A cloudy morning colors the sky of Providencia. In the distance, Luz Jiménez (91) walks slowly but surely. She is coming from one of the many activities she has during the week: this morning was her usual kinesiology session. She greets shyly but kindly, and opens the doors of her home, a perfectly decorated apartment, where nothing seems to be placed by chance.
While preparing coffee, she confesses that neither photographs nor interviews are to her liking. “I don’t like to make the private public”, she says while arranging two cups on a tray.
On a countertop there is a small statue that stands out next to a fruit bowl full of kiwis, avocados, and bananas. It is a winged bronze figure: the popular Caleuche Awards statuette, which Luz received in 2022 in recognition of her acting career. “When that happened, I was sought out a lot for interviews, but I accepted almost none,” she recalls as she sees me looking at the award.
Luz was barely 12 years old when she first felt a connection with the performing arts. Her father took her to the Municipal Theater to see the opera Porgy and Bess, by the American composer George Gershwin. “The music was so beautiful and the acting so lovely that I was practically hypnotized. It impacted me a lot. I think that’s when this dream of theater started growing,” she remembers.
Thus, when she finished her schooling, she decided to apply to the Theater School of the University of Chile: “It was all very beautiful, but after two years I left for inexplicable reasons.” Around those years, Luz took a long trip, started a family, and had four daughters. She worked as a secretary and led a life away from the stage, until a theater performance she attended put the stage back in front of her eyes.
“What do I do? This is my thing. What am I doing typing things I don’t understand?” she thought. “That’s when I took the step. I entered as an administrative worker at the Theater School of the Catholic University, graduated from there, and never left it again.”
Today, with more than 50 years of experience in theater, film, and television, Luz remains as active as ever. She has just finished shooting the independent short film Fallen from Heaven, which addresses loneliness in old age and vulnerable childhoods. She is also preparing to star in Love Story for an Old Soul, a play that centers on old age and the idea that it is never too late to live life.
—How would you describe the moment in your life you are currently in?
I live it as best as I can because it goes by very fast. I live it with enthusiasm, I try to avoid worrying about ailments, I do my best not to focus on medical problems, I try to solve them and never lose enthusiasm. For me, being in theater at this moment is the most beautiful thing that happens to me because I like it a lot. I deeply love what I do. I feel it is a way of living, thinking, doing everything with a lot of love to communicate good things or also to criticize what is not so good. For me, the themes, the plays, the direction, the group, all of that is important and I have a great time. I don’t spend very long hours watching TV; sometimes I don’t even get to see the things I want to see, series like One Hundred Years of Solitude or The House of the Spirits, which is also beautiful. I manage to watch them, but it’s not like I have plenty of time. It’s a calm and at the same time intense life.
—When talking about careers as long as yours, the focus is often on what is lost with the years. What do you think is gained?
Understanding life, that’s it. Understanding differences, the good, the less good, nature, friendship, love. You gain because doing theater is basically reflecting on your own life where you point out the good, the bad, the undesirable, the forgivable, the dreamed, the beautiful. It’s a reflection where everything serves.
– Is there any secret to staying so relevant?
I don’t think there’s a secret, I think it’s basically a choice. Taking care of yourself to be able to keep working. That’s why I think enthusiasm is very important, not losing it and being positive, because that’s what gives vitality. It’s not age, it’s enthusiasm, it’s the desire to keep going, the desire to live, to love life deep down. Not giving up, which is the most common, because many things start to fail you. With enthusiasm and care, it’s the only way you can keep going.
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—After so many years of career, is there still something that makes you nervous when starting a new project?
Everything, of course. Of course, you learn to concentrate, and that is a great help. Because when you arrive at the theater, you look at everything, check the hall, the space, go to the dressing room. It’s inevitable: when the hall is full and you feel you have to go in, it’s impossible for you to feel indifferent. So, how do you face that? By concentrating and focusing there, in that present. Not at home, the street, the daughters, the friends. All that leaves your world and you concentrate on the story, on what you are going to do. That nervousness is also a drive, but you have to focus on what you are going to do, nothing else, and think that you do it because you like it. Then you have a good time.
Luz has just finished shooting an independent short film directed by the audiovisual filmmaker from Puerto Montt, Alfonso Ferrer. The story shows Iris and Luis, who unexpectedly cross paths when the young man, escaping over the roofs from a juvenile detention center, falls into the woman’s yard. Iris, an older woman who lives alone and carries the regrets of her past, decides to hide Luis in her house, opening a possibility of repair for both through tenderness and care.
“I really liked the story, it talks a lot about young people today. There are so many kids who get into all kinds of things. Curiously, there is something in him that makes me feel compassion. It’s something I think is very relevant right now, there are many young people involved in the most wrong things imaginable. The problem is very big and here it is told with great simplicity. That’s what I liked, that there is a level of compassion, of understanding,” she says about the project.
– Through Iris, the character you play in this short film, what reflection do you make about loneliness in old age?
It’s a complicated topic because it’s not always possible not to fall into loneliness, it’s inevitable and you don’t always have the character to accept it and look for activity. I think it’s not always negative to be alone. I think society sees it as something very negative and it’s not like that, or not always like that. It is especially so when there is physical need, but if not, it can be very good. In her case (Iris, the character she represents), for example, she was able to afford to take care of the boy and turn her life around, but there are many people who cannot do that for many reasons.
—The short film speaks from tenderness and care. What place do you think tenderness has today in a society that seems to always be in a hurry?
The story shows tenderness as being able to bend down and pick up, with affection and putting aside the ego. In today’s fast world, tenderness gets lost in the crowd, falls to the ground and no one picks it up. Tenderness is necessary, it is an expression of love, of stepping out of yourself and being able to lend a hand, to look at the other, to bend down, to listen, to be gentle.
At the beginning of the conversation, Luz had said she doesn’t have time to spare. Her agenda confirms it. Before saying goodbye, she opens it and shows a week full of notes: kinesiology sessions, rehearsals, meetings, and other commitments. There are hardly any blank spaces left.
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—Here is my life —she says.
And she keeps turning the pages, reviewing everything she still has ahead.
