Angy Fernández: “I’m learning to talk to myself well: before the nicest thing he said to me was ‘ugly’ | Culture

The morning we saw each other, a few weeks ago, she agreed to come to the EL PAÍS Editorial Office herself, something unusual among those interviewed because it was far from the center of Madrid and required a long journey, but she didn’t seem to mind. A few days ago, she herself had also offered on social networks to attend David Broncano’s television program, The revoltwho had publicly asked for candidates to be interviewed when suddenly left without a guest. It seems that Angy Fernández is hungry for microphones and cameras. I agree that she is in a period of editorial promotion, but, for me, that desire to go everywhere to tell her story is not only to sell her book, but to understand herself and be understood.

What or who is the “pretty mess” in the title of your book?

Myself. The disaster thing is because I have spoken very badly to myself for many years, and “disaster” doesn’t seem like the worst thing you can say to someone or say to yourself. Furthermore, it is synonymous with chaos, and I am chaotic. For myself and for the profession I dedicate myself to, which is chaotic and unstable by definition.

Why was there bad talk? What was said?

Well, I guess because of comparison and insecurity, because I don’t feel enough. I’ve been missing myself for a long time. The nicest thing he said to me was ‘ugly’. For many years I have believed I am. In my profession, physicality is so important that I thought it was going to be very difficult for me to work on this. I see very beautiful actresses around me, and it has taken me many years and a lot of therapy to talk to myself better, to look in the mirror and say: “Well, you may not be Claudia Schiffer, but you have other things to offer.” Accepting what you are is not easy.

Are these comparisons especially bloody for and between women?

In my job, yes, but also among men. I once read Luis Tosar say that with those eyebrows and no hair he was going to have a hard time in the movies, and see if he’s good and if he works. With actors, obviously, sometimes they look for the most handsome, but they almost always look more for talent and not so much for physical appearance. Almost all of us women are affected by wanting to be perfect. Although that is starting to change. There are beginning to be series and movies with non-normative faces and bodies and it is very important that there continue to be them.

Where does this insecurity come from?

You always see yourself worse than how others see you, like in a mirror. If they tell me three good things and one bad, I’ll take the bad one. And that has also happened to me with men. You say to yourself: ‘Damn, my boy is going to find someone prettier than me’, as if that were the most important thing. And not. I have always been short, petite, little. It has been difficult for me to accept myself and truly believe that I am not so bad.

In the book he says that his father’s early death marked his life. As?

My father was a police officer, he was stationed in the Basque Country and suffered from the so-called Northern syndrome. His companions suffered an attack in Basauri in 1978, in which they machine-gunned several people who were playing soccer and killed two. My mother spent many hours without knowing if he was one of the deceased or the injured. After that, he was a tormented man, he was sad and bad in life, he had several admissions to psychiatric hospitals. He died when I was nine years old, of cancer, but he was a collateral victim of ETA. I was very little and he never talked to me about that. Neither did my mother, but over the years she opened up and told me the whole story.

What remains to you from that orphanhood?

I discovered that in therapy: an emotional lack. Although my mother devoted herself to me and my sister, I have lacked a father figure, and that has affected my relationships with men. I have discovered over the years that I was always looking for a dad, and it still happens to me. I look for the protection, the security that the male figure is supposed to give you. Unintentionally, I have sought that and I have been very attached to men. I have discovered why I behave this way with men, why I suffer so much with them, and it is because I have had and am very afraid of abandonment after losing a young father. When your parents have not been able to heal their things in life, it is up to you to do it.

And what about his mother? Has she been unfair to her?

Unintentionally, yes. When I have been bad, she has relived what she experienced with my father. My mother has always taken care of and looked out for others. And she either hasn’t had time or hasn’t wanted to look at herself. I understand that, as a mother, you will know. She was with my grandmother until she died, aged 97, and she has also been with me. Until I told her: “Mom, I’m older, I want to grow older and if I have you here with me all the time, I’m not getting it.”

As a mother, I see it from the other side. Explain it to me.

Sure, but I don’t think I was unfair to her. Of course I have accidentally given him a bad time because I wasn’t well. I have had good and bad periods and she has always been with me. We had a brutal attachment. In 2022, right after the pandemic, I fell into a hole again because a seven-year relationship of mine ended, one of my dogs died, I caught Covid again. It didn’t hold me up. I tried to enjoy being single, but if I liked a man, I wanted to grab him and not let go, it was like a necessity. I went to therapy and there I understood that I had to recover alone, that I couldn’t continue depending on my mother. It was hard for both of us, but necessary.

Now you have a partner, have you managed to stop this search for your lost father with him?

I’m on it. I have changed quite a bit. I have my moments. I have talked about it with him and, when it happens to me, we say: “It’s your attachment talking.” We are learning to understand each other and, I, to have a healthier relationship. Before, I was very on top of him for fear that he would leave. He was very attached to him and that suffocated him. We have decided not to live together until I am okay with being alone at home, and I am getting better. I’m learning.

What are you so afraid of?

Man, the truth is that it’s all in the head. My biggest enemy has been myself and my head. It’s normal to be afraid of losing someone you love. What cannot be is that this conditions my life and makes me be in a state of anxiety and permanent alert that does not allow me to live normally. That’s why I wrote this book: to tell how I asked for help to try to overcome them and to encourage others to do so.

There are those who define anxiety as the paw of a tiger. How do you identify it?

I hadn’t heard about the tiger. Years ago, when I started having it, it was nausea, rage, rage, panic attacks. Now, it exhausts me, it paralyzes me, it makes me need to be at home, in silence, with my dog. Some days I control it more and others less, but I have learned to live with it.

What does success mean to you? Do you miss more recognition for your work?

I have had my moments and, if I speak from the ego, because we all have ego and even more so if we dedicate ourselves to this, it is because we like to be looked at, that we get work, that we know and show what we like to do. If I speak to you from the ego, of course I want to be called for something very important and to play a character that suddenly takes you to another dimension, to work hard and say I am proud of what I have achieved. For me that is success. But I also think there is a part of reality, down to earth. Success is something so relative that, now, for me, it means maintaining myself, and I have been maintaining myself.

He has been living from his job since he was 16 years old. Few achieve it.

That’s what it is. So, I say: “Damn, I have actress friends and one of them is a waitress, and that’s a bitch.” There have been times that I have lived through social networks, which give money to brands. That also seems like work to me: you don’t know the dedication that goes into it. Can it be frivolous? Okay, but we live in a world that works like that. Devoting yourself to social networks is a privilege and at the same time, sharing your life, creating content, can inspire and help others.

At 34 years old, do you share the opinion of those who talk about the “glass generation”?

Honestly, I think not. The thing is that we have a lot of information, we see that the world is unfair, and it affects us. Our parents, our grandparents, have experienced terrible things and have not healed because back then mental health was not talked about. Now, because we talk so much, it seems that we are weaker. And not. I’m facing the fact that I don’t feel well, and before, and I don’t blame them for that, it was all about moving forward. That’s where things have changed. Now you ask yourself: “Are you okay, what do you need, can you stop?” Before, you couldn’t: stopping was not an option, you had to keep going, or else you were crazy. So, ours is not weakness: it is that we have awakened.