PEDRO ALONSO ON SAYING GOODBYE TO BERLIN
‘We have seen action, thriller, romance . . . Now we are going to see the last war’
Itry to be clinical about it when projects come to an end,” said Pedro Alonso during our virtual visit to the set of “Money Heist” Part 5.
But during a Zoom interview weeks later, the actor who plays Berlin talked about how his last day on set ended up being very emotional. He shot his final scene alone, he said. “The rest of the cast was far away.”
He knew that soon, it would be time to say goodbye, but he was quiet, calm. Then, when he finished filming his scene, the crew applauded, like they usually do for actors after their final take. “Then one of the crew gave me a letter. It was a letter from Javi (Javier Gómez Santander), one of the writers. This guy is a very, very, very good friend of mine. After these four years, he’s really a brother. And it was here that I began to cry.”
Alonso hadn’t even opened the letter when the tears started. “I began to cry so tremendously that I couldn’t move. Because if I moved, if I said something, I was going to (mimics wailing). For four minutes I couldn’t say anything. And after that, they said, ‘You have to read it.’ It took me 10 minutes to read a little note that absolutely broke my heart. Something important was happening in my heart, it was really a memorable moment that I will never forget.”
A volcano
Alonso’s character Berlin is a complex one. In the first season, he was arrogant, quick to anger and very easy to dislike. “At the beginning people said, ‘Oh, Berlin is cold.’ I thought, ‘This man is a volcano.’”
And Alonso had plenty of time to explore the depths of that volcano the longer he played the part, enjoying the emotions of the role. “We saw the darkness. We saw the light. And at the end, the writers try to explain how it’s possible to connect these two sides of him. They put in perspective why he’s like that, you’ll understand the paradox. In my case, it was a complete trip around the galaxy of my emotions, my thoughts, my crisis, my delirium, my feelings, my questionable particularities.”
In the next seasons, as viewers got to know Berlin more, they were charmed by the elegant, complicated man. But tell Alonso that his is your favorite character and he will say, “I think that one of the reasons this TV show [is successful], is for the particular mixing of different humans. ‘Money Heist’ is a story of a family. All the members are necessary to create the family.”
And if you ask him to pick favorites: “They are my family. I try to honor all of them. I have incredible moments with all of them. I really love Alba Flores (who plays Nairobi) because she’s an intelligent woman with brutal compromise in many aspects of life and incredible talent. I really love Rodrigo de la Serna (Palermo), because for me he’s an incredible actor and an amazing human being. I played sequences with Alvaro Morte that I am not going to forget my whole life. Ursula Corbero (Tokyo) is deeply funny and brave. I admire too Jaime Llorente (Denver). I admire Miguel Herran (Rio). I love Paco Tous (Moscow).
And I have to say I am going to miss Enrique Arce who played Arturito,” he said laughing.
Phenomenon
Originally created for Spanish TV, “Money Heist” became a global phenomenon after Netflix picked it up. Alonso describes how the world embraced the show as “a miracle.”
“We were spectators to what was happening. We couldn’t process it. But today, I am seeing that we cannot deny that. Something tremendous happened to us,” he said. “If we knew the secret to this phenomenon, if we could write it, we’d be millionaires.”
Alonso said knowing that the show connected to audiences everywhere inspired him to work harder. “It was incredible to feel. It was an invitation to reinforce my intentions. But I tried to separate the pressure of the noise of the phenomenon from the real work. What I can say is that we receive your love. I can only say thank you. I appreciate this kind of impossible miracle that has happened to us.“
But “Money Heist” is ending—creators wanted to end the show with a bang while it was still hot.
Alonso said, “I like the idea that shows are like plants that grow and grow, and suddenly flowers begin to appear that I couldn’t anticipate. That’s what happened in the fifth season.”
He said of the final season, “We have seen action, we have seen thriller, we have seen romantic aspects … Now we are going to see the last war.”
We asked Alonso what he kept from the set—maybe a mask, or one of the red jumpsuits? “One of the crew gave me a present—a little claqueta (clapperboard) with Berlin on it and the name of a sequence.
That’s what I have.”