Listen to the interview in streaming audio (requires Apple Quicktime)

Julieta Cardinali is a striking young actress with a wonderful Argentinean accent. Her work in Valentin, opening this weekend, shows that she can act as well.

She joined me in Atlanta to talk about Valentin.

Before speaking with Julieta, I reviewed her filmography and noticed work on several Argentine television shows. Given her tender performance in the delicate Valentin, I asked her whether she preferred playing gentle characters or my words, "saucy bitches."

"[Laughter] Wow!" Julieta responded. "It depends, but I enjoyed so much doing this character in Valentin…. I like the more kind characters." Julieta smiled.

In Valentin, she plays a young woman named Leticia, who is dating the young Valentin's troubled father.

"We talked with the director and we figured out that this girl [Leticia] when she walked with Valentin, she starts listening to things about his father and she starts to realize that she is not in love with his father because he is terrible, he's awful, you know. And we had to show that with the face with expression and we tried to do that and show the sadness with the eyes, through her eyes." Said Julieta, who could not articulate these feelings to the little Valentin out of fear that it would hurt his relationship with his father.

I asked her about the little actor, Rodrigo Noya, that plays Valentin and whether he really had crossed eyes.

"Yes, he did," she smiled. "He came out from casting, and he did a great job. He was seven years old." I asked her about the fact that the little actor had so much dialogue. "He was like a genius," she said, "because he always remembered his lines, and we never had to, well, sometimes, yes, but he had this great memory."

I asked Julieta why she chose to do Valentin.

"When I read the script, first read the script, I didn't have any doubt. It was just such a great script, such a great story to tell. And I just wanted to make this movie and do this character."

This is Julieta's second film with the director, Alejandro Agresti. She had previously appeared in Agresti's film A Night with Sabrina Love where she played the real love interest for a young man who wins a contest permitting him to meet a famous porn star. Julieta is not the porn star in the film, rather, that role is played by famous Argentinean actress Cecilia Roth.

I asked Julieta about whether the mature Valentin was a typical example of an Argentinean child (I compared the depiction of the young boy in Valentin with the depiction of the daughter in Jersey Girl). Immediately, Julieta reminded me that Valentin is depicted as a little adult.

"He is like that because he lives in an adult world. He is shaped like an adult and when he has to go to the doctor for his grandmother, well, that is an adult thing to do, not for a seven year old boy."

With regard how the character of Valentin might have affected the little child actor, Rodrigo Noya, who play him, Julieta told me that he got along very well with the director and seemed to have fun with the role.

Virtually all of Julieta's scenes were with Rodrigo Noya.

"We had a connection and got along very well. We were like together all the time when we're not shooting, we played and talked." She told me. There is no doubt that Noya and Julieta had chemistry in Valentin especially during a scene where the little Valentin confronts Leticia.

Julieta Cardinali has just finished another film with writer/director Alejandro Agresti. Valentin opens on May 7th, 2004.

Listen to the interview in streaming audio (requires Apple Quicktime)

Jonathan W. Hickman