Pedro Almodóvar is known for mining his own personal experience, but Bitter Christmas (Amarga Navidad) explores this on a whole new level.
DEADLINE: How long have you been thinking about this film? It feels like the culmination of so much personal experience. Watch on Deadline
DEADLINE: A hallmark of your films is the complexity and twists and turns of your plotting. How much do you plan in advance before you begin writing?
DEADLINE: Speaking of that character, I wonder if that, for you, is the internal antagonist who asks those questions of yourself?
I have touched upon this in films like Bad Education or Broken Embraces, but I do feel like I have done this so definitively in this particular film that I may never again come back to that topic.
DEADLINE: There’s a great scene with Beau set to the music of Grace Jones. Can you tell me about building that scene and about casting Patrick Criado?
DEADLINE: I laughed out loud in the scene where Elsa explains what it means to be a cult director. That feels so real. Is that a conversation you’ve had in your own life?
DEADLINE: Do you feel you’ll ever return to English-language films?
So, it depends, but I’m reading [English-language material] because I would like to keep on working with those actors. With Ethan Hawke I made a short film called Strange Way of Life. I would like to work again with Tilda and Julianne. And I really am looking to find something that I could manage and that could make an adaptation. So, perhaps in the future there will be another movie in English.
Source: deadline.com