Life is smiling at the Mexican actor both personally and professionally
Considered one of the most recognized telenovela actors in Mexico today, Gabriel Soto has plenty of reasons to feel lucky, especially during these uncertain times. And it is that life is smiling at the 45-year-old actor with the three necessary tools that are needed to overcome this delusion that the pandemic has brought us: health, work and love. On a professional level, we are a few days away from the premiere of Te acuerdas de mi, the Mexican version of the Turkish soap opera known as Queen of the Night, which will star Soto along with Fátima Molina and which will begin to air this February 8 on Univision.
In the sentimental field, the actor announced great news on January 20: he got engaged to Irina Baeva . The famous couple shared that they will be married very soon and although they still do not have a defined date for the marriage, Gabriel told us the details of the proposal that took place in Huatulco and the reaction of which very soon it will become his second wife. In the same way, he told us about the reaction of his daughters, Elisa Marie and Alexa Miranda, who are from his first marriage to Geraldine Bazán.
Finally, during the exclusive photo session we had with him in one of the recording sets of his most recent project, the businessman also reveals his future plans as a boxing agent, his dreams of enlarging the family with his future wife and the legacy he wishes to leave to his children on this difficult but very fulfilling path in acting.
How do you start the year?
The truth is that I am very grateful, very blessed. 2020 was a very difficult year for all of us in so many aspects. So, starting 2021 with this great project, Do you remember me, is a great blessing. I think that today being healthy is a blessing and having a job too, so I can‘t stop thanking God for starting the year with this very important project for Televisa here in Mexico, for Univision, in the United States. A project that for my career is a challenge.
Tell us about the psychology of your character in the soap opera …
I always say in interviews that I don‘t like to talk a lot because it is a very complex story. I would have to have a lot of time to start telling the story and if I start telling them, then people are not going to see it anymore. So we better invite people to see it, not to miss it. Starting February 8 on Univision at 8 pm / 9 pm central. Quickly, I can tell you that my character is called Pedro Cáceres, he is a person who kills his father at the beginning of the story, then Olmo, who is played by the teacher Guillermo García Cantú, adopts him. The only thing I can say about the character’s psychology is that he is a person who is always debating between what he wants to do and what his heart dictates him to do and what his feelings dictate him to do and what he really has to do, out of gratitude and for the education he has.
Tell us about the psychology of your character in the soap opera …
I always say that, as an actor, when it comes to playing any character, we all have a very wide range of emotions and things that it does to us as people, as individuals. So, it‘s like an audio console, you have to upload it here to anger, upload it here to love, or lower it here to the other. It is finding a perfect harmony to give life to the character you are playing, which they require. We all have a little bit of everything. Nothing else is to go up where you most identify and go down where least. Well, finally Pedro is a hardworking man, he is a good man, he is a grateful man and there are always similarities with one as an individual and as a person in the characters you play.
Have you found similarities between the character and you in real life?
I always say that, as an actor, when it comes to playing any character, we all have a very wide range of emotions and things that it does to us as people, as individuals. So, it‘s like an audio console, you have to upload it here to anger, upload it here to love, or lower it here to the other. It is finding a perfect harmony to give life to the character you are playing, which they require. We all have a little bit of everything. Nothing else is to go up where you most identify and go down where least. Well, finally Pedro is a hardworking man, he is a good man, he is a grateful man and there are always similarities with one as an individual and as a person in the characters you play.
What makes this character different from others you have played?
I think it has to do with the cut of the novel that we are doing, that we are telling. Francisco Franco is a director who demands a lot at the acting level. I have just come from doing a comedy, which was called Single with Daughters, in another tone, in another corporality, in another way of expressing emotions. Single with Daughters, everything was very open and very big because it is comedy and here it is much more content. It‘s a bit like the way of acting like a series, like cinema, where the camera is the one that moves, the camera is the one that finds you. So it has to adapt to what the director and the story itself require.
How does this proposal come to you?
I have been with the company for more than 25 years, we all know each other and they already know my work. Thanks again to my company, Televisa, for giving me this news in the midst of the pandemic, because I had some plans to do two very important plays. We were going to do the Why Men Love Babies tour. Precisely, in the United States we already had more than 25 dates sold and well, it fell apart. I had the staging of Aventurera with Señor Juan Osorio, also here in Mexico, a great staging that also fell apart. So, there are things that obviously already have that and the pandemic came to us to throw everything away. In August, September, I got the call and we started doing pre-production work and well, the truth is that it has been a great blessing. Again, to resurface and start working after so many months of inactivity has been amazing.
