Daniel Sánchez Arévalo: “My actors have to be good actors and good people”

Expert family portraitist, director Daniel Sánchez Arévalo (Madrid, 1970) has returned to cinema, six years after his last feature film, with Seventeen, which is available on Netflix. Two brothers (Biel Montoro and Nacho Sánchez) who don’t quite understand each other, their grandmother, a dog, a motorhome and kilometers of open road are the basic ingredients of a film that goes straight to the heart. The director of Dark Blue Almost Black and Cousinhood explains this bittersweet adventure on wheels.

You define yourself as an optimistic pessimist. What does this mean? It is a term that my producer thought up, because, in my films, I always set a very dramatic opening scenario. Even in Cousinhood (2011), which is the brightest of all. And, from there, I go towards the light.

And of all your movies, Seventeen is the one in which the characters have less dialogue. Above all, Héctor, the teenager who runs away from a juvenile detention center to look for the dog he was training.

The way the story itself develops explains the action, and it helps me to use fewer words. It’s a film in which I try to explain more using fewer elements in general. My previous works were more motley and had more parallel storylines that intersected at one point or another. I’m very proud of those first opening minutes of Seventeen, without dialogues.

This is your debut road movie.

Yes, and it’s something I really wanted to do. I really love movies like Rain Man, Thelma & Louise, Little Miss Sunshine and Nebraska, all of which were my references for Seventeen.

You’re a great discoverer of actors: on this occasion, you’ve decided to break from repeating your collaboration with Quim Gutiérrez, Raúl Arévalo or Antonio de la Torre, but you discover Biel Montoro (Héctor) and Nacho Sánchez (Ismael) for this movie. Was it hard to find them?

Both Biel and Nacho appeared very early on in the casting process, and I fell in love with them separately. Not only did they fit the characters, but they improved their texts. And, putting them together was absolutely magical.

This is your debut road movie.

Yes, and it’s something I really wanted to do. I really love movies like Rain Man, Thelma & Louise, Little Miss Sunshine and Nebraska, all of which were my references for Seventeen.

You’re a great discoverer of actors: on this occasion, you’ve decided to break from repeating your collaboration with Quim Gutiérrez, Raúl Arévalo or Antonio de la Torre, but you discover Biel Montoro (Héctor) and Nacho Sánchez (Ismael) for this movie. Was it hard to find them?

Both Biel and Nacho appeared very early on in the casting process, and I fell in love with them separately. Not only did they fit the characters, but they improved their texts. And, putting them together was absolutely magical.

Any other project on the horizon?

Not only one, I have two. I don’t want to wait another six years before getting behind the camera again. I’ll try to shoot one next year.

And will you repeat with Biel Montoro and Nacho Sánchez? Will you add them to the already numerous and ever-growing ‘Sánchez Arévalo Family’?

(Laughing), don’t be too surprised! The family grows, and I’m hanging onto Biel and Nacho for myself. My actors don’t just have to be good actors. They also have to be good people.