Javier Chamber

Born on January 19, 1967, in Albelda de Iregua (La Rioja), Javier Cámara Rodríguez became interested in acting during his high school years, when he met a group of fans of the Teatro Pobre, whose director, Professor Fernando Gil , recommended that he go to Madrid to study at the Royal School of Dramatic Art (RESAD). The tests were tough and there were many more applicants than places, but he passed the selection without any problems. In order to pay for his studies, he had to work as an usher at the Figaro theater in Madrid.

He started from the bottom, literally ‘holding a spear’, since his first job was as an extra in “El caballero de Olmedo”, by the National Classic Theater Company, under the orders of Miguel Narros , one of the illustrious of the tables, that he had chosen a young actor who was already standing out as the protagonist: Carmelo Gómez . At that time, the truth is that Cámara did not have much opportunity to show his talent on stage, since his appearance in the play was anecdotal, but he was a talkative man, who drew attention, and when he came to the theater he used to play the piano. .

After several years without many prospects, he did a casting for Rosa Rosae , by Fernando Colomo , who chose him for a small role. But Colomo realized that he was not bad at acting, so he offered him another secondary role in Alegre ma non troppo , and later star in an ambitious television project. “Oh, I’m going to do a series in which I have a lot of role. We are two priests: Pajares and me”, Cámara himself told me in person at that time. The series was titled Oh, Lord, Lord! and indeed, Cámara had so much role that he became a popular face. Later he would play characters in the series This is my neighborhood , Hostal Royal Manzanares andJournalists .

In cinema he achieved success as a faithful companion of the protagonist in Torrente, the stupid arm of the law , which became the highest grossing Spanish film of all time. And although he shot titles like Cuarteto de La Habana or Lucía y el sexo , his consecration at a popular level came with the series Siete vidas .

Perhaps his first great professional challenge was playing Benigno, a nurse in love with a patient in a coma, in Talk to her , by Pedro Almodóvar , who bet heavily on him by giving him the leading role in the film. The man from La Mancha once again thought of Cámara for a much smaller role, in Bad Education , where he played a transvestite, but he drew a lot of attention, firstly because it is a very different role from the previous ones, and because in very few shots he is capable of to express that his character has not had an easy life. And it is that although he has excelled in the field of comedy, Cámara is very good at dramatic characters, as he has demonstrated by embodying the cook from The Secret Life of Words–another brief role, but to which the actor managed to endow with humanity–.

He was also a convincing Count-Duke of Olivares, the most powerful man in Spain, in Alatriste , a friend of a film director in Fiction , a former drug addict who returns to his Asturian home in La torre de Suso , and a husband forced by economic circumstances. to shoot porn movies with his wife, Candela Peña , in Torremolinos 73 . A Cámara is usually accompanied by success, as shown by the Lex series or the films Los girasoles ciegos or Que se mueren los feos . He will once again be under the command of Tom Fernández , director of La torre de Suso , inWhat good is a bear? .