‘The End’ is just the beginning

"He has an incredible self-confidence, a certain lack of shyness that the Americans possess, which makes them suddenly do a performance and leave you flabbergasted. He doesn't have that genetic shyness that Latinos have - probably because of his work - which stops us from communicating those emotions. Andrés hides an emotional treasure that he reveals through his eyes, with which he transmits things that other actors cannot achieve."

Filmmaker Jorge Torregrossa runs out of adjectives to describe the acting debut of Spanish model Andrés Velencoso in his thriller Fin (or, The End), which opened the Seville European Film Festival on November 2 and is due for release in cinemas across Spain on November 23.

The idea of putting the Catalan model and partner of Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue in the middle of an ensemble cast comprising such Spanish talents as Clara Lago, Maribel Verdú, Daniel Grao and Antonio Garrido was that of casting directors Yolanda Serrano and Eva Leira. "If you'd told me that I would make my debut movie with a model as an actor, I wouldn't have believed you," admits Torregrossa. "But we started testing, we didn't find the right guy, and they showed me an improvisation with him, and there was what I needed."

The only question that remained before Velencoso made his jump into movies was whether it would just be a passing fancy. "I spent several years looking for the right material," he explains. "I always thought about it, but life went in other directions, which I have no complaints over. Two years ago I felt I was ready, that I could overcome my hesitations and fears. I only regret not having started studying acting before. Now I am doing it in London and Madrid. I want to be an actor, though I am never going to turn my nose up at fashion or abandon it. In 10 or 20 years, I see myself being an actor."

He verbalizes the firmness of the thought in a pleasant tone, which sounds sincere and convincing. "I know I can sound like 'another model who wants to act,' and that was one of the fears that stopped me; prejudices that could be uttered around me, which I have in part overcome," he continues. "In the casting process I felt liberated, but I arrived at the preparation process, reading the script in the first rehearsals with the other actors and, obviously, the fears returned because of the complexity of the process."

In Fin, based on a Spanish bestseller by David Monteagudo, Velencoso plays Hugo - "a piece of shit," in the words of the character himself, a womanizer and sweet-talker. He is one of a group of old friends who get together after many years apart in an isolated house in the mountains that belongs to the family of one of them. The reunion isn't as nice as they had hoped, however, and strange things start to happen around them. Perhaps someone is playing a joke or perhaps they are in middle of the apocalypse.

"After I read the book I thought about Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and about Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, about an abstract terror, with intriguing threats," says Torregrossa. "I also thought about Antonioni's L'Avventura, which isn't a genre film but disturbing things happen and it uses space as a metaphor. I am not a typical director and my reading of the novel is my own. What's more, they let me customize it myself. The novel is very cinematic and at the same time very open to be adapted to my vision."

Holy Motors, the much-lauded new film by French director Leos Carax that stars Velencoso's girlfriend Kylie Minogue, is also being screened at the Seville festival. "She came from the world of acting, so she knows what this is about. Funnily, we were both filming at the same time. It is a spectacular film and she is now choosing future projects," says Velencoso. And the same yearning to get back is also affecting the Catalan actor. "I know I am starting in the middle of a bad moment for Spanish film and television, but the itch is there and it's getting itchier."