Karra Elejalde, without mincing words: “I’m here to take selfies if I feel like it”

“I’m here to take selfies if I feel like it. The price of fame for me is not taking selfies with you.” I responded so emphatically Karra Elejalde when we ask him about the price of the fame and the toll you are willing to pay for it. “I have always wanted to be a solvent, or prestigious, or talented actor more than being a well-known actor, and as a result of ‘Ocho apellidos vascos’ I have felt more besieged. It has conditioned me. Now when I go into a restaurant I look for a place where I can be seen less, I turn my back to the crowd… Parties I make them at homebecause although people are very polite at 12 noon or 6 in the afternoon, at 2 in the morning they are very heavy”.

When fame came to Karra Elejalde in 2014 With ‘Ocho apellidos vascos’ he had a long life and a long career as an actor. He had shot with some of the most important directors in Spain, such as José Antonio Zorrilla, Julio Médem, Álex de la Iglesia, Juanma Bajo Ulloa and Iciar Bollain. In fact already had a Goya for Best Actor for his portrayal of Christopher Columbus and the actor who plays him, Antón, a sick and alcoholic man in También la lluvia (2010) before receiving the same award for playing Koldo in ‘Ocho apellidos vascos’.

“I have never looked for this. YOr I would be much happier doing the same thing, getting paid the same amount, and being a stranger. Really, if I put in the balance what it has meant for me, there is a part that weighs more than discomfort ”, he ditch. The actor is not particularly comfortable with fame as well as with all the new forms of human interaction that have been born mainly in the last decade:” NI don’t have networks, I don’t have Twitter, I don’t have Facebook, I don’t have Instagram, I don’t need them and it makes me very happy. I am not going to go against the tastes of the people, but I think that we are losing things of consubstantiality with the world”.

It will be because Elejalde comes from a youth in the theater, writing songs for groups like Hertzainak and Korroskadawho feels that people who are young now are too focused on everything that doesn’t matter: “I believe that the youth of before 90% with ideological sensitivities, now people go through that like shit. And the ecological parties, look at the United Left in Spain, have not grown, they are not getting better, ”he says indignantly. “I think that there is no animal, mineral, or plant that is more damaging and more damaging to planet earth than the human being. We are selfish and think that we are the center of the universe. The earth without us would live like hell, we without the earth would not. And we are loading it. Who wants to have a child, to have a grandchild… What awaits you? What future?

When we ask Karra for advice for today’s youth, she tells us: “That big cities are not the solution. Spain in particular is depopulated and happiness can be found by returning to our origins”. It makes sense that Karra (in his DNI Carlos Elejalde Garay) has this speech about the big capitals. Being one of the most valued actors at a national level, he does not even come from a big city nor has he resigned himself to living in one. Karra was born in Salinas de Leniza small town of just over 200 inhabitants in Guipúzcoa, in the year 1960. At the age of 14 he moved to Vitoria-Gasteiz and his next place of residence has been the Catalan town of Molins de Reyno metropolis.

“The Internet seems like a wonderful invention to me. Now on the internet everyone is a doctor, everyone is an archaeologist, everyone is everything because everything is on the internet… But on the internet there are no sensations, nor the heart, nor spirituality…”. For Elejalde, who in his day studied studies as diverse as art and electricity, he has a reticent attitude not only towards the new generations, but also towards new technologies:

“It also seems dangerous to me because there are things called algorithms that immediately classify you so that if you, who are yellow, and you, who are green, ask about the same thing Google is going to answer one thing to you, which is what you want to hear, and another to you. That is why there are people so confused, since every time they document themselves — as they have already hunted them down — they get feedback on what they want to hear and believe that they are in possession of the truth. This is how the deniers etc. arise. Boy: Get out of your internet bubble. Or change the algorithm.”