Accent Rehearsals

This week is being dedicated to rehearsing the scenes with the Chilean officers actors (Gustavo Mac Lennan, Pepe Sarmiento y Patricio Villavicencio) together with civilian hacienda owner Weguelin (Igor Calvo).

It is important to reach a level of realness with that accent. I have seen many chilean videos where peruvians are depicted and portrayed and their accent seems a bit exaggerated or highland countryside sounding. There are typical highland and urban Peruvian accents as I'm sure there are in Chile too. The coast cities here have their own accent and usually officers live there as the main headquarters of a countries capital is in there. So I'm telling my actors to keep the accent noticeable but not too "amplified" with the high and lows of the typical Chilean accent but keep it more compressed and normal. More city-like. I showed them videos of Chilean politicians and learned the sound and fluctuations and then we practiced the script with that.

So far it's doing good. We just need to practice more so they don't have to concentrate on the accent but on the scene. To have that accent so natural that they don't have to think about it.

On a side note, Pepe Sarmiento was so nice to host a nice meal for us as we had the rehearsal at his apartment. Thank you Pepe, you are a good cook!

Sarmiento as Lagos

Having most of the actors that will play the Peruvian heroes covered, I'm focusing on the Chileans now.
Again, I'm sticking to physical similarities but also on actors that can portray the energy and character that I've researched each hero had.

So, for the temperamental and strong-headed colonel Pedro Lagos I could not make a better choice than to call Pepe Sarmiento.

I met him 6 years ago while doing a theater play together (doing "The Little Prince" at the Segura Theater where he played the Businessman character). He is a very good actor. Having that deep commanding voice and that presence, I found him suitable to play Lagos. I took a picture of us with the Chilean officer in the computer screen and as you can see, he does look similar.

He was more than happy to be in the film. In fact, he happens to have Chilean family (his mother was Chilean)
We shuffled actor names that could play General Baquedano and a couple of names came to mind....specially one.

And he happens to be back in Lima after being in Argentina for years.
I think the stars are aligning for me!!