This story begins and ends in a convent in Kensington, the Victorian neighborhood of London. Mireia Oriol (Barcelona, 1996) stayed there during the months in which the most important change in her life was forged, when she left the world of fashion to take a leap of faith towards acting. A faith, a spirituality, call it X, that she has expanded into a kaleidoscopic way after starring in Soul, the netflix series created by Sergio S. Sánchez –screenwriter of The orphanage Y The impossible and director of Marrowbone’s Secret, you know where the shots go– which opens this summer.
A thriller supernatural set in Asturias in which Mireia travels through a maze of mirrors that reflect the pain of mourning and the construction of identity. It is a colossal challenge for any actress because, let’s see how I can tell this without spoilers, Let’s say that there are multiple souls to which it gives life. Or death. Or neither one thing nor the other.
You had already made movies like The pact and series like The hockey ones, but the fact that your first protagonist is such a beastly challenge must have given you tremendous vertigo…
In the first week of rehearsals I had real anxiety, I would start crying because I thought they were going to realize that I wasn’t capable and they were going to kick me out. Impostor syndrome. But Sergio guided me in the search. He is very reserved, but with a special sensitivity to enliven your imagination and that everything comes from you. He has the power to make you transcend blockages and insecurity. Between her coach Yasmina Rincón and I built the road.
What part of that great acting and personal journey has been the most heavy?
The search for identity. I had been on that journey in other stages of my life and I thought I had it under control, but I empathized so much with the pain of my character that it disturbed me. After filming, I was lost for a while. Who I am? Do I want to go back to my life before the series? It was a very strange process. It took a year and a half to start feeling like I’m Mireia again.
It sounds like this job has changed you on a profound level.
A lot of. Months ago I went through another period of anxiety and he spoke it a lot in therapy. About how we spend our lives running from pain and sometimes you have to go through the darkest tunnel to embrace your fears and be reborn. Also of faith. I am not a practicing believer, but a very special type of faith has awakened in me that has to do with the spiritual, with the soul as an energy separated from the body.
Ana Ruiz
Ana Ruiz
Let’s go down to earth a bit, we get very intense…
During the filming I was in an intense mood, I don’t know how they put up with me! [Risas] The truth is that I would like to have more friends who are not actors, that, damn, sometimes we are a nightmare with so much drama.
Mireia from the convent in London would freak out with you.
[Risas] I lived there by chance, suddenly involved in so much religiousness without believing in it. I think that if that Mireia saw me now she would feel happy to see that I have focused well. Before, when she was in fashion, she put too much effort into things that she didn’t really want.
After this series do you feel more powerful as an actress?
I feel like filters have fallen. I have had to be so honest and vulnerable that now it is more difficult for me to show myself with masks. And it’s cool, because for me acting is being as true as you can in circumstances that aren’t real.
Continuing with the game of mirrors, are you afraid that the image of fragility that you transmit on the screen will also take over you as a person?
Jolin, this question moves me a lot. Because I am a pretty brave aunt, I have been alone many times and I have gotten ahead without victimizing myself or asking for help. When someone told me that I’m fragile, I hated it, “what the hell do you know?”, but I ended up assuming it inadvertently. She had it in her head. It is dangerous to believe that you are what others say that you reflect.
I think that courage has led you to write a series…
I’m so excited! It is about something that I lived precisely in the convent in London. I feel like I have things to say, some visceral ones that can touch more people. I would also love to do the second season of Soul… And work in England, USA, France! I was recently in cannesI saw Marion Cotillard, the whole world of French cinema… My total references.
Photography assistant: Idoia Vitas Makeup and hairdressing: Rebeca Trillo-Figueroa Video edition: Diego Arjona · Production: Chus Casarrubios. In the video, Mireia wears a Missoni and booties of Jimmy Choo.
Mireia Oriol: “Alma disturbed me so much that it took me a year to feel like I was myself again”