After transforming Spain’s tax office into an extraordinary engine of black comedy, “Celeste” creator Diego San José and director Elena Trapé target something much more sacred in Spain: football.
The six-episode second season of the original Movistar Plus brings back Carmen Machi (“La Mesías”) as tax investigator Sara Santano, who spent Season 1 trying to prove that a globe-trotting Latin music star owes 20 million euros ($22.4 million) in Spain. This time, the series returns to an earlier point in Sara’s career, revisiting Argentine football star Figueroa, whose earlier tax case marked the only professional failure in Sara’s distinguished career.
The social equation turns upside down with him. Sara represents one of Spain’s least loved public figures; Figueroa is a football idol whose failures can be forgiven as long as he succeeds on the field.
Imagina Sales (Mediapro Studio Distribution) is handling international sales for Season 2 and will bring the series to Mipcom ahead of its world premiere at Serielizados Fest in Barcelona on October 26.
Season 1 won Spain’s Ondas and Feroz awards for best comedy, while Series Mania’s International Panorama won best series and best actress for Machi last year. It was also released on Arte in France and Flow in Argentina.
The new season, produced by Movistar Plus and 100 Balas and The Mediapro Studio, is again directed by Trapé, while the script of San José is written by Oriol Puig and Fernando Delgado-Hierro.
San José and Trapé spoke Diversity Ahead of Mipcom about the new season.
Why make Season 2 a prequel and go back to the Figueroa case?
San José: This actually has nothing to do with the person he’s after. The decision to go back in time had to do with Sara Santano herself. Sara, whom we left at the end of the first season, is a woman whose wounds have healed. For a writer, this isn’t his most interesting version. We wanted a character with scars and cracks.
So we returned to Figueroa as an excuse to return to Sara. The incident is actually an excuse. Figueroa’s advantage is not Figueroa. Because her husband is alive. This allows us to tell a completely different personal story.
If the first season was about loneliness, the second is about the end of love; What happens when two people sleep separately, still care about each other but are no longer in love?
When you were preparing Season 1, did you already create the Figueroa case with the second season in mind?
San José: No. Everything about making the second season happened after the first season ended. So during the writing phase we had to approach it almost like an architectural exercise or juggling act. The first challenge was to make a good season, even for someone who hadn’t seen the first one, so the story just works like a story.
We then set ourselves another challenge: making sure everything was harmonious and harmonious. If someone watches both seasons and pulls out their magnifying glass to find something that doesn’t fit, they shouldn’t be able to find it. We also wanted Season 2 to help explain things that were already there from the first.
Sara is an exemplary person, but she also breaks her own rules. What interests you about pushing it beyond those lines?
San José: Stories become interesting when characters do things they don’t normally do. Sara is a model investigator, but we put her in a situation where she breaks her own rules.
He is as obsessive and methodical as an FBI agent searching for a serial killer in Manhattan. We took the classic codes of film noir and moved them to a gray and quotidian place like the tax office. It’s about giving a tax agency the adrenaline and power of the Pentagon. This collision between the mundane and something explosive like Dirty Harry is part of the series’ DNA.
Even when characters make questionable choices, the show seems more interested in understanding them than judging them. Was this important to you?
San José: First of all, we tried to understand them. I don’t think any of the characters in either season are bad.
Even alleged tax evaders have understandable interests. The way they defended them may have been wrong, but we tried not to make a fool of anyone.
All the characters in “Celeste” on both sides of the investigation are emotionally broken. I don’t think you can hate someone who isn’t happy when they go to bed. If things aren’t going well for you, I think a hug feels more natural than an elbow.
Elena, how can you convey this emotional vulnerability without falling into melodrama?
Trapé: If by emotional you mean melodramatic, the emergence and tone of the characters’ emotions are so subtle, sensitive and restrained that it is very difficult for this to happen. This is already made very clear in Diego’s writings.
It is also very important that Diego is with me on set every day. Any doubt, any uncertainty, “Are we taking this further, or are we already there?” Every time you ask: It becomes part of our creative dialogue.
“Celeste” Season 2 Javier Perez Garcia
The series has a special interest in losers. What draws you to them?
San José: We all have a losing side and not everyone has a winning side. What makes us all equal is that we know what it means to lose. Defeat is what binds us together.
Both seasons have a special sympathy for the losers. We created a hero out of someone who was openly despised in real life. Tax inspectors are not highly respected in our society.
The fact that a 62-year-old woman who is a tax inspector could also be Dirty Harry is already a bet to turn the loser into someone who is the center of attention in fiction in a way that she cannot achieve in real life. This series was made to knit a nice suit for the poor people who usually cannot afford a suit.
Singer Celeste is no longer at the center of the story. Why are you keeping the title withheld?
San José: We never gave much importance to the title containing the name of the most important character. For us, “Celeste” has become a color rather than a figure in music.
People even sometimes refer to Carmen Machi as Celeste: “Have you seen the series about Inspector ‘Celeste’?”
The first season met more people than we expected, so we wanted to keep the same brand.
Elena, after the reaction to Season 1, what did you want to accomplish in the second season?
Trapé: There’s a solidity to this season that I really like. You enter a universe that continues to expand as characters gain volume and nuance and the plot develops. It evolves into something more mature.
One of the challenges of the first season was establishing its very specific tone. This time we, the crew and Carmen already knew this. This gave us more room to play.
Watching it now, I feel like we’ve grown. It feels like a very solid season.
You have now shot “Celeste” and “Yakarta” together; Javier Cámara earned an International Emmy nomination for this film last month. Could there be “Yakarta 2”?
San José: As a viewer, my plan is for Elena to do something without me because I’d like to see her. The downside of working with Elena for three or four years is that I can’t watch the things Elena does.
We produced two series together, three seasons in total, and I am extremely pleased with them. But now it’s Elena’s turn to do her own thing.
If Elena wants to make “Yakarta 2” that will happen. It’s up to Elena.
Trapé: What I hope neither of us will rule out is working together again. I don’t know if it will be “Yakarta 2” or something else.
San José: I think if Javier Cámara wins the International Emmy, someone will say, “Why don’t you make a ‘Yakarta 2’?” It will be difficult to sit down to dinner without saying “. So let’s hold Javier responsible for this.
This interview has been edited and condensed