ivana baquero
Appeared in HoBo Magazine, 2007Ivana Baquero, the 12-year-old star of director Guillermo Del Toro’s fantasy masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth is as rare as the movie itself: uncommonly beautiful and mesmerizing to watch. With one look into her deepest black-brown eyes, it’s not surprising that she won the part of Ofelia over hundreds of other girls by reducing Del Toro’s wife to tears during the audition. (Not to mention, the casting director and cameraman too.)
In the film, young Ofelia creates a fantasy world to escape the harsh realities of living in 1944, fascist Spain, and to escape the wrath of her wicked stepfather. Baquero says she can relate to living her life part-time in a dream. Since acting in Pan’s Labyrinth (her sixth feature) she has toured the world to promote the film and attended glitzy premieres, festivals and award ceremonies including the Golden Globes and the Oscars.
She says wasn’t familiar with the magical world of fairy tales before doing the film – instead she preferred to bury her nose in mysteries stories and schoolbooks. But after being cast as the curious little girl with the vivid imagination in Labyrinth, Del Toro sent her volumes upon volumes of fairy tale books to inspire her for the role. (Ivana says she has “at least 12 or 13 books upstairs” in her house in Barcelona.) She grew to adore the genre and continues to read them today.
But unlike Ofelia, Baquero does not feel the need to escape her real life, which she seems to live firmly grounded in reality. She clearly enjoys show business but maintaining a normal, balanced life outside of the industry is her top priority. While she has been sent stacks of scripts from both Spain and the U.S. since the premiere of Labyrinth, she’s holding off until summer break to shoot any new films. And, like most girls her age she’s been enjoying the time off from work to go shopping, hang out with friends and family, and go to the movies. You know, kid stuff.
However, after only a few minutes speaking with her, it’s clear what an extraordinary young woman she is, and you get the sense that maintaining that balance between her personal and professional life will prove to be very challenging for someone so clearly destined for great things.
Her mum answers the phone from their home in Barcelona, Spain:
Julia Baquero – Buenas tardes…
Sarah Keenlyside – Hi, is Ivana there? I’m calling from HoBo Magazine, we have an interview today…
– Okay, just a minute.
Ivana Baquero – Hello?
A cute-as-pie child’s voice answers the phone. It’s alarming to hear Ivana speak English, and with only a wisp of a Spanish accent.
– You know Ivana, I have to admit that I really didn’t know what kind of questions I would ask you when I was assigned this story – you being a 12-year-old whose first language is Spanish. But after reading some of your past interviews, I discovered that you speak English very well and you seem incredibly mature for someone your age. Does working in the film business require you to be a more mature person or do you think it has made you more mature? – I think it requires you to be a mature person – you have to be able to stand the process of filming, and then the process of promotion of the movie – the interviews. But I don’t think it makes you more mature, maybe just a little. It’s like a kid who plays basketball. That kid may miss some school and that kid also has to go to tournaments all over the world and in my case it’s the same. Sometimes I miss school because I have to shoot and I also have to do the promotion. I don’t think you mature during the process, I think you have to be already.– I guess you would also need to be highly disciplined. Is it hard to motivate yourself to get up at 5:00 in the morning for your call time and work long days? Do you find that challenging?
– Yes, I do. But then it just turns into a daily routine. And when I go to school, I wake up every morning at 6:30, every day, every day, every day, and the filming it’s the same. Sometimes 5:00, sometimes 6:30, 7:00, and even though it’s really exhausting, and some kids don’t have the strength to do it, it really does end up becoming a daily routine. You wake up, you film, you have lunch, you film more and then you go to bed.
– How old were you when you started acting?
– I was eight years old and it happened because at school there was a bulletin that said they needed a brunette girl who knew how to speak English. At the time, I didn’t have any interest in being an actress but I asked my parents if I could go to the audition, just to see what it would feel like to be in front of a camera and people telling you to be scared or to laugh, so I went to the audition, and without expecting anything, two weeks later they called me and said they wanted me for the movie, which was Romasanta. When it was done, I realized I did want to be an actress and I did want to continue this career.
– Is it important to you to balance your educational goals with your career?
– Of course I want to finish school and I’d really like a career like, for example, psychology as well as acting. I want to do both things. I know it’s difficult but I think I can do it. I’m capable.
– So you might like to be a psychologist?
