Jaime Camil explores the intimate side of Vicente Fernández inspired by his father

Jaime Camil
EFE/Sashenka Gutiérrez

Away from the parodies and with a personal and human approach, the Mexican actor Jaime Camil plays Vicente Fernandez (1940-2021) in the bioseries The kingwhich premiered on Wednesday about the ranchera music icon, who reminded him of his father, according to an interview with Efe.

«(Vicente had) many similarities with my father, who was from Torreón -Vicente de Jalisco-, in how he raised his children, in being this tough dad, who was a bastard, and there are many elements that you put into the pot and in the end you have the mix of what you as an actor bring to the plate to develop a character”, Camil commented on the series of Netflix.

Camil confirmed that saying that states: “What is not for you even if you put on, and what is for you even if you take off” after one of his co-workers told him how unfortunate it was that he could not be part of the series dedicated to the greatest exponent of traditional Mexican music.

«They told me: hey they’re looking for you from Caracol, what a pity that you won’t be able to, and I said: oh dear! if I haven’t been invited to anything », she recalled.

As he narrates, several casting agencies had told the Colombian production company Caracol, in charge of the project endorsed by the Fernández family, that Camil was not interested in Latin American projects without even consulting him.

“I don’t know why it never came to me, or why the agencies decided not to locate me, but what is for you even if you take it off and what isn’t even if you put it on, and that’s how Lisett Osorio from Caracol Internacional told me that they had four months looking for me to do the series, ”he deepened.

Without thinking, Jaime accepted even though he knew the responsibility that came with bringing the famous “Charro de Huentitán” to life on screen.

He confesses that, for his own good, he approached this character as if it were any other, but without wanting to downplay his importance.

“If you allow fear and uncertainty to mount on your shoulders before starting a project of this magnitude, then you are already closing psychological doors,” he said.

“It is important to face a project responsibly, with discipline, with preparation, with enthusiasm, emotion and happiness, but never with fear,” he added.

Research and privacy

Vicente, who died on December 12, 2021 with a career spanning more than half a century, became the materialization of the Mexican macho in all his splendor.

Jaime, who only met him once in an interaction that did not go beyond a cordial greeting, sensed that the Vicente of the stage and of the movies was a character who had to find that intimacy to which very few had access and of which there are no documentary records to the public.

Jaime Camil
Photo EFE

«It was a process, as an actor you take several elements, I spoke with Ana Gabriel for many hours about how she was on tour, if she ‘threw the wave’ (intended) to the girls (girls), I wanted to know these intimate aspects to include them in my programming of the character,” he said.

In addition, he reviewed in detail the interviews with personalities such as Massiel, Verónica Castro and the journalist Ricardo Rocha, to find more personal aspects of Fernández when speaking, superimposing it on gestures, since he thinks it was easy to fall into parody and cartoonish.

“The gestures are the icing on the cake, the mix is ​​that the character is human and that it connects with the public,” said Camil.

an actor who sings

One of the most obvious challenges for Camil was the voice.

Although the 49-year-old actor happily assumes himself as “an actor who sings” and who studied opera, he confesses that facing Vicente’s songs was “hard work.”

“No one sings like Vicente and no one will ever have the voice or the power that he had,” he observed.

“I challenged myself to sing the songs in the same key as he sang them, but there were times when I even got dizzy in the studio,” he added.

Jaime Camil
EFE/Sashenka Gutiérrez

But even in singing, Camil tried to give his own interpretation to the voice of the stellar Mexican singer.

“I thought: as long as I stay close to how he cried, suffered the songs and caressed them, we’re going to be fine,” he said.

Jaime still does not have any feedback from the Fernández family, but he considers that Vicente’s story was the one he wanted to show and that it shaped his artistic legacy.

Vicente Fernández’s series arrives on Netflix after the company TelevisaUnivision presented the series “The Last King” last March. The son of the people», also on the life of the singer, but not authorized by the family.

Independent journalism needs the support of its readers to continue and ensure that the uncomfortable news they don’t want you to read remains within your reach. Today, with your support, we will continue to work hard for censorship-free journalism!

We want to give thanks to the writer of this article for this amazing web content

Jaime Camil explores the intimate side of Vicente Fernández inspired by his father