How do you rate the return of ‘Who Wants to Marry My Son?’?
It was a format that you tell us about year after year. It’s a programme that people talk to us about and it made perfect sense to be back on. So when that call came it was a rush and it seemed like a logical outcome. Doing a programme like this is a gift, just like others I’ve done and some I didn’t like, but there are several that call you to do it and you can’t deny it.
It’s true that at that time I was doing other projects with other audiovisual groups and there were other proposals, but Mediaset is a group that I had not been part of in recent years, but I had previously experienced very special moments. In this new stage I have a very healthy bond with Mediaset and I feel that you can do cool, different things and explore new territories and that’s great.
Don’t you think this is the kind of show that should never have stopped airing because of its good performance?
I would love to be a television programmer because I now have a production company… If I were also a programmer I would know exactly what each channel needed and I would not stop producing and we would be like Disney in Los Angeles. I am not a programmer, but, aside from all this, I think that ‘Who Wants to Marry My Son?’ should not have been taken off the schedule at that time. Maybe when you saw that the format was being suffocated or exhausted, it could have been left to rest for a while, not seven years. These were decisions that were made at that time.
When one lives in the past and in memories, one lives in frustration. And when one lives in the future, one lives in anticipation and therefore in anxiety. Let us live today as we present ‘Who Wants to Marry My Son?’ which is, for me, the best edition of all that we have done.
Why is it the best edition of all?
Having done editions where I have laughed a lot, with spectacular characters and magical mother-child relationships, it is true that when I watched it, there were times when I behaved in a certain way, which is being a perfectionist. When you watched the program there were low moments. In those moments you get that fear that they might hit the remote or decide to go to sleep because it ends at a time when they will not overcome this low moment. There is not a low moment in this edition. I started chapter six this morning and it is capturing your attention the whole time. Then, there are historical characters from the program like Leti or Andrea. They are characters that are easy to pick out because they are so extraordinarily different that it makes it very simple.
Here we have candidates who show their personality and you see and wish for that person’s comment. They outline the personalities of all those who advance in the plot, which makes you very hooked. Then, in each passage, I go back to the same thing, it is loaded with elements that you have not discovered. I have behaved badly and they send me the chapter that only I can see, but that other people have seen. When you sit down you see that person sees things that you have not seen and vice versa. At the time it was a program to watch with a lot of comments and it will be like that again. When I have done this experiment in recent months I find that these guests notice things that, indeed, make me laugh again and I am amazed again at the level of perfection that the editing people have, but that I had not seen. The Warner team is brilliant.
When do you meet the suitors on the show?
They are always telling us. The relationship with Mediaset is fluid and they don’t hide anything from you. Before recording you have already seen presentation videos and during the recording I am with them a lot. When you are going to work with someone who is not experienced in a universe like television, who is going to be overwhelmed at a certain moment by different situations, you have to try to give them a lot of security, a lot of confidence and that they are okay. For that there has to be a bond between us. It can’t be that you are in your dressing room with your mother and you in yours with your things. We have to have felt, touched, talked, seen our energies and found the musical score. In the first days of recording we all entered into communion.
Have you noticed the passage of time between the last ‘Who wants to marry my son?’ and this one in 2024?
The way the contestants approach the TV hasn’t changed, however, how they flirt… It’s a great learning experience for me. I have a nine-year-old daughter. We have to keep doing ‘Who Wants to Marry My Son?’. We have a social task of continuing to do the programme year after year so that when my daughter Miranda reaches 15 and starts talking to me about love affairs, I’m already well trained by my contestants. She has to go as far as Miranda’s puberty at least.
Is it difficult to find genuine people for the program?
There are two things that are very clear here. The mother, however much she wants to act, the moment she sees her son doing something she doesn’t like, a moment of danger, someone who might be taking advantage of him or criticizing him, forget about her, she’s a mother and not a character. In their case, we’re talking about something as important as love, feelings and emotions in an environment that invites you to do that all the time. I always say that if the contestants on ‘Who Wants to Marry My Son?’ had those skills, forget about Penelope Cruz or Nicole Kidman because Mediaset and Warner are here to offer them the best actors in the history of world cinema.
How do you rate your current relationship with Mediaset?
I would like to know so many things about what Mediaset is going to do in the future, but I am not a futurologist, nor the mother of ‘Who Wants to Marry My Son?’, nor am I at that level of decision-making at Mediaset to know the direction they want to take. We can make readings about what is happening now. At this moment, Cuatro is getting a lot of oxygen and you hear people’s perception of the channel and it is becoming, in some way, this channel that always posed great challenges for us because it was modern, avant-garde, different, transgressive or novel, returning to brands that are historical in television, as is the case of ‘Callejeros’, which has returned and has a very good following.
Why are all the formats of the past so successful?
We are being absolutist here and there are no absolute truths. It is not true that everything that is coming back from before is succeeding. There are some things that are coming back that were done in other times and are having success. Formats that are not having success are being brought back. We can talk about some that I did. Other formats are coming back and are not successful and others are coming back and are. It is not true that Telecinco and Mediaset have anchored themselves in nostalgia because they do very novel things. They go back to the past just like other audiovisual groups that also go back to the past or a platform like Netflix that makes a documentary about the Malaya case. Those that come back and are successful, I think it is because they are current. This is like the human being. I have an 83-year-old friend, Josefina, who is very current and is a woman of today. For me, my relationship with her is as fresh as the one I might have with a 45-year-old friend, and with my friend, Yaiza, who is 30, her relationship is as fresh as the one she has with 25-year-olds because it depends on the essence of that human being or that format. There are formats with a fresh essence and no matter how much time passes, they will be there. What does ‘El Grand Prix’ have? Tradition, it is a popular format. That is not going to change, and in 20 years it will still be there, and love. Doesn’t 21st century society fall in love? Unless you are me, I can’t find it. People fall in love, get married or don’t get married and have children. Feelings and emotions will always be current.
