She has the looks and Latin passion to her more famous rival, and now – in her first English language film – Spanish actress Maria Valverde has proved that she’s ready to go global. Prepare to be mesmerised.
Not since Penélope Cruz has so spellbinding an actress emerged from Madrid. Maria Valverde has quietly been racking up plaudits for her various roles in Spanish films, but her turn in the forthcoming Cracks, playing an exotic aristocrat who bewitches her teacher and divides her classmates at a fictitious English girls’ boarding school in the 1930s, marks her arrival on the international stage.
Maria rushes, flustered, into the lobby of the London hotel where we’ve arranged to meet, looking mortified. Although barely 25 minutes late, she seems as though she might cry as she apologises and explains that she was given the wrong time for the interview.
I find myself reassuring her that it’s really fine, and not to worry. (She calms down a bit after I tell her that a tennis player I was interviewing once kept me waiting in a hotel lobby for about seven hours.)
Casually dressed in a T-shirt, with enormous white sunglasses perched on her dark head, 22-year-old Maria has the whimsical air of a hip Madrileña, more open than the aloof Fiamma she plays in Cracks, her first English language film.
Maria (right) as Fiamma with Eva Green as Miss G in Cracks
Shot in rural Ireland, this brilliant directorial debut by Jordan Scott also stars French actress and former Bond girl Eva Green as a games teacher, Miss G, who becomes obsessed with new pupil Fiamma – to the chagrin
of her former favourite Di (played by young British talent Juno Temple, of St Trinian’s). It is clear that Maria sees this as a tipping point in her career. Her raw desire to ‘make it’ is palpable.
Even without make-up, she is mesmerisingly beautiful. With radiant skin, dark eyes framed by curling lashes, perfectly proportioned features and one of those long, elegant Spanish noses, Maria’s is a face one could get lost in. She speaks in heavily accented but perfectly competent English – her pronunciation making the word ‘her’ sound like ‘hair’. Laughing and constantly apologising for her ‘terrible’ English, she is very approachable.
She talks about getting her big break. ‘I was very scared, because it was my first audition in English, but I got it! So I ran away from Spain and came to Ireland, where I had two weeks to improve my English and prepare my character.
'I think, when you shoot in another language, it’s a big moment in your career. I can’t explain how happy I am about this film and the way I felt shooting it. For me, it was the best present. I am very relaxed about how people react to it – it’s not my job to worry about the audience,’ she adds, with an insouciant shrug.
‘The seduction scene was powerful, but it was handled with care, so it was fine. And Eva is very professional’
The film is dark, which, Maria tells me, is just how she likes it. Based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Sheila Kohler, it explores the complicated nature of adolescent girls’ relationships with each other, and the delicate balance of power that exists within the confines of a repressive boarding school in the middle of nowhere.
There’s more than a bit of Lord of the Flies about it. In one horrifying sequence, the other girls pursue Fiamma through the forest and set upon her. ‘I love that kind of scene,’ Maria says, eyes glittering. ‘They didn’t really hurt me, but I wouldn’t have minded if they did. I said to them, “Don’t worry about me. Just stay in your characters.”
'But I love those action scenes, when you run. It’s like being a child again, like playing. I’d love to do more action films, to play at being shot and dying.’
The seduction scene with Eva Green also seems to have left her unfazed. ‘It was powerful, but it was handled with care, so it was fine,’ she tells me calmly. ‘Eva is very professional.
'I felt very good with her. I watched all her movies beforehand. The Dreamers is one of my favourites. I was proud to work with her.’ She is equally full of praise for Juno Temple. ‘She was the first one who gave me a hug when I arrived. Our relationship off set was nothing like it is in the film.’
And of Jordan Scott (daughter of director Ridley Scott, of Alien and Gladiator fame) she says: ‘She was so passionate about this project, and because this was a story about girls, I think it had to be told by a woman.’
Landing the role in Cracks was the culmination of years of toil for Maria, who decided she wanted to be an actress at the age of eight. ‘In Madrid there’s a big street in the centre called Callao,’ she explains.
