Mariana Genesio tells how it was to “see herself as a man” for her new film project – GENTE Online

Weeks ago, Mariana Genesio surprised by showing his transformation for his new project. Is about Panamaa suspenseful black comedy that, based on satire, questions the attributes traditionally associated with masculinity, as the “domain”; “aggressiveness” and “addiction to risk and adventure”. At least that’s how he defines it ull galindezactor and director under whom Mariana shot this crude film in which the characters “let themselves be carried away by the absurd humor that runs through their entire lives.”

“The charm of the film, its singularity, is the tone with which the story is told,” Galindez anticipates when referring to his new project, which is a film adaptation of a play (written by Hernan Lopez). And Mariana, who during the talk she will confess to having experienced a shock when accepting the challenge of masculinizing for this new roleexplains the genesis of this piece that “is about a detective who is looking for someone and finds a married couple that makes him enter his home and his world.”

“The project was proposed to me by Ull Galíndez, who is the director and one of the protagonists. He sent me the script and I was hooked, but I couldn’t get the tone right. After talking to him, when we got together for coffee, he told me more in detail. There he told me that it was a black humor movie, something that I love and i fell in love with my character”, says Mariana in dialogue with PEOPLE.

Mariana Genesio and her “strong” transformation “as a man” for her new role

“My husband is Marcelo Subiotto and my character is a kind of diva who seduces this detective (Ull Galíndez). In the first talk I had with the director, he told me that at one point, the film tells a story of the past and goes to a flashback in which my character is shown as a boy, as a kid”, retraces the revelation actress of small victory (Telephone) and the marginal (Public TV).

That’s when Galíndez launched: “Do you dare? Because I know that many trans actresses do not dare to go through that place”. And she did not hesitate. “For me it was like a new challenge because I knew it was going to be very strong for me. Imagine that I haven’t seen myself as a kid since I was 15 years old, ”she shares.

This was the characterization of Mariana Genesio for the film Panama

When it came time for the characterization (which was in charge of the make-up artist Franco La Pietra) it was a before and an after. “It was great, because it was an excellent hair and makeup job. We even used a very real little wig, they enlarged my eyebrows and well… they masculinized me, something I struggled with since adolescence, ”she points out mobilized.

Searching for an answer to how he was encouraged to accept this new role, Genesio reflects: “I think having cheered me up has to do with my maturity of making friends with all my sides. Accept myself as I am, with the feminine and the masculine, and that is why I accepted that challenge.

Seeing herself in the mirror characterized was also for Mariana a moment in which she recalled her history, her evolution and her struggle to be who she wanted to be. “Seeing me was very strong and at the same time beautiful. Apart from putting on a school uniform it was like a regression. It was a very special experience ”, he confesses in an intimate tone and almost like a chat on a couch.

“I’m not going to spoil you, but I have really cute scenes and even some very dark ones, especially when he tells how he meets who his husband is currently. The good thing about fiction is also that, that you can go through very difficult situations ”, she reveals, recalling her own story at school, when at 15 she began to discover herself.

The life story of Mariana Genesio: in search of identity and pursuing acceptance

Genesio, who studied Psychology and English Translator, was a bartender, makeup artist and waitress and had her own burlesque show in a Cordoba disco where she began her gradual transformation and self-discovery, she continues to consummate her “story of freedom and acceptance” at every step.

Born “thirty years ago” – from the first note she made with PEOPLE who prefers to keep the secret of her age – in a humble house in the capital Córdoba, full of “horrible furniture” and raised by her young parents (he worked in a car dealership and she was a housewife), she was always charming.

In fact, she recalled in another note with this medium that at seven she had “an early sexual awakening”, which led her to “make me the girlfriend and kiss with my schoolmates in the bathrooms. Nobody dared to tell it, of course, but I was drunk. In her puberty she maintained an image “rather androgynous, which I was transforming in adolescence.”

At 19, together with her lifelong friends (Gisel, Gaby, and Fernando, her late “brother” whom she honored in a scene from small victory) “I discovered femininity and started riding”. It was at the Dorian Gray disco, where he did perfos and burlesque dance, but maintained a “dark or sweatpants style to the gwen Stefani”.

He found his identity by always doing what he wanted: “I never got hormonal. The only thing more difficult was the issue of hair, until the salvation of permanent hair removal arrived. What do you wish for everyone today? “Self-acceptance, which is the most difficult to achieve.”

Mariana Genesio: her arrival in Buenos Aires and her difficult beginnings

Genesio recounted his hard beginnings in several interviews in PEOPLE. In a 2019 cover story, in dialogue with who he writes, he harshly recounted how he arrived in Buenos Aires and the difficulties he had “being a trava.” “It was in 2008. I was very lonely and on the verge of prostitution, living in a room in a family hotel in Palermo. All transvestites who worked in the red zone lived on the floor below, and I saw the life they lived, ”she recounted.

And he continued: “I was looking for a job and I couldn’t find it, they discriminated against me. I had no one, but on the other hand I felt very alive: I had nothing to lose. And instead of sheltering myself in people of my same type, I broke away from loneliness and started little by little.

–What was it like to be on the verge of choosing another path because you needed the money?

–I had made the decision to do it, because I no longer had enough to eat. At one point I said, “Well, I don’t have a choice.” It was something I didn’t want to fall into, but I talked to a friend and decided to get on a page where they offer to have sex. He lent me a phone for work and that night I cried a lot. The next day it was already starting, but a series of miracles happened.

–And immediately, in 2009, Nicolás appeared (Giacobone, who later –already in a relationship with her– would win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay together with his cousin, Armandito Bo, for Birdman, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu).

-Yeah. I first came across Roberto Piazza, who called me to parade. I realized that I had to keep insisting on acting, and then I met Nicolás at La Giralda. That night we went to the theater together to see Fernando Peña and we were never separated. The love of my husband (now his ex) saved me from falling into prostitution. What happened to me, without a doubt, happens only once in a lifetime. For a girl like me, who didn’t work in any movie, to end up at the cradle of cinema party, surpassed all my dreams. And now I’m directly like Vivian Ward, living every line of the fairy tale.