Catalan actress Bruna Cusí, 39, feels overwhelmed by coinciding releases like box-office hit Balandrau, and her roles in Un altre home and Pizza movies from Barcelona’s Festival D’A. She says this success stems from two intense years of work after her Gaudí win for Frontera. This spring, she prepares for HBO series In vitro.
Bruna Cusí arrives this spring as a phenomenon in Catalan cinema. Balandrau, vent salvatge, a survival story based on the Pyrenees’ worst snowstorm, ranks as the third best Catalan release after Alcarràs and El 47. The actress takes on diverse roles: in David Moragas’s Un altre home, as Marta facing grief over her suicidal mother; and in Carlo Padial’s Pizza movies, as an irritating child therapist in a small part.
"Since I won the Gaudí with Frontera, various releases have just coincided," Cusí explains in an interview, slightly congested in a Putxet bar in Barcelona. She champions local yet universal stories: "The more local the stories, the more universal they will be." On age, she states: "With the years, wrinkles will help me do more interesting, deep, and contradictory roles."
She critiques aesthetic pressure on women and shares her experience freezing four eggs, influenced by economic factors and shifts in male roles. In November, she debuts in HBO’s In vitro, a fertility clinic comedy-drama as an embryologist, alongside David Verdaguer. "I think in terms of salary it’s quite egalitarian," she says on pay equity.
