Mundo stars chat with Extra News

By: Nikoleta Morales

Photos by: Jose Gonzalez

Andres Sandoval (left) and Majida Issa (right) talk about their careers and their Mundo Fox series “Corazones Blindados”

Extra: How do you feel about helping with the Hurricane Sandy Relief?

Majida Issa (“Corazones Blindados”): Well, we went to New York, to the supermarket in the Bronx where they were collecting things in order to help all the people affected by Sandy. Every grain of sand accounts, if everyone helps, though. We are thankful to all those people who follow us.

How do you feel about your character?

Diana works at Mártires, a high risk zone, which is an important place. She is experienced, brave, ventured, maybe a bit crazy, and she lives with her daughter, a six-year-old girl and her mother. Her daughter does not know her father as he was kidnapped by the cartels. In the story they touch important points like love, couples, passion someone feels for whatever he/she does. It is a very complicated story, with a lot of love. It is not a soap opera with a beginning and an end. In this case, you cannot break the continuity, as you can easily get lost into the narrative.

How would you describe your career?

I started my career in 1999, by acting a bit in theatre. I love what I do. This particular time I got involved with every great actor. We had a great team, everyone connected for a common purpose, by doing theatre and TV at the same time, punctually. Although there were some propositions from the director, in very long journeys, with technical problems, it was a real pleasure to be there, it was like a game, different to what I’ve done before, happy doing it, and concentrated.

What do you expect in the future?

As a personal term I expect the series to improve day after day. In such a little time it already has good things, I expect the relationship between the USA and Colombia to improve, to get doors opened.

Is it easy to try to reach out to the American audience?

I do not think it is hard if the American want to watch the channel; the Latino ingredient is very seductive. It is easy for them to fall in love and get hooked. It is not necessary to live that reality but it is easy to hook the audience if you feel a real love for what you do. It is not that hard. If they watch the channel, they will fall in love.

Extra: How do you feel about helping with the Hurricane Sandy Relief?

Andrés Sandoval (“Corazones Blindados”): Those are the things that you thank the most. It’s great that people follow you as you bring a message to help.

How do you feel about your character?

We intended to represent Colombia’s police. It is a love story and it could be any country’s police, Mexico, El Salvador, etc. There is a lot of action. The character is a second lieutenant, who recently graduated and is inspired to enter the Intelligence Department, since he graduated with honors. Many people think he wishes to enter in order to avenge his father’s death but he enters as homage to his father because he was a good policeman. Unfortunately, he is not able to enter the Intelligence Department because the second lieutenant is killed and he must replace him. He realizes that the academy is not enough but the daily living as a policeman, the streets dangers, the social inequality. Then he meets Diana Ochoa, a superintendent who he deeply falls in love with, so the story begins.

What do you expect in the future?

I see myself doing what I love, acting, and doing it well, in any place in the world, happy as everything is going well, in a channel where everything improves daily at giant steps.

How would you describe your career?

As an actor, to keep creating, to understand acting as a whole, to have a general frame to be able to send a message of love, of passion and infect people.

Is it easy to try to reach out to the American audience?

Anyone can see “Corazones Blindados” was made with love. The American gets attracted by the rhythm of action. It has subtitles though. All they need is to listen, to know. It will be broadcast at 8 p.m., 7:00 CT.

Oscar Bordar (left ) and Marlon Moreno (right) talk about their careers and Mundo Fox’s “El Capo 2″

Extra: How do you feel about helping with the Hurricane Sandy Relief?

Óscar Borda (“El Capo 2”): From our point of view, we have suffered a lot of calamities in our country. More than artists, we are human beings wishing to support anyone who needs it, though I think very little was done. There is a saying, “today is for me, tomorrow is for you.” That touches me a lot. In our country, the edges of the rivers get flooded a lot.

How do you feel about your character?

I feel that my character was hard to understand in the beginning. A friend of mine gave me the script. I am an actor who proposes. Within the show my character was seen with defect so they did not accepted him; he was not understood; it was an inconvenience. Tato does not know how to read and write and that generated anguish. All was resolved with a simple word. He got a skin, some blood, and he became a compact character besides the Capo, who plays the whole plot as his right arm. They saw what two people who love each other could feel, two guys who could give their life for each other or get separated. A teaching of love, of loyalty, of fidelity is left. Many understand it now as they have seen and everyone says, what a good thing is loyalty, what a good thing is the love between them. At the end they are human beings, recognizing a feeling barely seen.

What do you expect in the future?

We finished “La Lectora” by an excellent director, Ricardo Gabriel. “Los Pajaros Bajo la Muerte” set in Venezuela, the myth of Maria Leonsa. I played a travesty in a theater play, called “Un Óscar para una Diva,” in a music hall, tragedy, and a comedy. It speaks about the discrimination all around the world. It fuses all things plus it is fun. It was already shown in Cuba, and now, I expect to have a season in Colombia.

Tell me the difference between TV series and a soap opera?

A TV series has a format as a series. It is filmed with movie cameras, not like the traditional TV soap opera, with a mobile unit. As in the movies, it has different planes and details. A TV series has 75-90 chapters, while TV soap operas have 120 hours. There is a mobile unit and a director besides the cameras and it is done for a maximum of two times, two hours by a scene. A traditional soap opera has 20 minutes of directional management.

Extra: How do you feel helping with the Hurricane Sandy relief?

Marlon Moreno (“El Capo 2”): I wish I could do more. I understand the scheme of our presence but it is always necessary to do more. We went, we were at the supermarket, a picture was taken, but in these situations I’d like to get advantage of the possibilities one has as a human. An image speaks more than a thousand words but one thinks that we were short, that we could have done even more. We come from a country that has suffered everything, a 70-years war, having a lot of poor people. It is ironic, a paradox, being allowed to help in this place of the planet, the USA. A writer said once, “The human being bases his pleasure in helping others.” This way I feel my life is useful.

How do you feel about your character?

The first season, I feel I did not understand what was happening, I did not realized the work’s repercussion. The last day I thought, I am tired and I went home. While filming the last scene the whole crew was waiting for me, to say goodbye. A knot grew in my throat, so I cried and my coworkers cried along with me, the director and my sons including. I understood what kind of work we did. I thank life I was given the opportunity to do it for a second time and being able to say good-bye to my coworkers. Today I feel nostalgia, as he is a character who reached a lot of places worldwide, like Afghanistan. I carried on the character for 18 months. I suffered him. One cannot simply say good-bye. No one understood the character. I proposed an elegant, intellectual, seductive capo, nothing to do with the script. They told us he did not seem to be a Colombian capo but a New Yorker. It was a great experience achieved as an actor.

What do you expect in the future?

I expect four movies to get launched – “Amores Peligrosos”, “Sargento Matacho”, “Secretos de Confesión”, and “Cazando Luciérnagas”. All of them are in a post-production stage and will be launched in 2013. Now, I only think about resting and sharing with my sons the rest of the year, and to dedicate myself to a small group of beings.

Tell me the difference between TV series and a soap opera?

We have a space of silences while in a soap opera they keep talking all the time. We have accomplished fusing a TV soap opera and a TV series. It is a fight about searching for talent, for the truth. We always try to get the truth. We work by respecting everyone’s time. Should we have 10 actors, it is done 10 times.