Daniela Vega: ​‘Trans peo­ple have exist­ed for as long as humans have’

A star is born in A Fan­tas­tic Woman. As Mari­na, the trans­gen­der night­club singer ostracised and humil­i­at­ed by her late lover’s fam­i­ly, Daniela Vega is the dri­ving force behind Sebastián Lelio’s absorb­ing dra­ma. Her pas­sion­ate and mov­ing per­for­mance is one of the year’s most mem­o­rable pieces of screen act­ing, as well as mark­ing anoth­er break­through moment for trans­gen­der rep­re­sen­ta­tion in cin­e­ma. We sat down with Vega to dis­cuss it.

LWLies: Do you remem­ber the first con­ver­sa­tions you had about this film with Sebastián Lelio?

Vega: Of course, how am I not going to remem­ber that? That process of research is a lit­tle bit more pri­vate. I can tell you about what you see in the film, but the process I think belongs to us.

So what was your reac­tion when he asked you to play the lead role?

At first he told me that he was doing the research on some­thing so I start­ed work­ing with him as a con­sul­tant. Two years went by, and one day I received a pack­age at home, con­tain­ing the script. On the cov­er it said ​‘UMF [Una Mujer Fan­tás­ti­ca] – TOP SECRET’. I start­ed read­ing it, but because it only said UMF I didn’t know exact­ly what that meant. So I start­ed read­ing and the first 40 – 50 pages were all about Orlan­do, and then sud­den­ly Orlan­do died, so what are we going to do now with the pro­tag­o­nist dead? When I car­ried on read­ing I under­stood that there was a female char­ac­ter who takes over the film, and she was look­ing very much like me. I fin­ished read­ing it and I didn’t under­stand much, so I called him. He told me, ​“I want you to be the pro­tag­o­nist of my new film.” I said, ​“You’re mad!” He said, ​“No, I’m not mad. I’m com­plete­ly sure.” Then I accepted.

You had already act­ed in one movie, The Guest, in 2014. Had that expe­ri­ence giv­en you the desire to pur­sue more act­ing roles?

Yes. I had the lux­u­ry of par­tic­i­pat­ing in that film and also music video clips for some bands, and that made me realise that I real­ly love the cam­era and the move­ment on a set. I was lucky to car­ry on work­ing in cinema.

Tak­ing on a lead role is a dif­fer­ent kind of chal­lenge so how did you pre­pare to play Marina?

It was a very long process. It wasn’t like The Guest, where every­thing was ready for me to just take on the char­ac­ter and play. In A Fan­tas­tic Woman, Sebastián wrote the script and I didn’t par­tic­i­pate in that, but I did par­tic­i­pate in the under­stand­ing of the fem­i­nine world, to help him cre­ate the world of Mari­na. It had to be from the point of view that she was a trans woman, and Sebastián didn’t know any­body who was a trans woman. It was a year between me receiv­ing the script and the start of shoot­ing, so I could do some research and take the time to cre­ate the char­ac­ter with the director.

Mari­na has to keeps her emo­tions under con­trol. We can see and under­stand what she is going through, but she main­tains a strong façade through­out the film. What was it like to play that kind of character?

It’s much eas­i­er to explode than implode, no? When my emo­tions explode you can see them from here to the west end, they are too vis­i­ble. When you decide emo­tions are only going to mean the eyes, the mouth and the hands, you have to trans­late your emo­tions into these small­er parts. That’s when you have to research how to express emo­tion through your body in a very mea­sured way.

At least she can explode on the punch­ing bag sometimes.

And when she sings.

That’s true. Did your back­ground in singing and the tech­niques you’d learned help you as an actor?

I think so. There are very big dif­fer­ences. Opera wants to move you emo­tion­al­ly through sound instead of vision, and often it’s based on trans­mit­ting those emo­tions through ges­tures. I spent a lot of time observ­ing and see­ing the dif­fer­ence in one tech­nique and another.

I love the way the film quick­ly gives us a strong sense of Mari­na and Orlando’s deep love for each oth­er in the open­ing scenes. Did you and Fran­cis­co Reyes have to work close­ly togeth­er to devel­op that kind of chemistry?

What’s beau­ti­ful about this film is that there is a whole team work­ing to the ser­vice of the film. The direc­tor, the co-screen­writer, the art design­er, the oth­er actors – we all worked togeth­er so the film could go for­ward with a lot of strength. It’s a col­lec­tive effort and it was not just Sebastián, Fran­cis­co and me, it was the whole team work­ing towards that goal.

What is the state of LGBT rights in Chile and has this film pro­voked any kind of reac­tion at home?

Instead of try­ing to answer ques­tions, this film is ques­tion­ing every­thing, and among those things it wants to ques­tion soci­ety. When we cre­at­ed this film we were not look­ing to be a mir­ror of soci­ety, it was more about being a very big ques­tion about what we are doing with our exis­tence. The film looks into those spaces of empa­thy and moral­i­ty, more than look­ing into the sit­u­a­tions that hap­pen every day, all around the world.

The film does have a very sim­ple but pow­er­ful mes­sage at its heart, that this person’s love is as valid as any­one else’s and should be respect­ed as such.

Yes, the film is a love sto­ry between two peo­ple that are sep­a­rat­ed by death. Every­thing that hap­pens to the audi­ence when they are watch­ing the film is the won­der of art, so each indi­vid­ual is going to feel the film in a dif­fer­ent way and a per­son­al way.

Do you feel that the film is part of a wider move­ment towards the accep­tance of trans­gen­der actors in main­stream film and television?

More than work­ing towards trans char­ac­ters being vis­i­ble in pro­grammes and films, we are try­ing to involve peo­ple in this real­i­ty, because trans peo­ple have always exist­ed, in every cul­ture and in every con­ti­nent. From the very day that human beings exist­ed, trans peo­ple exist­ed. What is hap­pen­ing now is some­thing his­tor­i­cal which is that trans peo­ple who were on the edges are becom­ing the cen­tre of atten­tion, but that has hap­pened before as well.

I guess it’s about reach­ing a point where we don’t remark on the fact that a trans actor is among the cast and it just becomes a nor­mal aspect of a film.

The word ​‘nor­mal’ is a lit­tle dan­ger­ous. Diver­si­ty is more beautiful.

Obvi­ous­ly with the release of this film the fact that you are a trans actress has been a big part of the dis­cus­sion. Are you look­ing for roles now where your gen­der is not a factor?

I have played trans, cis and mas­cu­line char­ac­ters, because I think my body is avail­able to play any char­ac­ter. That is the bless­ing of acting.

Do you have par­tic­u­lar direc­tors you are look­ing to work with?

I would love to work with Almod­ó­var and the Wachowskis, and of course I would like to work with Sebastián again.

A Fan­tas­tic Woman is released 2 March.