are lost. The other day, I was talking to a girl who is helping us with the concert and she didn’t know who Björk was. Imagine if I told him about Angela Lansbury. I don’t blame her. You cannot force yourself to compress into your 20 years the knowledge that I have at 48. It is very unfair. But getting older also has good things.
For example?
Other people’s expectations of you lower, and you can allow yourself to not have to go out, which I love: not having to pretend that I want to go to bars or having to talk loudly with music at full volume. I always hated nightclubs, as soon as my colleagues and I entered, the talking stopped and the hunting began. So, now I love being able to have leisure as an older person: Netflix, having pastries with tea in the afternoon, snacking, going to the movies, watching comics, having dinner with friends at home…
I have read that you are interested in current affairs of the heart. Is it more than Terelu Campos or of Barbara Rey?
I’m interested in the B-life series, not the main actors, but the secondary ones, in everything. But, to your question: Bárbara Rey, of course.
By?
Man, please, hierarchically Bárbara Rey is above, although I have saved a cover of a magazine where Terelu appears with a great headline: “Why doesn’t Terelu lose weight?”, in capital letters, as if it were a State problem, which It fascinates me. But, come on, Barbara’s thing is unbeatable: those names, that power, that knowing how to sell herself, that passion, that traitorous son, she has it all. I don’t think Barbara can do anything in her artistic life above what she has done with her personal life.
What did the Faculty of Fine Arts of Cuenca have 30 years ago for comedians like him to gather there? Joaquin ReyesRaúl Cimas, Ernesto Sevilla and yourself?
Well, we went to different courses, and then Paramount Comedy brought us together. But, come on, what distinguished this faculty from others is that it was created to combat the academicism of others and, when it came to presenting a project, the glibness to present it took precedence, as much as talent. So maybe we ended up all the rice there pegao that we didn’t fit in other more classic places.
You are from Madrid, the only non-La Mancha member of that quartet. Did they speak the same comic language?
Well look, at the beginning, in the first scripts of The chanante hourI was like Margaret Dumont in the Marx Brothers films, that fine lady who didn’t understand anything, because she didn’t understand the comic context. But, then, with Joaquín Reyes as the supreme ideologue, who is very La Mancha, but also has a lot of Monty Python, we always had a connection.
My greatest talent is pretending to be something I’m not. Pretend that I have the talent that I don’t have.”
He draws comics, acts, sings, plays showman. Are you the Leonardo of the 21st century?
Can you imagine what kind of a jerk I would be if I said yes? I do many things, but I am not a master at any. My greatest talent is pretending to be something I’m not. Pretend that I have the talent that I don’t have.
This is when he tells me he suffers from imposter syndrome.
Deep down, when we say that we have it, it seems that it is to take away the iron, so that they tell us: man, you are worth a lot. But, those of us who have ended up working in cinema, for example, without professional training, this syndrome mitigates a little over the years, but, no matter how hard you scratch, it is still there. Now there is also impostors that, to me, they transmit more than people who are not, in the strict sense. I watch a movie with Luis Ciges or Rafaela Aparicio or Gracita Morales or Chus Lampreave out of focus behind a close-up of Marlon Brando and I don’t even realize that Brando is there. That magic cannot be learned or taught.
Is that what you have in front of the camera?
No idea.
Have you never done self-exploration?
I try to do little, because sometimes I don’t like what I find. A little self-exploration is inevitable, but come on, I would never share my conclusions with anyone. I keep it for myself and my psychologist.
Wow, I thought I was the only actor who didn’t go to therapy.
Sorry to disappoint you, but yes. For three years now. I also tell you that, as Woody Allen said in his memoirs, on the day I go and tell my moves, I feel fine, but my fears, my obsessions, my envy, my jealousy are the same as 20 years ago. The difference is that now I share them and that night I sleep very well.
And the friends?
Friends too, but friends have their lives and you can’t be telling them the same shit every week. But, yeah, I’ve always thought that if I had a friend with enough free time, it would save me a bundle.
Stars in the series Muertos and collect old photos of deceased people. Is it necrophilia or fetishism?
Let’s see, necrophilia, no. Death, for me, is also a taboo. I don’t like a funeral home or a funeral or anything like that, I’m no stranger to my time. But, in the 19th century, the dead were waked at home, washed, shrouded, and those photos, to me, are fascinating, and I like to collect them. I also collect comics and many things. Fetishist? I invented fetishism.
What things would you never collect?
Anything intended to be collected and that can be purchased in a store. souvenirs. But wait, I told you too quickly. Maybe if I start with a Fundador cognac fan and a Naranjito from the time and add three other old things, I open a door that I have a hard time closing.
You are the actor who has played the most times, five times, Franco. In 2025 there are a lot of events commemorating the death of the dictator. Do you see a job niche there?
Frankly, I don’t want to pigeonhole myself. But if. They have stopped me on the street just to tell me: “Excuse me, I don’t want to bother you, but you look a lot like Franco”; So, I say: “ah, okay, thank you.”
Carlos Areces (Madrid, 48 years old) had his admission project at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Madrid rejected for being “not very academic.” However, in Cuenca, more innovative, his art was understood the first time. That was providential. There, although in different courses, he coincided with Joaquín Reyes, Raúl Cimas and Ernesto Sevilla, who, later, would meet again around the Paramount Comedy channel and collaborate on hilarious programs such as The chanante hour y Nui Girl. Areces, cartoonist, actor, singer and showmanis, perhaps, the most versatile of that group from Cuenca. These days he is preparing the big annual concert in Madrid by Ojete Calor, the ineffable “subnopop” group he forms with Aníbal Gómez and whose performances have become one of the capital’s Christmas traditions.