What ‘Celeste’ looks like and what it hides, the series clearly? inspired by Shakira and her problems with the Treasury

“I have everything you are looking for, too much for you.” With this song, Too much for you, catchy and that many viewers will have a hard time getting out of their heads is presented Celestethe Mexican Latin music star who has defrauded the Treasury of 20 million euros who stars in the Movistar + series of the same name.

The references are clear, that “too much for you” sounds like “that wolf is no longer around for guys like you” Shakira and those 20 million euros are close to the 14.5 million euros that the Colombian admitted not having declared before the Tax Agency.

But the similarities of Celestecreated by screenwriter Diego San José and directed by Elena Trapé, they go further. The tone used by the actress played by Andrea Bayardo and her “gurgles” can at certain moments remind us of the Colombian singer. Something that its creator, San José, denies and assures that Bayardo was a singer before production. “The two songs that play in the series are not composed or thought using Shakira specifically as a reference, but rather the actress is a singer before being an actress and sings like that. It is her way of singing and it is not modulated to get anywhere near “explains the screenwriter to El HuffPost.

“Thematically, what interested us did not have to do with a nod to any recognizable artist, but rather the songs are two songs that are very bad for listening to. Sara Santano (Carmen Machi) in two specific moments: in the first case, a sexual song of fun, playful, of conquest and at night, but it is to make Sara feel bad, not for any real reference,” he points out.

The same happens with the promotional image of her perfume, which is seen in a supermarket in one of the frames of the series, very similar to the one in Barranquilla in 2023 when she presented her Rojo fragrance, inspired according to her by “powerful femininity.” It is true that it could be extrapolated to any other diva popalso for their looks con bodies sparkles and rhinestones for their performances.

The coincidences are repeated if it is said that she has a relationship with a Spanish businessman, that he has “the debt of the Treasury and the press at his door” and that he is even unfaithful to her. Clearly? Maybe not so much.

Andrea Bayardo as Celeste in ‘Celeste’.Movistar +

As its creator emphasizes, “if you are going to see it called by a simile with a certain artist, you will be disappointed because in the series where practically 95% falls, what we focus on is a 62-year-old woman who is alone with a dog at home.”

“In that sense, from the first chapter it is very soon understood that if the expectation has to do with the tabloid press or any sensationalism on the part of any evader that sounds like it, you will not find that series,” emphasizes San José, who remember that “they decided not to do it because it had to be about something else and have other ingredients more related to loneliness, sadness or the gray part of an inspector, than with a star of the show.”

Before watching the series, San José asks not to create any similes in order to be surprised by it: “Regardless of what people have regarding CelesteI invite people to see it without expectations, not to imagine it based on who we made it for, but to let themselves be carried away by a journey in which perhaps things will not be as they expected, but we hope that they like what we propose just as much or more”.

“If you are going to see it called by a simile with a certain artist, you will be disappointed because in the series where practically 95% falls, what we focus on is a 62-year-old woman who is alone with a dog at home”

Diego San José, creator of ‘Celeste’

The not-so-gray life of a tax inspector, the real protagonist

Beyond Celeste, the real protagonist of the production is the Treasury inspector Sara Santano, played by a chameleon-like Carmen Machi, who claims “to have given a third of her life to the Treasury.”

Santano has an apparently monotonous life, with hardly any family ties with his daughter or his dog, with seriousness and professionalism as his flag—judging by what position in the opposition his colleagues occupied in each promotion—he “cancels” his retirement when he They offer to take Celeste’s fraud case.

“It is no coincidence that it is built from the last day of work before retiring and it is no coincidence that the daughter and her mother have a conflict because she does not know what her mother is going to do when she retires and she is afraid that she will not take that decision,” recalls San José regarding the development of the character.

“It could be understood that someone who has a very high net worth would be afraid of the intervention of the redistribution of wealth, because they would have to distribute it. But those who do not have much are also afraid of the Treasury”

Diego San José, creator of ‘Celeste’

The scriptwriter has captured the view that he claims is held in a large part of the society of tax inspectors. “It is paradoxical that the common good generates reluctance,” he says.

