When Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar finished the script for his new film The Room Next Door he could immediately see there was a problem. His most successful films to date have starred Spanish actress Penélope Cruz. And yet there was clearly no role for her.
Cruz first trained as an actress with the express intention of starring in Almodovar films and after his 2006 hit Volver made her a global star, the pair have been frequent collaborators and close friends. “Hmm, yes I think she thought that I’d offer the part to her,” the director says a little gloomily when we meet.
“You have spotted a little problem there. We have been friends for a long time and she has told me many times ‘I want to be in all the movies you do, OK?’.
But Almodovar has many muses. He immediately sent The Room Next Door script to British actor Tilda Swinton. “I worked with Tilda on The Human Voice [in 2020] and it was love at first sight,” he says. “And The House Next Door portrays a woman becoming very thin from cancer so I thought of Tilda for this too. She has the look. In fact Tilda looks like someone from a different species.
“I didn’t want to make a sad, sentimental movie about death but something austere and luminous and Tilda makes a very beautiful corpse. And in terms of acting she is an adventuress. When there is such magic and understanding between a director and actor, you just want to keep working.”
Almodóvar is holding court in a central London hotel. With his snowy white hair and avuncular laugh, the 75-year-old could be a department store Santa. He has a cold but he’s in cheerful, chatty form. Who knew anyone could have such fun discussing terminal cancer and assisted dying?
‘I didn’t want to make a sad, sentimental movie about death but something austere and luminous and Tilda makes a very beautiful corpse’
In the film, former war reporter Martha (Swinton) makes contact with old friend Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and asks her to be present when she takes a euthanasia pill. Of course, accepting such a task is fraught with emotional, moral, not to mention legal difficulties.
“I really understand that point of view,” says Almodóvar. “She [Martha] doesn’t need her friend to be actually present, which might get her into trouble – just close by, in the next room.”
As so often with Almodovar, it’s a women’s story. The men are mere walk-ons though John Turturro is memorable as Damian, an ex-lover of both female leads. He speculates that sex is the best antidote to mortality. In fact, one day without intercourse, he says, is a wasted day.
“Yes, I agree in an active sexual life and I defend it,” says Almodóvar. “There’s a scene when Tilda’s character says that whenever she can’t get to sleep she thinks of all the men she’s had sex with. The erotic is a shield. Don’t forget she is a war reporter and in my research I read a few war reporter books. These people, they drink and they f*** a lot.”
Culturally speaking Almodóvar has been on the front line himself. He grew up in a poor family in Spain’s La Mancha region but fell in love with film and began making his own on a Super-8 camera as a teenager.
In the 1970s he was part of a counter-cultural movement that flourished in Madrid following the death of fascist dictator General Franco. Franco ruled the country from 1939 until 1975 and his regime threatened gay people, communists, atheists, Jews, democrats and more with jail or worse. As a gay man, Almodovar’s saucy, subversive farces characterise a modern, free Spain though he angers some people even now.
“In theory Spain is non-religious, but the majority are catholic so a film about euthanasia is a problem. It’s not just that. Spain generally is polarised more than ever. But, as I hope the film shows, we need to listen, show empathy and understand.
“It applies to immigration too. These people in dinghies are not invaders like the far right says. They are not rapists or here to steal our work. They are desperate people and they have a right to control their own lives, just as my movie shows you have the right to own your own death.”
‘Tilda’s character is a reporter and in my research I read a few war reporter books. These people, they drink and they f*** a lot’
In 1986, Almodovar and his younger brother Agustin started their production company El Deseo which gave Almodovar extraordinary artistic freedom to tell the stories he wanted. He has certainly made use of it.
In All About My Mother in 1999, Cruz was a Prada-wearing nun made pregnant by a transsexual who is dying of Aids. Talk to Her, three years later, was inspired by the true story of a man raping a female corpse in a mortuary. The corpse ‘woke up’ and, though the rapist went to jail, the victim’s family offered him their congratulations for his role in bringing her back to life.
However, latterly Almodóvar’s outlook has become more realist and sombre. The 2021 film Parallel Mothers addressed the thorny issue of the thousands murdered and “disappeared” during the Franco era. The Room Next Door is no less powerful and beautiful.
“Like Ingrid [Julianne Moore’s character] I don’t understand death intellectually,” he says. “I feel very immature about it. I cannot accept it and that's very bad because I’m getting older and it’s there. When we were shooting – there were four of us in the room: me, Tilda, Julianne and death itself. We felt that presence very strongly and I thought by the end, like Julianne’s character, I would learn a lot about mortality.”
As Almodóvar says this he looks pensive, almost stricken. So, did you learn something? “No, because when I finished this film, I went home and my little cat Lucio died. I had him for 14 years – he was a stray who chose me by walking up to me and I kept him. The vet told me Lucio had cancer and I had only two days to say goodbye before he was sacrificed [an interpreter clarifies: he means euthanised]. And that last night with Lucio’s eyes still looking so alive but knowing he wouldn't exist the next day – I realised I was in exactly the same situation as before. I understand nothing about death.”
Almodóvar looks in rude health. He is peckish and munching through a plate of small cookies. If one of those cookies was a euthanasia pill would he save it just in case, or is the whole idea abhorrent?
“I don’t need it right now, but in a situation where I had terminal sickness and was in pain, then yes, I've decided on euthanasia. I don’t have that many supports in my life. My work will survive my existence, but I don’t think about posterity. I don’t believe in God either. So yes, if life only gives me pain, it’s best to leave, right?”
That’s a choice for another day. There’s still so much to do and Almodóvar is fast and prolific. The Room Next Door is his 24th film. Earlier this year he published a book of short stories called The Last Dream and right now he is in the last stages of editing a script for a new film. It involves two female Spanish leads and will be shot in his homeland next year.
Will he call Penelope this time? “Could be,” he chuckles. “And if not my problems with euthanasia are over because, I tell you, she’s going to kill me.”
The Room Next Door is in cinemas from today