How has the recording dynamics been in times of a global pandemic?
Very complicated. Obviously, it greatly encourages the pace of production. We have to take care of ourselves all the time, healthy distance, using the mask, antibacterial gel, washing your hands and above all, that we have very limited locations. We cannot be filming in parks, in streets, anywhere. We have to modify the script to be able to do it and remove the scenes that were already written and that we had not planned to return to the streets.
In that sense, how have the scenes of physical contact worked?
This soap opera is charged with passion, it is charged with love. The love story is extremely powerful and is the backbone of this story. There can be no contact and the only way to save it is by testing for COVID every week. In fact, every Tuesday we are tested for COVID to try to stay as healthy and safe as possible.
How did the subject of the “famous” video of yours that came to light affect you?
What I said about the video I already said on social networks and it is quickly the same. Without a doubt, a vulnerable situation presented itself to me. It was a long time ago. And yes, it was a very strong violation of my privacy. A complaint has already been raised, supporting me on the Olympia law, that finally to the people who have passed or this type of thing may happen, know that this type of act has a punishment. The Olimpia law is already endorsed by the law in Mexico.
And is that law effective?
Yes, it has been legislated for more than a year and we know that the punishment is 4 to 7 years in prison for those who disseminate videos without the consent of the person. Obviously, here in my case there was no consent. It is about setting precedents that the law becomes effective, that there is a punishment for people who violate privacy in this way. The complaint is already running with the investigation of the cyber police and with the whole world to find the person responsible for this violation of our privacy, my privacy in this case.
You are already a committed man, tell us how was the proposal?
I did it on her birthday, October 25, in Huatulco. Precisely, we were recording the novel Do you remember me? in the main location and we had to record in a very nice hotel that is also a place that specializes in the subject of anniversaries, weddings, all that kind of thing. They had everything necessary to make something very beautiful and I think that all the necessary elements were combined to make it something very beautiful and magical, on the beach.
What was Irina‘s reaction?
Sí, ya está legislada hace más de un año y sabemos que el castigo es de 4 a 7 años de cárcel para los que difundan videos sin el consentimiento de la persona. Evidentemente, aquí en mi caso no había ningún consentimiento. Se trata de marcar precedentes de que la ley se hace efectiva, de que hay un castigo para la gente que viola la intimidad de esta manera. La denuncia ya está corriendo con la investigación de la policía cibernética y con todo el mundo para dar con el responsable de esta violación a nuestra intimidad, a mi intimidad en este caso.
Have you already decided where and when the wedding will be?
We still don‘t have anything planned, we don’t have a date. We have to let things go according to the pandemic that has us all in detention. The idea is that Irina’s family travel from Russia, especially her parents, her sister with her husband, the nephews, the aunt … well, the closest people, not many people because obviously not everyone can travel. Until international flights open and we adapt to the projects that we have for work to be able to do something beautiful.
What do you think of the criticism you‘ve received for the size of the ring?
Yes, there has been a lot of criticism about the size of the ring. In this regard, I believe a couple of things: first, that size has absolutely nothing to do with it, here what matters is the size of love. Second, the people who say that a bigger ring and so forth, the truth is that I think it is pure superficiality and materialism. The third is that I believed that a ring of that nature, the more discreet and simpler in that sense, is much more elegant.
Would you rule out the possibility of having one more child?
Well, never say I will not drink this water, or never say never. No, this is part of the process, it is part of adapting as a couple and understanding the needs of each other to continue walking together. We‘ll see what happens, let’s go step by step.
Playing with the name of the soap opera, how would you want people or those who love you to remember you?
That‘s a great question. I always try in my life to be a generous person, I try to work hard on my spiritual awareness and just to be a kind and compassionate person. I always try to help the people around me, give them all the attention and love that I can. This is how I would like to be remembered. I try to be the best person I can be, above all with compassion, always with a smile at life to see the positive side of things.
What projects, obviously, apart from this soap opera, do you have planned for 2021?
My plans and the things that I have worked on for many years is obviously my acting career. Well, the theater and we all don‘t know if it will open as far as I understood with the producers, we were going to resume in March, once the novel was finished. But hey, we don’t know if the theaters are going to open or not. As soon as they open, I’m sure we’re going to put on the staging of Why Men Love Little Boys. And the other thing is my boxing Foundation, where I am working, supporting different talents of Mexican boxing, where I am already a manager, let’s say, of two of them. One of them is doing very well, his name is Óscar Duarte, who you met, he has already fought, then he is already in the process of shaping himself towards, because he is going to be world champion and obviously good, because that opens the doors to many other aspects , no?
