Cuban actress Verónica Lynn is 80 years old, but only her own insistence in announcing it gives credibility to this fact. She has worked in theater, film, radio, and television for more than 55 years, and is among the most popular figures in the Cuban cultural scene. A consummate professional, she has managed to turn her many dramatic appearances into authentic master classes. She has been acclaimed in plays such as Santa Camila de La Habana Vieja (1961) and in the character of Marina Luz Romaguera (in Aire Frío by Virgilio Piñera, 1962). On TV, she performed as Doña Teresa in Sol de Batey, and as Rachel’s mother in the film La Bella del Alhambra (1989). These are just a few of the roles that have earned her much adulation and affection from the Cuban public. More recently, she appeared as the beloved grandmother of Juan Carlos in Larga Distancia (2010).

Norge Espinosa Mendoza: You graduated from the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA), specializing in Theater Criticism. I wonder if, after so many years of work and so many characters portrayed, you maintain a critical attitude toward your own performances. Is Verónica Lynn a rigorous self critic?

VL: I am always, always critical. After some time has passed, I go over my recorded scenes. Then I discover mistakes I had made, places where I came up short. I have also felt satisfied with some scenes. But to achieve that, we must work hard; we must care about all the small bits of dialogue that reveal a lot about the character. Those are the hardest, because they give you a deeper understanding of the character’s psychology, even in its minutest details. I am a critic of my work; I am indeed.

Perhaps this comes from the rigor learned on stage and in front of the camera, together with other great actors you’ve had the privilege to work with. Who have been the reference points in your development as an actress?

For me, since childhood, the theater was a bit like playing—even without knowing I was playing. I came from a very poor family and went to the theater late. My youthful dreams were about film, radio, and television. By 1955 I realized that acting was not just feigning a feeling but required preparation. The more I studied and learned, the better I could be at my work. With directors like Andrés Castro, Vicente Revuelta, and Adolfo de Luis, I learned more about the techniques of Constantin Stanislavski. For me, acting became very serious.

If you ask me about a role model, I have to mention Raquel Revuelta. I could not miss her performance in that TV program Un romance cada jueves (A romance every Thursday). There were other very good actresses, such as Minín Bujones, Violeta Jiménez, and Maritza Rosales. But my reference was always Raquel.

In the early 1960s, you played two epoch-making roles for the Cuban theater: Santa Camila de La Habana Vieja y Luz Marina Romaguera in Aire Frío. How did you come to master these two very different characters: a marginal woman attached to her saints, and a very complex character such as Luz Marina?

Stanislavski´s technique helped me a lot. I was in the Milanés Group, headed by Adolfo de Luis. They were thinking of Omara Portuondo to play Camila, but she couldn’t do it at that moment. Gilda Hernández told Adolfo de Luis: “Since you have an actress like Verónica Lynn in the group, why don’t you let her play the role?” Finally I got the part, although in the original work she is a mulata. I worked hard to give the character that energy and vitality.

“That mulata is great,” people shouted from the audience at the Mella Theater. The character is generous and kind, even though she is not educated and may seem coarse at times. It disturbs me when other actresses play this character as an ordinary and vulgar woman. That's not my Camila. Luckily, with Aire Frio, I did have a reference in my family: an aunt who was like Luz Marina, bitter, always grumbling.This helped me to create the character. Virgilio was delighted with my way of interpreting the role.

From the 1970s on, you concentrated on television, where you played great characters with very prominent directors. Director Roberto Garriga offered you the part of Teresa in the soap opera Sol de Batey, written by Dora Alonso. This telenovela changed many things on television. Did it also change things in you?

Although I had played many characters in plays adapted for television or taken from foreign novels, I realized that the Cuban public likes soap operas. They like to follow a story, a character. This has to do with what they are and what they recognize.

Before that telenovela, when I would walk in the street, for instance, with my friend [the actress] Odalys Fuentes, people would stop us and greet her. And only then they would say to me, “Oh, we’ve seen you on TV too!” With [my portrayal of] Doña Teresa, all this changed.

When I read the script, I consulted a psychiatrist to give credibility to that character. We worked very quickly and with an immediacy that was very demanding. Garriga helped me a lot. He gave me directions that helped with the small speeches, as I said before, and that helped to round out my performance.

Experts have always said good things about me: Rine Leal, the great Cuban critic, praised me marvelously, for instance. But it was only after Doña Teresa that I gained popularity. One day, a huge black man approached me and gave me the greatest compliment I’ve ever received in my life as an actress: “You are the best evil person in Cuba!”

Your film appearances have been far fewer than your talent merits. After an appearance in a 1971 film directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Una pelea cubana contra los demonios, you didn’t appear again until the 1980s, when you played the role of a mother in exile in Lejanía. Then in 1989 you had a memorable role in La Bella del Alhambra. Do you remember this with the same intensity as another mother you played, in the short film Video de Familia (Family Video)?

I am very happy to have acted in a film like La Bella del Alhambra. It’s a film that has the aroma of that era, the scents of that time. The director, Enrique Pineda Barnet, always wanted to shoot Aire Frío, but never could do it. I ask him if he still wants to do it, even if I have to play the part of the mother, and no longer Luz Marina. And when Humberto Padrón, that handsome and intelligent young man, brought me the script of Video de Familia (Family Video), I didn’t think twice. A very well-written script, a very attractive idea. We shot it in his brother’s house, with almost nothing. And we managed to look like a real family while we were filming it.

You’ve reached the age of 80 with so much vitality.You’ve been working on your theater project Trotamundo, and you continue to perform other roles. What other characters still await Verónica Lynn? What does it mean to you, at this age, knowing you are so beloved and so respected?

I don’t think about the characters I didn’t interpret, or those I have not performed. I like to be surprised. I want to be the character that someone, maybe yourself, offers me tomorrow. My 80 years are not a burden; instead, I think this age is very nice because I do have such affection and respect, and I hope that will continue. Knowing myself loved and respected gives me a feeling of great responsibility—to my work and to my audience.

Norge Espinosa Mendoza (Santa Clara, 1971) is a poet, playwright, and critic, and a graduate of the ISA Faculty of Arts. He works as a theater consultant and editor, and has published several books of poetry, plays, and essays.