– I’m really interested in psychology but then again, I’m 12 years old and when I was like, 8 years old I wanted to be a doctor, and maybe when I’m 17 I’ll want to be another thing. But for the moment I like psychology.
– What are you studying in school right now?
– I’m in seventh grade. Junior high. I do history, math, pre-algebra, science – the typical stuff.
– Do you like school? – Yeah, I guess I like it. I like school cause I’m really social, I like to be with friends. And I’m also a person that can be really focused and concentrated – I don’t get easily distracted. But like any kid, it’s not the thing I most want to do.
– Pan’s Labyrinth is your sixth movie, but it’s definitely the highest profile film you’ve ever done. Has your life changed a lot since the movie came out?
– Professionally it did change a lot. Now people call me to do movies with lots of filmmakers and they send me lots of scripts. But personally, I’m definitely the same person when I’m with my family, with my schoolmates. Although yes, sometimes when I’m walking down the street someone stops me and asks if I’m the girl from Pan’s Labyrinth, and I don’t think that’s annoying at all cause I’m not famous, so when people stop me in the street, I think it’s nice – people recognizing me. But I wouldn’t like to be that famous where you couldn’t even walk down the street.
– So you try to keep those two worlds apart? Your professional and your personal life?
– It’s exactly true. I try to keep the movie and promotion world separated from the real world. I don’t want them to mix together. Mostly because when I’m at school, for example, there are some girls who are jealous and they keep on saying that I brag about it – they say that I keep on saying I’m an actress, but that’s actually not true. At school I never say I’m an actress. Most of the kids don’t even know.
– The character you play in Pan’s Labyrinth – Ofelia – she also lives in two different worlds. Can you relate to her in any way?
– There’s lots of similarities, and what you said about the two worlds, it’s exactly true. For me, it’s the movie and the promotion world – my professional life – and then I have my personal life where I have to go to school, where I have to be with my family. And in the movie, there’s the world of Ofelia’s fantasy, and then the real, tough reality, where she has to deal with her stepfather, her family, the civil war…
On the other hand she has a more complicated life than me and there’s no adult that helps her and believes in her and so when she has to make an executive decision, it’s normally not correct. She doesn’t have anybody to hold her and tells her she’s right or wrong. And in my case I have my family and when I have to make a decision, they usually help me and hold me. So that’s a big, big difference.
– It sounds like you enjoy your real life.
– [Laughs] Yeah.
– Do you like fairytales?
– I do love them, but I didn’t before Pan’s Labyrinth. I didn’t have many books of fairytales cause I read more schoolbooks and mystery books. It was Guillermo that introduced me to them. Before the filming he sent me tons and tons of fairytale books – I have like 12 upstairs that he sent me. I read them little by little and it was those books that made me be intrigued and made me want to discover more about fairytales.
– I’ve read that Peter Pan is one of your favorites…
– Yeah, I really like that one. But there’s tons of other fairytales I like that Guillermo showed me. But Peter Pan is one of my favorites.
– My favorite was The Little Mermaid, but it’s really sad. A lot of the old fairytales are really sad, just like Pan’s Labyrinth…
– I know! One of the big things that made me want to read fairytales is cause Guillermo told me that the original ones were really raw and sad and violent. Like Hansel and Gretel, the boy and the girl are left in the middle of the forest to die of hunger. And in Cinderella, the two sisters cut their toes off to fit their shoes to their feet. And that’s kind of like, really violent. But then later on, all these producers and people started making the fairytales nicer so kids could read them. Kind of like a commercial strategy or something. But the fact that those old stories were so raw made me really interested in them.
– Pan’s Labyrinth is definitely raw – the ending is really sad…
– You’re right. Guillermo wanted to show that life doesn’t always work out happily, but it can be magical. I really love the ending, how Guillermo pulled together the reality and the fantasy. It’s a sad ending cause the girl dies, but it leaves you with some hope. You see that her soul is still alive and she really goes to the fantasy world that she was hoping to go to.
– Do you believe in fairies?
– [Laughs] In some ways I do, going into my magic world, my fairytale world, but not as much as Ofelia. She does create an actual world and I don’t think I’m capable of doing such a great thing.
– Well, I beg to differ. You seem like a remarkable person Ivana, and I look forward to seeing more great things from you in the future. Thank you so much for your time.
– Thank you so much. It was nice talking to you too. Okay, bye bye.