The actors in this film have had to put themselves in the shoes of the rugby players who were trapped in the Andes mountain range, where stayed up to 72 days. Without a doubt, the situation caused them a consequent physical deterioration -and psychological- that has had to be recreated in the complexion of the actors, the Notaries have been in charge of this work.

The interpreters’ first contact with the doctors was precisely in Cordova. In September 2021, when the actors arrived in Spain, they passed through the capital of Cordoba to get their corresponding stress tests, to which the director Juan Antonio Bayona also underwent. These were carried out at the Ergodinámica clinic in Córdoba, where the director of the clinic and head of the Medical Services of Córdoba CF, José Miguel Bretones.

An improvised clinic

At the beginning of 2022 the filming in Sierra Nevadathe Escribano doctors moved there along with all their medical devices, coming from their consultations in the Central Hospital of Andalusia Lucenaand They improvised a clinic most complete in the hotel where the crew stayed during filming. There they continued to carry out all the pertinent controls on the actors and they worked in personalized menus along with the chefs from the hotel accommodation, and the caterer who was in charge of providing meals on the recording set.

The objective was not only the weight loss of the actors, but the nutrition biochemistry, as Escribano Zafra explained to this newspaper. This avoided interfering with the capabilities that an interpretation of these characteristics. “Losing weight has a molecular component that cannot be neglected, there is a lot of biochemical control, and then, in the structure of the diet we tried to ensure that the foods had all the components we needed.”

The biochemical coverage of each actor has been closely followed by doctors so that the necessary vitamins were not lacking. “We had to have very exhaustive control of all the vitamin groups and all minerals that intervene in situations that the brain then has to develop to carry out an interpretation”.

This work It was made with 30 actorsalthough, with the 16 survivors “more extreme weight losses had to be achieved”, up to 30 kilos. The shooting times dictated the needs of the script, since with some of the actors they had to lose several kilos in a couple of days, and with others they had to stabilize their weight for several weeks without filming. Just like the actors who monopolize close-ups of the face or the scenes where they clean themselves after the rescue; “Making the angles of the face noticeable is very complicated.”

The Notaries have adjusted the weight of each actor through body composition analyzers, which indicated protein levels, oxygen consumption, exhaustion tests, dehydration control, phase angle and many more parameters. Furthermore, other inconveniences of filming came from the climatologysince it was filmed at almost 3,000 meters high and at temperatures of -15 degrees.

Cinematic experience

Escribano had already worked on film films such as Fat people either Model 77, is currently found in reverse in another Antonio de la Torre film. After the success of the Spanish cinema night, Escribano doctors and researchers claim to be “delighted” with the result: “the film is so well made in every way, that we thought this was possible.” The Snow Society It will also compete to win the Oscar for best international film and best makeup and hairdressing.