the actor Manuel Porto he says he did not understand Fidel Castro much and points out that perhaps it was because the communist leader was too deep.
The actor’s statements are included in an interview offered on the official Cubadebate portal, specifically in a question about how he wants Cubans to remember him.
“Like a grateful Cuban, like the kind of neighborhood, like the man who tried to play the role that belonged to him in his time, I don’t know if I got it, but let them always say, this was a Cuban of “True, a guy who understood his father and Fidel. Maybe I didn’t understand Fidel very much because Fidel was too deep and too big, but yes, my father and Fidel,” he said. Manuel Porto.
Porto recalled in the interview his beginnings as an actor at the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT) and his roles in Cuban cinema in films such as “Earth and Sky”, “Swap” , “Caravan”, “José Martí: the eye of the canary”, “Wedding dress” and “Cuba Lliure”.
He also referred to his childhood and the figure of his father, a Galician communist, who arrived in Cuba alone and at a very young age.
“My father was a revolutionary fighter, who was tortured by Esteban Ventura; a communist, an atheist, who did not believe in his shadow. And my mother was of faith, she believed in God and in all religions. But both they were adored. The old woman was a maid, and I had to hide in the basement of the millionaire’s house, where she worked. That woman had dogs, monkeys, but no children, I will never be forgotten, “said Porto.
The actor shared anecdotes of his humble origins and stressed the importance of remembering the place where one is born, because he believes that not doing so is ungrateful and that forgetfulness can twist the paths.
He also narrated episodes of Cuba’s recent history that he witnessed, such as the rebels’ entry into Havana, an experience he lived with for 13 years, accompanied by his father.
“We saw Fidel chiquitico, far away. I never forget my father saying to me, ‘Manolito, you see this man who is there, the one with the pigeons on his shoulder, this is your future.'” counted the actor. He added that at the age of 15 he went to the East by train to enlist as a soldier.
“One of the tasks was to climb the Pic Turquino five times. Before December 1960 I went to the Sierra Mestra, where we stayed for three months, to fulfill this mission. The brigades were of thousands of young people. My father l “The only thing he asked me was that if I went I couldn’t crack. I was a volunteer. It was a physical and revolutionary test. Climbing the Turquino as if we were Fidel’s rebel soldiers, come on. “Manolito, I couldn’t be scared because when I got home that would be great. The Galician didn’t understand that,” explains Porto.
In the interview Porto narrated his transition from military education to the study of Agronomy, the cutting of cane, the change to study Electricity, the trade of turner, until at the age of 17 he began to sell vegetables , a job with which he frequently fell prey.
After this tortuous route, it began next to the actor Rogelio Blain, al movement of amateur artists of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and here he found his first job at the ICRT, in 1967.
The actor also referred to the separation of affective relationships in Cuba for political reasons. He narrated an anecdote of his first wife who left Cuba, for Camarioca, to the United States.
“I had such a strange process inside me that I can’t tell you. It was a tremendous suffering, anxiety and despair, but I wasn’t going to leave my father. I was thinking about all the years of ’59 here. There were many feelings piled up and mixed inside, though I stayed“, The actor expressed.
Manuel Porto considers that the function of art is to turn people into better human beings and that this is why it has a “very important role in the fight against envy, ambition”, but warns that it can also “ruin and damage”. to people “.
The seventy-five-year-old actor commented that sometimes he feels forgotten. He argued that starring roles for men his age are becoming less common.
This is not the first time that Porto has denounced the lack of representation of the elderly in Cuban television and cinema. In 2018, in the program With two who want each other led by Amaury Pérez, He said that if Robert de Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, lived in Cuba, they would have trouble being able to work.
In January it became known that the new soap opera prepared by the ICRT, under the title “Look back”, Will be dedicated to reflecting the reality of Cubans of the elderly. The cast includes nearly seventy actors and actresses, including Paula Ali, Rubén Breñas and Manuel Porto.