Echanove, Juan

(1961- )

   Juan Echanove's bulky build, sad liquid eyes, and fleshy features keep him from playing typical leading man parts, but his career has been all the more interesting for this. After beginning law studies, he shifted careers for acting, and his film debut took place in supporting roles in El caso Almería (The Almería Case, 1984) and La noche más hermosa (The Most Beautiful Night, 1984). He went on to play the excessive, sensualistic young intellectual who is oedipally obsessed with his mother in Vicente Aranda's Tiempo de Silencio (A Time of Silence, 1986). As in many of the younger post-Transition generation, his career took off after starring in a television series (as a lawyer in Turno de oficio). By the late 1980s, his had become a popular face, and this allowed him a certain freedom in the selection of film roles.

   A potentially unremarkable part as the retarded man in José Luis Garcia Sanchez's Divinas palabras (Divine Words, 1987) earned him a Goya as best supporting actor. He played General Francisco Franco in Francisco Regueiro's Madregilda (1993), his best hour on screen, which showcased his ability for comedy. Perfectly matching the film's tone, he approached the role as a caricature, and he put into it the cynicism and coldness of the real character. Very much in demand during the 1990s, he had a key supporting part in Pedro Almodóvar's La flor de mi secreto (Flower of My Secret, 1995) as a lonely, over-emotional journalist who develops unrequited feelings for the protagonist. Next came a starring part in García Sanchez's Suspiros de España (y Portugal) (Spanish [ and Portuguese ] Sighs, 1995) and his enjoyable turn as a fascist heavy in Fernando Colo-mo's road movie Los años bárbaros (The Barbarian Years, 1998).

   Echanove returned to the theater to play Sancho Panza in a staging of Cervantes' novel Don Quixote, as well as in a monologue in which he played a pig (The Pig). In recent years, he has worked regularly, but mostly in supporting roles. He was especially good in Morir en San Hilario (To Die in Saint Hilario, Laura Mañá, 2005), Bienvenido a casa (Welcome Home, David Trueba, 2006), and Alatriste (Agustín Díaz Yanes, 2006), in which he was almost unrecognizable as Spanish Golden Age poet Francisco de Quevedo.