Working in the movies is the dream of many people the world over. From writers to directors to actors to cameramen and women, making it in the movie business is the pinnacle.

But not for Arath de la Torre, who for many years, as he told Latin Post during an exclusive interview, actually lacked an appreciation for the art form.

That is, of course, until he got the opportunity to work on one.

Since his debut in the TV series "La Paloma" back in 1995, the actor has essentially dedicated his career to appearing in Mexican telenovelas with a few forays into the world of theater.

But that all changed a few years back when he was approached by producers Inna Payan and Sandra Echeverria about appearing in "Busco novio para mi mujer," or "I am looking for a Lover for my wife." De La Torre took a chance on the film, read the script, and fell in love with making movies.

"I learned to love cinema while making this film," he explained. "My career has been dedicated to TV and had never had the opportunity to try it. So now I have finally learned to appreciate the medium."

In the film, de la Torre takes on the role of Paco, a man who, as the title suggests, is trying to get out of his marriage with Dana (Echeverria). His best way of doing so? Getting her to fall in love with someone else. The film, which is based on the Italian classic "Divorce: Italian Style" is a comedy, which suits de la Torre, a natural comic actor, rather well.

But even de la Torre noted that one of the greatest challenges of working on this film was adapting to the style of comedy that director Enrique Begne was asking for.

"It is a comedy that is molded in realism. This isn't an overly exuberant character with a bombastic personality. Everything is contained," de la Torre elaborated. "It's like a machine that is moving very quickly within, but you don't see the effort on the outside.

"It was tough work for me to get to that point. It's a different version of myself that people aren't used to seeing."

What was more difficult for de la Torre was the actual process of making the film. He noted that getting into character was a tough job, as he had to get his mind into a "blank slate on which to build the character." But once that was done, the actor was forced to adapt to a work process he never anticipated.

On telenovelas, de la Torre explained that an entire 43-minute episode was recorded in one day of work. That was far from the case on the film set.

"In cinema, doing three pages of a script is a lot," noted the Mexican actor. "It sometimes annoyed me, because I'm used to doing a scene once and moving on because we'd work on TV with four different cameras. But here we only had one camera and it is constantly shifting around and changing lenses.

"Television is a 100 meter sprint and film is a 10 kilometer marathon."

Fortunately he had a great team around him to help him adapt to the process and even succeed. His two greatest allies? His co-star and his director.

"I admire [Sandra's] work and personality and beauty," said de la Torre about working with the Mexican actress, who recently worked on Oliver Stone's "Savages" and has transitioned from telenovelas to cinema. "For me it was a true pleasure and I never would have thought that I would have had this fun experience."

Working with Begne was a bit of a reunion for the actor, albeit in far different circumstances. The two had worked together on commercials in the past.

"It is very different doing commercials against film," noted de la Torre. "He is a perfectionist and pays a ton of attention to the details. Every take we did was about polishing the filmmaking."

So what was de la Torre's biggest takeaway from the experience?

"I want to make more films."

He's already working on his next one, a comedy, titled "Complices."

Related