‘I remember being there with my mum and pointing to one of the big film posters and saying, “I want to be up there.” That was my dream, and I got it,’ she says, sounding as if she still can’t quite believe it herself.
Maria never enrolled in acting school or professional classes, but clinched her first role at 16 and hasn’t stopped working since. She won the prestigious Spanish ‘Goya’ (best new actress) award for her first film, La Flaqueza del Bolchevique, a Lolita-like tale in which she, appropriately, played a 14-year-old seductress called Maria.
Her parents were always supportive, she says. ‘If my exams were good, they allowed me to do auditions. But nobody else in my family works in film. My mum is a nurse in a school for mentally disabled children and my dad is a mantenimiento.’ (Maria doesn’t know this word in English, but explains that he fixes things like heating and sinks.)
An only child, Maria spends as much time as possible in Madrid, where she has her own flat and a much-loved golden retriever. ‘I adore Madrid. It’s my city. If I ever move, it will only be for work. Whenever I travel, I always want to get back home.’
And, when I ask if there’s anyone romantic waiting for her there, she erupts into giggles. ‘Sometimes yes, sometimes no,’ she says cryptically. ‘That’s all I’m gonna say. I don’t know where I am. I am in another galaxy…’ And with that she dissolves into peals of laughter. So, I press, is there anyone serious? ‘No, no, no one serious,’ she insists.
‘When I am in Madrid, I just like to see my friends and walk around the city. I go to the school where my mum works and help out. My plan B, if acting doesn’t work out, is to work with disabled children.’ And what about having her own children? ‘Definitely one day,’ she says. ‘I am here to be a mother.’
‘I know I will always be the “Latin girl”, but I would love to make my name in English language films. I’m ready for Hollywood’
One thing Maria will not do with any children she might have is send them to boarding school. Such institutions are rare in Spain, and Maria attended mixed day schools herself and ‘changed constantly from school to school’, leaving at 17 to focus on acting.
Filming Cracks ‘was great, like summer camp,’ she enthuses. ‘We were all more or less the same age and we got on so well. I made some good friends.’ But, as a long-term concept, she says boarding school would not be for her. ‘I am a very free person. I don’t think it’s necessary to be always with the same people all day. Boarding school feels a bit too…contained.’
Quite. The atmosphere of the fictitious St Matilda’s in the film is sufficiently chilling to put anyone off the idea. When the girls aren’t busy bullying each other, emotionally and sometimes physically, they seem to spend most of their time immersed in an icy lake, as Miss G’s elite diving team. ‘We actually had to get into that cold water! And even though it was summer, it was freezing,’ Maria remembers with a shiver.
She’s recently been working on a film about the Spanish Civil War called La Mula, and says she would love one day to work with Tim Burton, the creative mind behind such twisted tales as Edward Scissorhands and his upcoming adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. ‘I love his dark imagination.’ As for a role model: ‘My best actress of all time is Kate Winslet,’ she says. ‘I want to be just like her. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of my favourite films.’
Also keeping Maria busy right now is her role as ‘global brand ambassador’ for cult Spanish label Hoss Intropia, whose whimsical, slightly boho designs seem very her. ‘They find a woman for each season – someone with a projection outside Spain, with an intropia, which means “spirit” or “ambition”. The first time they did it was with Tamara Rojo [the Spanish ballerina] and I thought, “I want to be her one day.”
I would never want to model as my career, but fashion is my hobby. When you love what you’re wearing, you feel good. I also love the extravagance of John Galliano for a big occasion. But I’m very bad with following trends. I see a magazine and think, “Oh, do I need to wear that?” I prefer this,’ she says, gesturing at her low-maintenance attire.
But if Hollywood comes calling – and it surely will – there will be more Galliano and fewer T-shirts. ‘I know it might be quite difficult for me to break in,’ Maria says modestly, ‘and I’ll always be “the Latin girl”, but I would love to make my name in English language films.
'I always say: you’re not going to find Hollywood. Hollywood will find you! But I’m ready for it: for Hollywood, for Bollywood, for everything!’
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