The actor who plays one of the members of the Band visited ‘El Hormiguero’ to tell his personal story, full of changes of course.
Hovik Keuchkerian is one of the strongest and most totemic of The Professor’s band. In fiction, we don’t imagine him going through a rough patch. In real life things change, although he still has the same character as a survivor. This week he has visited the set of El Hormiguero , where he has confessed that he has gone through a very bad time in his life that has led him to consume alcohol on a regular basis. Right now he is in a stage of reconciliation with himself and, after finishing his work at La Casa de Papel , he has taken a break to reflect.
Before becoming an actor, Keuchkerian developed a professional boxing career, which began in earnest in 1999. He was proclaimed champion of Spain in the heavyweight category in 2003 and won again the following year. However, he lost his passion for the sport and retired. That’s where the problems started. “Back in 2005, when I stopped fighting, I went to the other side. For boxing and for personal things. Until I was 32 I was a … Not that I wanted my body to be a temple, but I had not drunk anything , I didn’t smoke, I was training, in my gym, with my things. Suddenly, I stopped boxing. The fucking thing about stopping chasing a dream is that, the next morning, you have an absolute hole . The day is very long and not you know what to do, “the actor begins by explaining to Pablo Motos.
A Mexican boxing partner told him “In Mexico men drown our sorrows with tequila” and he took it too seriously. It took several years of being lost until he began to find his place in the profession he currently occupies, that of actor. He started doing monologues, he signed for Hispania and everything started up again. “I lost the passion. I had two or three years that I was going aimlessly. And the monologues gave me back that focus.”
It was thanks to his friend Jorge Blass – yes, the famous magician – who listened to him tell jokes for his friends and encouraged him to write a number. You can see how well this facet is in the monologue Cocretas that he recorded for Paramount Comedy. From that, he created the show A beggar with cotton shoes , which ran for three seasons on Gran Vía. Since then, he began to chain actors’ roles in various productions, both theatrical, television and film.
It has been a roller coaster for many years in which alcohol is the door to think only of you, isolate yourself at home, separate yourself from people and you are saved by being in the wheel at a professional level
Already within his new profession, it still took some time until he found happiness. He himself explains how you can get into a routine without feeling fulfilled. “It is not the same to be on a film set 100% involved in what you have to do than to be waiting for 6pm to arrive to get home and open a bottle of whiskey.”
He left this wheel on May 6, when his mother called him on the phone worried. “He took me to the corner of the ring and threw everything at me. My mother was Joe Frazier on the phone,” he says on the show, “He told me ‘You’re fat, you’re toxic, you’re ugly, you’re hunched over … Basically, it was a hunk. shit “ . Those words penetrated him very deeply and he decided to change for good.
Now he has decided to rest. Once La Casa de Papel is finished , he has given himself some time off to be with himself – except for a job that he is going to carry out with Paco León, with whom he is enthusiastic. He has missed numerous projects because “my project was me . ” He noticed that he was falling back into a routine that he did not like and, before falling into a well, he stopped to be able to come back with more force. “I am finding myself again. I have put on a year. In a year I will be perfectly prepared for war.”
We can still see him in the second part of season 5 of La Casa de Papel , in addition to Rainbow , the film directed by Paco León and which can be seen on Netflix.