Mario Kreuztberger, better known as Don Francisco, will begin a new professional project on February 15, which, he said in an interview with the news agency Efe, completes a great personal transformation that included a change of “look” and even sessions psychiatric.
“I turned 80 during the confinement and I felt like I had started a new stage. I decided to start a new book about the last stage of my life and in those reflections I realized that the pandemic had made me think a lot, I know that a lot of other people went through this process and it was decided to create a space for us to count on it, “said the Chilean driver.
The result is “Don Francisco: Reflections 2021”, a 10-episode miniseries in which he will talk on the CNN screen in Spanish with personalities from the show, the arts, medicine, sports and other professions in which he will explore the personal issues that most impacted him during confinement.
“Who do we look more like, mother or father? I look like my mother in my love for the show, as she was the one who inspired me. My mother was trained in Germany for being an opera singer and had to give it all up when he escaped the Nazis, ”he recounted.
These are the types of stories he intends to draw from his interviewees and which he himself will tell during the meetings, which will begin broadcasting on 15 February.
It seems to be more about the inner world of Mario Kreuztberger and less about the very public Don Francisco, the character who made him the most famous driver in the Hispanic world thanks to his decades in charge of the program “Giant Saturday”, in the Univision chain.
One of the signs of the desire to be more authentic to the public is its new look. Now she wears her hair naturally, completely white and as plentiful as ever.
“During the confinement I let my hair grow and it already looked like (Albert) Einstein. When I finally got into the hands of the barber he asked me if I was going to dye and I decided not to. I start a new stage like myself , an 80-year-old man with all his white hair, “he explained.
However, the biggest change Kreutzberger launched seems to have been inside. The driver has been receiving psychiatric therapy for weeks, “to continue to improve as a person.”
“We can all be better and that’s what I’m working on, being a better husband, a better father, a better grandfather,” she acknowledged.
After thousands of interviews, it’s hard to think that Don Francisco needs to improve on this aspect, but he said his new program will be, if not better, very different.
“This experience with covid has changed us all, left us more open and more vulnerable. It’s an opportunity for us all to learn from each other. That’s what I want to offer,” he said.