“The curious thing is that all types of people have it. Even if you look for a logic, you could understand that someone who has a very high net worth would be afraid of the intervention of wealth redistribution, because they would have to distribute it. But those who They don’t have much, they are also afraid of the Treasury,” says the scriptwriter, who assures that it is something “curious” that in the “two Spains” they agree to “hate taxes and Treasury inspectors.”

With Celeste his life will take a turn and he will become obsessed with her and with proving that he was living in Spain for 183 days, necessary to justify his tax residence. That will lead her to meet Tony (Manolo Solo), a paparazzo who practically lives at the doors of the Mexican singer’s house. With this, San José wanted to reflect all strata of society under the slogan “We are all the Treasury” and that “there would be neither good nor bad.”

“We have tried to capture in some way what Spain is through what the different profiles think about taxes. Sara, obviously, has a very clear vision as a Treasury inspector of what taxes are, but also a paparazzi who represents cynicism before the State, but also to an advisor, to a Treasury delegate, to a possible evader… To all of them, when writing them we wanted to agree, not easily agree with Sara,” he explains.

Carmen Machi as Sara Sancano in ‘Celeste’.Movistar +

Far from the comedy that San José has proposed in his other projects, such as Vote Juan o Faith of ETASantano’s life has more elements of drama or thrillernot without points that are comical, such as the fact that on an almost desperate night he breaks that serious figure and ends up singing and dancing that too much for you in a karaoke gin tonic in hand.

“I come from doing comedy, very comedy, with a very high number of jokes per page, but I have had the privilege of being asked by the network and the production company after many years what I would like to do. And the tone that I like It’s more like this: a tone where things are approached as I experience them as a citizen. Life is not so fun that there are jokes all the time, nor is it so sad that there is drama all the time,” he details.

With this immersion, the series tries to show the most human side of those inspectors who are seen by some as enemies and by others as completely alien beings who have passed one of the most demanding examinations in the civil service.

Machi goes from total seriousness to doing things she couldn’t even imagine, even having to try and convince a harassing fan of the singer with all kinds of tricks or to diving headfirst into Panama to learn about the country’s tax benefits. “Although she is a champion of legality, we also see her do things that are on the edge,” he explains.

Harassment of the stars and loneliness in the face of retirement, the subplots beyond the similarities

The harassment of Aarón, a young man who overcame cancer with Celeste’s music and who even has a shelter order against her, has also not been inspired by any real case, according to San José. “While we were writing the series, a couple of cases of harassment of international artists came out and we did document them, but the main guideline with it was that it not be parody or a cliché of someone with exaggerated mental health problems, with a lot of tics or strange faces, but someone who at any given moment could seem closer to any of us,” he explains.

The creator assures that he also wanted this character’s motives “not to be totally irrational.” “The same thing happens with Aarón’s mother, which explains why she believes that Celeste saved her son,” he points out. “We have looked a lot at reality, but everyone had a part of verisimilitude in their thoughts that comes from the common sense that we have applied instead of focusing on what people actually do,” he argues.

Carmen Machi as Sara Sancano in ‘Celeste’.Movistar +

Beyond the tax persecution of the singer, the series focuses on the daily life of the inspector and the emptiness she faces in the face of retirement and a life dedicated to work.

“When it comes to doing Celeste The narrative mechanism that we had in mind was that the Treasury inspection that an artist is doing serves to inspect herself on a vital level,” says San José.

For the screenwriter, this obsession that Machi’s character reaches with work is also a reflection of society. “It’s something that makes me a little panic: when they ask us what we want to be when we grow up, we always answer jobs: doctor, astronaut, soccer players… But we don’t build what we are when the job is over,” he points out and remembers that With today’s life expectancy and current retirement age, this time takes between two and three decades.

Far from the glitter, the “unbilled” money, the extensive calendar of days that Santano keeps in his office to pursue Celeste, the series addresses that second layer that the screenwriter explains. “This is all about a woman who has to figure out what she does for the rest of her life,” she says.

Source: www.huffingtonpost.es