«Blessed be the comparison with ‘Downton Abbey’ because it was a beautiful series»

The actress María Castro (Vigo, 41 years old) gets into the skin of an honest but demanding housekeeper, who returns to daily fiction with ‘La Promesa’, a series that is broadcast from Monday to Friday on La 1 (16 :30 hours) set in 1913 and tells the story of Jana (Ana Garcés), who begins to work in the palace to avenge the murder of her mother and learn the identity of her stolen brother. Castro gives life to Pía Adarre, an impeccable woman in her responsibilities, who keeps a “horrible secret” that she will drag along throughout the season.

-What ingredients does ‘The Promise’ have to hook you?

-It is set in 1913 and I think that fundamentally what hooks you, in addition to the beautiful aesthetics of Bambú Producciones that enters your eyes, is that it has plots that are rare in daily series, because they are completely changeable. I, as a reader of scripts to later interpret them, never ceases to be surprised by what I receive. There are new characters all the time, things that seemed like they were going to happen in one way do in another way. That is going to hook people glued to the seat. There are many ins and outs behind the house and secrets of the characters.

-His plot in the series is very hard and traumatic.

-I am the housekeeper of ‘La Promesa’ and I am in charge of ensuring the proper functioning of the house. I’m in the middle, I live downstairs and I work upstairs. I am very empathic, although very demanding, me the first. And let’s say that he keeps a horrific secret from the first chapter that will drag him through part of the season. She will have to make the most important and vital decision of her life, especially at that time, where nothing was known and everything was hidden. For her to happen to him in those moments was a living death.

-How has it been to come back with the Bambú team with whom you already coincided in ‘Seis Hermanas’?

-Yes, I have met many colleagues from ‘Six Sisters’ with whom I repeat and new ones. I always get big human surprises. There is a great atmosphere.

-That fiction was not very successful in the afternoons, but it did achieve a certain international repercussion afterwards.

-In the hearings, the truth is that I don’t know, because I got pregnant in the second season and they were able to adapt my character, which I will appreciate because it doesn’t always happen in this world. I remember it with a great taste in my mouth, I don’t know if in terms of numbers because I don’t pay much attention to the data if the series continues to be renewed. I care that it has quality and that I get up with enthusiasm to go to work. We made a great group of friends and I had my doubts, because sometimes working with six actresses at the same time, with a rhythm that sometimes stresses you out, can cause problems. Nothing happened.

more classist

-What is the difference between ‘The Promise’ and ‘Six Sisters’?

-The time is the same. In ‘Seis Hermanas’ the service part was not so present and in ‘The Promise’ there are two worlds. They look like two different series. At the bottom everything is more comical and above it is more ancestral, more classicist. I think people are going to like that contrast a lot.

-What do you have to say to those who accuse this new series of being a copy of the successful ‘Downton Abbey’?

-I haven’t seen ‘Downton Abbey’, really, because I have little time and I don’t consume much television. Yes, I have heard people say that we can be similar, but if we are similar to a series with so many episodes made, with so many audiences and so precious, then blessed be the comparisons.

-Also appears in ‘Machos Alfa’. How about experience in comedy?

-I loved it, I laughed out loud as not long ago. It was very fun shooting it, also with Gorka Otxoa, who already has a contract to record together, because we have also done theater (laughs). We are missing ‘The Promise’.

-He is also doing theater, together with this daily series. When do you have time to study your characters?

I don’t study at home. I still don’t know how I do it. I study on the trips home and back, because when you are a mother you have nothing else. Or for example at lunchtime, because I only eat half an hour and the rest to study. When I put the girls to bed too, well, with the cell phone under the light, reading the script. My condition for doing a daily series is to keep my mind awake and active so that I can study without taking too much time out of my daily life.