Milena Smit discusses working with the Spanish auteur on his new film – a gripping tale of love and loss across multiple generations
When 25-year-old Spanish actress Milena Smit auditioned for her starring role in Pedro Almodóvar’s most recent film Parallel Mothers, she had no idea who had written the text she was reading, who would direct the film, or even what it was called. “I connected straight away with the character,” she tells AnOther over FaceTime, “but it was only after several auditions with the casting directors that my agent finally told me it was a Pedro project. The last couple of auditions were with him, and I only read the whole script once I got the part. That was a very emotional experience.”
On his part, the celebrated Spanish auteur, who has a keen eye for spotting undiscovered talent – he famously cast Antonio Banderas in his first film role in 1982’s Labyrinth of Passion – knew that he had found another star in the making. “[Milena] possesses an emotional intelligence and sincerity that cannot be learned in any school,” he told Spanish Vogue in a feature on the actress, who had performed in just one other film before he swept her up into his inimitable world, with its bold spectrum of colours, characters and mixed emotions.
Smit plays Ana, a wide-eyed, sad-looking teen, who crosses paths with Almodóvar favourite Penélope Cruz – here in the role of Janis, a successful photographer in her late thirties – when they’re allocated the same maternity ward. The two bond over their impending motherhood, and their decision to raise their babies alone. They both give birth to daughters, who are whisked away for some perfunctory check-ups before the new mothers are allowed to take them home. But, as is so often the case in Almodóvar’s masterfully melodramatic oeuvre, something is amiss – and what should be a straightforward case of parallel motherhood, soon takes a tangled and tumultuous turn.
Both Ana and Janis undergo subtle transformations as the film unfolds and they navigate a variety of extremely difficult situations, both together and apart. But Smit and Cruz are equipped for the task, their nuanced performances a joy to observe. “We rehearsed for almost five months and most of the time was spent figuring out Ana’s baggage, and how I would work with Penélope,” Smit reveals. “It was a really intimate process.” This involved multiple table reads, she expands, during which Almodóvar would establish the exact intonation and delivery of every line.
This level of exactitude, while presumably a prerequisite of Almodóvar’s impeccable world building, was perhaps all the more necessary in the case of Parallel Mothers, the first of his films to tackle the subject of the Spanish Civil War, and the thousands of victims who died under Franco, many of whom are yet to be exhumed from mass, unmarked graves. In a separate, but deftly intertwined storyline, Janis enlists the help of a forensic archaeologist (Israel Elejalde) to help her gain permission to excavate the field in which she believes her great-grandfather is buried. “Like my character, before shooting I did not have much information on the subject, which is still so delicate and controversial in Spain,” Smit says, “but I’m very proud to be a part of a project that remembers the victims and their families, and their human rights.”
There were many learning curves for Smit during the course of the shoot. “On a personal level, what was most challenging was living through, or acting through, things I haven’t yet experienced myself,” she explains, “like birth, motherhood, dealing with Janis’s reveal towards the end, the heaviness of all of these things that happen to Ana.”
Along with Almodóvar’s “masterful” direction, and the support she received from fellow cast members Cruz, Rossy de Palma, and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, who she describes as “three titans of acting”, Smit found that costume and make-up, as well as the director’s famously sumptuous set designs, were key to inhabiting Ana’s sweet, serious, yet lively personality. “The wig really helped me connect to her – I put it on and I felt like a completely different person,” she notes of the teen’s bleached blonde pixie crop. “Unlike me, she also wears very form-fitting clothes [think: multicoloured Miu Miu track tops, and sheer polo necks] in these colours and tonalities, chosen by Pedro, that really bring her to life.”
It’s hard to say more without spoiling Parallel Mothers’ many gripping twists and turns, but as our discussion concludes, Smit delivers a pertinent summary of the film and its vital investigation of the ties that binds us, of motherhood, womanhood, loss and love across the generations. “It is a complete act of love from start to finish,” she says. “Even the bad decisions the characters make come from a place of love. It is really very beautiful.”
Parallel Mothers is in cinemas nationwide now.