Date first thing in the morning at the busiest cafe in the exclusive Madrid urbanization of La Moraleja, where he has breakfast many days and where no one is surprised to be table to table with a pop celebrity with two million followers on Instagram and millions of views on Spotify and YouTube. She is accompanied by three collaborators who discreetly leave during the interview, but who escort her and mark the photographer during the photo session, which seems to concern them more than the talk. Small in stature, with splendid blonde hair and the glowing skin of her 28 years and her aesthetic care, Ana Mena neither overwhelms nor makes herself look small to anyone and, I suspect, to nothing. He makes eye contact, calls the journalist, who could be his mother, by her first name and seems genuinely interested in the conversation. No trace of the pretensions and dengues of other music and screen stars. There are plenty of tables.
He is 28 years old, but how many lives does he carry?
The truth is that many. Everything comes from an advantage and that is that, from a very young age, I was very clear about what my passion in life was: singing and acting. And that’s what I’ve been doing since, at the age of eight, I won the contest I see, I see. Knowing what you want to do is fortunate, because it clarifies your path, but it has been long, hard and difficult. And I have been lucky to always have the unconditional support of my family.
Other young people, at 28, live with their parents and the salary does not even give them enough to rent a room. Do you talk about it with your friends?
Most of my friends are not related to this world, it is a conversation that comes up often and they don’t need to explain it to me. I have been working since I was a child, during my adolescence I studied remotely and, to work, my father or mother traveled with me. At 21, I came to Madrid and shared a house for two years with my friend Luis, a dancer in my show, who has been my great support. I have lived in Seseña (Toledo), in Navalcarnero… I know what the outskirts are like: I finished filming on a Friday and drove to Malaga and returned on Sunday night because I needed to see my people. We are a very family apretáwhat we say in Malaga. My parents and my brother, who is now turning 22, have made a great effort to make me what I wanted to be.
You must have done something.
Being very, very stubborn, very heavy, having a lot of confidence in what I do and being convinced that this is my thing. Or you love this and you love it very much, because the path is difficult, hard and lonely. You see many injustices, many closed doors to which you have to take the detour of the century to find the key. But I have loved living it, because I have learned a lot, and I continue to learn, it has given me a lot of peace, and it makes me happy about the good things that happen to me because I know what it is like to be down, I know perfectly well where I come from. Now I live here, and I am very comfortable, but I can be anywhere, because I have already been.
In fact, triumphed on a massive level in Italy before in Spain. Was that making a virtue of necessity?
Well, things weren’t going well for me here, and I went to Italy, without knowing Italian. I was lucky to be able to collaborate with other artists, like Rocco Hunt, and to have my songs liked. Nobody has ever given me anything.
Have you always written your songs?
At first, beginning, no. They helped me. In fact, I have visited all the stages in Spain, and in Italy, doing coversversions of others, because I didn’t have a repertoire to fill an hour. At the beginning, my songs were still made 80% by others and 20% by me. But now, finally, I can say that they are all my ideas. I have a small group of people I write with, but I am the owner of my project. It has been very difficult for me to have them trust my intuition, my tastes and my decisions.
Since when do industry bigwigs trust you? I imagine that since their numbers have started to matter.
It has been gradual. It has taken me years of dealing with some and others, but at this moment I decide how I want to dress, what and how I want to say it. They are my stories, my songs, in my own handwriting, and that makes me very happy. But if. The numbers are on the table and I have seen how some people’s views of me have changed. I am very serious at working. A lot. Especially when it comes to making decisions. People think that maybe this job is just about getting on stage, doing interviews and taking beautiful photos, and no. Being an artist is, above all, making decisions. About what you want to do, what you don’t, every day, every day.
He is a star who fills large auditoriums and has two million followers on Instagram. She will be used to flattery.
I hate him with all my might. Because, furthermore, maybe it shouldn’t be, but I am a very distrustful person, I protect myself a lot. I am a girl from my house, normal, who sings and acts. I have chopped a lot of stone, I have used a lot of pick and shovel to believe I am a star. I think I’m very honest. I am just like you, and like anyone else. I adapt to everything and I like everything.
This summer she announced that she was exhausted and he retired to rest. She is not the first artist to do so. Is the pace of your job so infernal?
