actor Manuel Porto He assures that he did not understand Fidel Castro too much and points out that maybe it was because the communist leader was too deep.
The actor’s statements are included in an interview with the official CubaDebate portal, especially in a question about how he wants Cubans to remember him.
“As a grateful Cuban, as the guy in the neighborhood, as the man who tried to play the role that belonged to him in his time, I don’t know if I succeeded, but I always say that he was a true Cuban, a guy who understood his father and Fidel. Maybe I didn’t understand Fidel too much because Fidel was too deep and too big, but yes, my father and Fidel, “he said. Manuel Porto.
In the interview, Porto recalled his beginnings as an actor at the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT) and his roles in Cuban cinema in films such as “La tierra y el cielo”, “Se permuta”, “Caravana”, “José Martí : the canary’s eye “,” Wedding dress “and” Cuba Libre “.
He also referred to his childhood and the figure of his father, a Gallic communist, who came to Cuba alone and when he was very young.
“My father was a revolutionary fighter, whom Esteban Ventura tortured; a communist, an atheist who did not even believe in his shadow. And my mother was a believer, she believed in God and in all religions. But the two adored each other. The old woman was a maid and I had to hide in the basement of the millionaire’s house, where she worked. That woman had dogs, monkeys, but no children, I will never forget her “, said Porto.
The actor shared anecdotes about his humble origins and stressed the importance of remembering where someone is born, because he believes that not doing so is ungrateful and that forgetting can turn paths.
He also recounted episodes from the recent history of Cuba that he witnessed, such as the rebels entering Havana, an experience he had at the age of 13, accompanied by his father.
“I saw Fidel very little, far away. I never forget that my father said to me, ‘Manolito, you see that man over there, the one with the pigeons on his shoulder, this is your future,’ “the actor said. He added that at the age of 15 he left. in the East by train to enlist as a soldier.
“One of the tasks was to climb Pico Turquino five times. Before December 1960, I went to the Sierra Maestra, where I stayed for three months, to fulfill that mission. The brigades were thousands of young people. The only thing my father asked me was that if I went, I couldn’t break. He was a volunteer. It was a physical and revolutionary test. Climb Turquino like we’re Fidel’s rebel soldiers, well. There were a lot of cracks, but I, Manolito, couldn’t be frowned upon, because when I got home it would be big. The Galician did not understand that “, says Porto.
In the interview, Porto recounted his transition from military education to studying agronomy, cutting sugar cane, changing to studying electricity, his job as a foundry, until at the age of 17 he started selling vegetables, a job with which he was taken prisoner. frequent.
After this winding journey, he started with the actor Rogelio Blaín, in the movement of amateur artists of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and here he found his first job in the ICRT, in 1967.
The actor also referred to separation of emotional relationships in Cuba for political reasons. He told an anecdote about his first wife who left Cuba, through Camarioca, for the United States.
“I had such a strange process in me that I can’t explain it to you. It was an extraordinary suffering, anxiety and despair, but I was not going to leave my father. I was thinking about all the years from ’59 to here. There were a lot of crowded and mixed feelings inside, but I stayed“The actor said.
Manuel Porto considers that the function of art is to transform people into better human beings and therefore has a “very important role in the fight against envy, ambition”, but warns that it can also “disturb and harm people”.
The seventy-five-year-old actor commented on that sometimes he feels forgotten. He claimed that the main roles for men his age are becoming less common.
This is not the first time that Porto has denounced the lack of representation of the elderly in Cuban television and cinema. In 2018, in the program With two who love each other led by Amaury Pérez, said that if Robert de Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford lived in Cuba, he would have trouble working.
In January it was found that a new soap opera that ICRT is preparing, under the title “Let’s watch again, will be dedicated to reflecting the reality of elderly Cubans. The cast includes nearly seventy actors and actresses, including Paula Alí, and Rubén Breñas Manuel Porto.