As soon as you get ten people together and one of those people is a fan of board games, surely you have played ‘The werewolves of Castronegro’ (or its version with cards from the Spanish deck, ‘The town sleeps’).
And if you have done it, you already know what ‘Traitors Espana’ is about, a kind of mix that HBO Max is preparing between ‘El topo’ and the aforementioned game in which three people will eliminate someone innocent every night, and the innocent They will eliminate another person throughout the next day , in the hope that it is one of the traitors. If the phrase “I’m not a wolf, really, why would I lie to you?” sounds familiar to you, this is your reality show.
A casting that is cream
Instead of casting anonymous contestants, as ‘Insiders’ did, for example, ‘Traitors Espana’ has decided on a cast of people who excel at what they do but don’t become famous. Well, all but one: for some reason, all the Spanish reality shows lately insist on putting a policy. In this case, Cristina Cifuentes. It is ironic that the presenter of this program, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, is called “master”.
Together with Cifuentes there will be people with heads who may sound familiar to you in one way or another, and who can give a lot of play if they know what they are coming to. Because ‘Traitors Espana’ is not going to be a reality show about people living together in a house to shout at each other, but about intelligence, insight, alliances, daggers in the back and surprise eliminations. Personally, always hoping that in Spain we look a little like the United States in the reality world, I’m looking forward to seeing how this ends.
One of ours
There are some names that stand out right away: Skone was champion of the Battle of the Roosters in 2016 and much loved among the freestyler community. Next to her will be Apolonia Lapiedra, a former porn film actress whose stage name comes from Apollonia Vitelli, the character from ‘The Godfather’ and who has more than 300 films on her resume (58 according to Imdb, all told). None nominated for a Goya, for whatever reason.
You can see that each contestant is a little bit the son of his father and mother. Never better said in the case of Fernando Guillen Cuervo, nominated for a Goya in 1995 and whom we last saw in ‘To serve and protect’. He is not the only actor: Ruben Ochandiano was nominated in 2004, although he is perhaps best remembered for ‘Broken Embraces’. For her part, Sandra Escacena is known by all as ‘Veronica’.
It is surprising that Anna Allen, the famous actress who caused that scandal by photoshopping herself at the Oscars and announcing her participation in ‘The big bang theory’, appears among the contestants . Since ‘Paquita Salas’ brought her from her exile, we had lost track of her, and it is always a pleasure to hear from her.
Also competing will be Abril Zamora, the creator of ‘Todo lo otro’ and ‘Señoras del (h)ampa’, as well as an actress in ‘La vida por delante’ along with Sophia Loren and Adrian Pino, the ineffable Jose Ramon from ‘El vecino’ who He is a streamer from Monday to Thursday with about 1,300 subscribers. The most unexpected of all these is the representative of the press, the great Juan Sanguino, author of ‘Generacion Titanic’ and ‘How we have changed’ and presenter in ‘La sexta nominada’. Needless to say who we are going with.
Making a poker face
Accustomed as we are to the ex of the ex of a guy from Huelva who got involved one night with a second-rate celebrity, it is surprising to see actors, creators, journalists and other profiles as risky as these. Are we taking a step forward in the reality show for well-known people? Since they can’t be anonymous, at least they’re really good at it.
This is the case of Paula Pua, comedian, presenter, monologist and tweeter who became best known for being part of that fabulous lysergic experiment that was ‘The happy twenty’. Julio Munoz Gijon, for his part, was a reporter for TVE, Antena 3 and La Sexta and is now a writer with ten books to his credit. Leo Margets totally distances himself from the world of letters but not from the world of using his head: he is the best poker player in the world who in 2021 pocketed 400,000 euros in Las Vegas. If someone has to lie to their faces, let it be her.
Sports go sports!
There is also room for the sport thanks to Blanca Manchon, a windsurfer, winner of two world championships, participant in the Athens and Tokyo Olympics, named in 2010 as the World Sailor of the Year. Almost nothing. Jaime Nava, former player and captain of the Spanish rugby team who has already gone through ‘Masterchef celebrity’ and ‘La casa de papel’, will also be there.
They will also try to find the traitors a pure and hard boxer, Joana Pastrana, the first woman in history to win the European Minimum Weight Boxing Championship and Ray Zapata, a gymnast who was a silver medalist in Tokyo 2020 in the floor test. . To finish the crowd of athletes, Jaime Astrain, current model and former footballer best known for ‘El chiringuito de jugones’.
I don’t know how you see it, but for once I’m excited about a celebrity casting. Maybe because I don’t know what they can give, maybe because I think they really want to give it their all, maybe because at least they are people who want to strategize and think. The Cristina Cifuentes thing, in the end, is just a call for the undecided. I have all my hopes pinned on ‘Traitors Espana’, which will air on HBO Max starting in February. Let’s see if there is luck and it doesn’t telecinque.