Yes. And it happens that this rhythm also needs a rest to settle and feed. A fallow. Let’s say that I have been fallow, as I do with my garden, so that later it can bloom. I want to be understood: I haven’t been messing around, I’ve been working, composing, spending time in the studio. But by fallow I mean I’ve been on tour for the last 10 years. At 18 I threw myself into the world and haven’t stopped working. I have done concerts in all the places you can imagine, I know them all. Sometimes, singing in the middle of a bottle and with people turning their backs to me. But I kept singing. I come from all that, and all that is now in my work.
He was talking about loneliness. Many young people of their generation confess feel alone. Have you felt it?
Much, very much. My social life during these 10 years has been very little. I worked, slept and went to see my family. Of course I had a good time, but I’m not a girl who goes out partying a lot. I love, sometimes, making songs for a club, but I don’t love a club. And after the concert, you’re left alone.
And the legend of sex, drugs, rock and roll?
There is everything, of course. But it is also true that more and more people are giving up drinking and prefer to get up early and do sports. You can have a good time in many ways, being a little more mature and more aware of the dangers. In the last ten years, I have been single for a long time and nothing happens (she herself said that her first sexual experience was when she was 24), and the people I have met have been people from my environment.
Including your partner, Oscar Casaswhom he met on the filming of idolsthe film that will be released soon. Is it difficult for the pandemic generation to find love casually, on the street?
Note that I think it’s not so much because people go out to bars less and less, but because it’s getting harder and harder to gel with someone because we all have this shit in our hands all day (picks up the cell phone). This is cancer, this is horrible. Human beings are like that, we always think that we are going to find something better, we have social networks in the palm of our hand with a catalog of perfect bodies and faces, we think that we know the lives of others and so it is very difficult for someone to appear and, if they do appear, a real bond arises. A person who respects you, admires you, supports you. That doesn’t usually happen. That’s what’s unusual. And I’m very happy that it happened to me.
But you use your social networks and post wonderful photos. Isn’t that collaborating with the mirage?
Of course, I’m the first one who likes it scrollear and have fun and do tiktoks and be there. I show what I want from my life. It is a balance between the responsibility that one feels, and also the pleasure of feeling free. I draw, once again, on my intuition, but I also listen to others and ask for advice.
There are those who perceive it as a musical product. Have you ever felt like one?
Yes, it has worried me at some point and I think I have been breaking down that stigma a little. my tour Bellodrama It was a bit my particular blow to the table. I think there is no age for music. Young people also appreciate the classics of the seventies, which I love, but I also love a great disco song, and I continue to marvel at the copla, which is why I started this, listening to Marifé de Triana at home. I sing flamenco every day. I like being able to have that crossoverthat hybrid. I’ve done everything and the rings haven’t fallen off.
Are you afraid that, now, you will be looked at with a magnifying glass as an actress in idols? Will you read the reviews?
What do I do, lie to you and tell you no? Of course I’m going to read them. It seems like I’m getting into movies now, but I’ve been an actress since I was 11 years old. I understand that people look at me with curiosity, but I’m not a novice.
Lola IndigoAmaya, Valeria Castro… There are many very good singers in her generation. How is the competition going?
I love it. The more we are, the more the wheel feeds back. What we should do is unite with each other and release songs together. It happens in other countries and I don’t know why it doesn’t in Spain.
Maybe because of an ego problem.
I don’t know, I have tried it several times and I trust that it can be done. Maybe it’s about finding the right song. That would be a blow to the table.
THE MENA AND THE BARGAIN
Since she was little, Ana Mena (Estepona, Málaga, 28 years old) loved the flamenco songs – Antonio Molina, Rocío Jurado, Marifé de Triana – that were heard in her home, but not only. Also the great songs of the Italian singers -Mina, Sandro Giacobbi, Zuchero- that their parents liked. She herself says that she remembers being a girl moved to tears or crazy with joy listening to them and wanting to be like them, singers who, in addition to singing, performed their songs. And he set about it. At the age of 8, his insistence convinced his mother to enter the children’s talent show, I see, I seewhich he won, and, since then, he has not stopped pursuing his endeavor. Some of his greatest hits, such as Madrid city o light music They are some of the most listened to Spanish songs on platforms. Now, he co-stars in the film idolsalong with Mario Casas, directed by Mat Whitecross.