"I Enjoy Playing a Villain and It's My First Time Doing So"

Oriol Tarrasón (Barcelona, 55 years old) is the latest addition to 'Dreams of Freedom', Antena 3's daily series (Monday to Friday at 15:45), playing Gabriel, the nephew of Damián (played by Nancho Novo) with whom he has never had a relationship, returning to Toledo with a dark purpose. The series is the most-watched on television, with an average of 13.3% audience share and over 1.2 million viewers.

–How was your arrival to 'Dreams of Freedom'?

–It was very easy. Like coming home. I have worked with the production team, Diagonal TV, even since the days of 'Bandolera', so it has been very pleasant to return here.

–You arrive as the villain in this fiction. What did you think when you were offered the role of Gabriel?

–I was thrilled. I was already following the series because I share a theatre play with Ana Fernández, who is in 'Dreams of Freedom', and I had a lot of information. When Ana told me there would be changes and new characters would be introduced, I thought: 'let's see if it's me'. Gabriel is a character who enters very strongly, with plans to stay for quite some time, and I hope the audience likes him. He aims to generate many plots to reactivate the dynamics of what is a daily series, which is a type of fiction where many things happen, there are many open plots, many characters, and many movements. So, Gabriel arrives to untangle some of those plots and create conflicts.

–Is this your first time playing a 'bad guy'?

–Yes, it's my first villain. Honestly, I'm handling it very well, I love it. It's a character with a lot of darkness. Apparently, he is a very affable, empathetic, wonderful character, but underneath he has a layer of pain, of trauma; from a past he wants to resolve, and that leads him to behave like a true villain. And that's quite fun because it's like playing a character with two faces.

–Your character arrives after the death of Jesús, the character played by Alain Hernández. Do you feel any pressure?

–I don't take it as pressure because it doesn't depend solely on me, it depends on the whole team. We are all working towards that. It's a very important character that has left, and it needs to be replaced in terms of plots, many things need to be generated. But I think that already from the direction of the series or from the scriptwriters' team, a very interesting job is being done to make people forget, in quotes, Jesús.

–In a theatre play, now with a daily fiction. Do you have time to rest?

–A daily series takes up a lot of time. Firstly, because they are fictions that last a long time, which is always positive. Then there are many hours of filming and studying at home. These series are very demanding, and you have to adapt your life to the project a bit, because if not, you suffer a lot, you go around tired all day. These series require a lot of energy. For now, I continue with the play I was in.

–'Dreams of Freedom', along with 'The Promise' or 'Wild Valley', are experiencing a great moment in terms of audience.

–I think daily series have improved significantly in quality. When I join this series and see what is being done, I am impressed with the production quality and the actors, who are very strong. These series give meaning to the broadcast slot in which they are aired, especially now that there are so many platforms.

–Do people ask you to reveal what will happen in upcoming episodes?

–Of course. Although it's true that in 'Dreams' we can't reveal much because what we are filming now will be seen on television in a few months. We film with very little information, we are filming episodes that arrive each week, so you don't have much information. What will happen or how the plots will end, I have no idea. Something that I find also wonderful, and at the same time stimulating, is that we are discovering how our own characters are solving the conflicts and problems that arise.