I didn't go to school a lot.
— Victoria Abril
When I said I was going to audition for a film, I got a hearty laugh from all my family.
The director took my face in his hands and asked me to show him my teeth, as with a horse. This happened on a Wednesday, and by the following Monday I was shooting.
Psychiatrists don't solve anything from one day to the next.
My only friends were boys, and I was just one more of them.
Keep your ears open, your eyes open, grab everything you can, react, and learn!
I went to dance classes from 9 in the morning until 1, then to school from 3 to 10 at night, always under the threat that if I failed a single course I could forget about dancing.
I chose the most explosive dress I could find. I put a ton of makeup on and some great round earrings. I looked like Jennifer Jones in Duel in the Sun.
Acting is the work of two people - it's only possible when you have the complicity, the help, even the manipulation of a director.
You can fake your age or mask it, but the passion that moves the characters has to be real.
There's nothing more human than two people making love.
The director had come to Madrid to court me.
People love coming on television, even if they have to show their miseries.
My first vocation was dance.
I'm a small and normal girl, and stories like mine no one likes to tell. Fortunately so, because I wouldn't like to play myself.
I really wanted to work and become independent.
For most of my career, I've played roles that were written for other actresses.
When you have to get into the character each morning, give it your voice, your face, it was torture.
The film kept me from working as a secretary. It was a real stroke of luck. A miracle.
The actress they'd hired had refused to appear naked in front of the camera. I didn't like to appear naked either, but the first thing I did was take off my clothes and jump into the pool completely naked.
On my fifth film, it was then that I stopped dancing.
My current companion, Gerard de Battista, is the father of my two sons.
I'd heard it was dangerous to walk around Miami.
I like men with some belly who are a little over the hill.
Compared to dancing, films seemed to me to be the work of lay bums. There was no physical pain; it was enough to say and imagine what was in the script. It was very easy for me.
