"The actor of the day," "a rare find in cinema who only comes along every so often," "truly sets the scene." All this and more has been said about Enric Auquer, an actor who has won a Goya award, an Ondas award, and three Feroz awards over the past two years. He is a force on stage, a natural talent about whom we will undoubtedly continue to hear a great deal. And we're lucky that he's from here, a true Empordà local. We're also fortunate that he's approachable, sensitive, and caring. He's professional yet laid back all at the same time. He's the type of person who exaggerates his flaws and shows them to you so openly that they become virtues.

But let's start at the beginning. His mother and father. You're the son of an ecological architecture genius and a dancer who is renowned in dance education.

We weren't the typical family from Verges. My mother isn't originally from the Empordà, and my father is an interesting guy. My parents were kind of hippies and I would get upset with my family for not being more normal. Now that I'm grown, I can only give them my greatest appreciation.

You always say in interviews that your youth was a mess and that theater brought order to it.

One of the toughest moments in my life was all the pressure when I was a teenager. I was really lost, afraid, and rebellious. I was a disaster at school and I was diagnosed with everything that excitable and imaginative kids have: ADD, hyperactivity, anxiety, dyslexic to the max. At home I was under pressure to find a calling, but I was stranded.

When did everything click for you? At what age?

When I was 19. After working on a goat farm, as an electrician, and doing all sorts of odd jobs, I left for Barcelona to study theater. My mother, who is incredibly supportive, encouraged me a lot. In my early adolescence I was angry with the Empordà. I couldn't find anything there for me. Now that I've grown up, I see there's an incredible sense of belonging to the landscape, to a way of doing things, to the people. For me it is a place of salvation where I arrive and, well (sighs), I feel completely at home. Something grasps me inside, a tenderness, an inner peace.

Is it the peace of childhood?

Kids who have grown up here are clever. I walked to school on my own and spent the afternoons playing. I never did my homework. We'd go down to play in the river Ter, do stupid things, drink alcohol. We did all sorts of things and with no adult supervision. My parents always gave us a lot of freedom. I had a friend in Jafre and always wanted to go there. “Dad, can you take me to Jafre?” “No.” “Well, I'll go hitchhiking then.” "Fine, go hitchhiking."

Professionally, where do you feel most at ease, in the artistic circles of Madrid or Barcelona?

I went to Madrid to live for a while to do a TV series and ended up doing something on Instagram when I didn't even use it. But I feel more at home in the Empordà, really. In terms of work, I prefer projects that aren't studio produced, but where people work because they want to share something, smaller productions. And I feel more at ease with female directors.

FUGA. Where did this gem of a short film you co-directed come from?

Álex Sardà, my cousin, and I were here for three months during the lockdown. When I saw him drive by one day, I said, "Alex, we've got to do something." What could we talk about? Family. What we came up with was a journey across generations, about my relationship with my father and how I'm learning to take care of my daughter. It featured a character who isn't yet able to fully take care of himself and has to self-destruct to feel guilty in order to return to his family. It's something of an exaggerated, fictionalized autobiography that's more sordid in order to connect with people. Basically, it's an Oedipus complex sort of thing. The film Alex and I are making is about that.

You dedicated the Gaudí prize to Maria Carreter. Who is she?

She’s a big part of it all. She was my father's neighbor when he was young. A marvelous woman, a real local treasure. She took care of my sisters and I without expecting anything in return. There were terrible rumors going around that she had fallen in love with my grandfather. She looked after me, took me to the orchard, picked me up at school, bought me snacks. I have profound love for her. She gave me an assurance of being loved simply by existing. As an adult now, I understand the Empordà through her somehow.