Guitarricadelafuente looks ready for his close-up in V163, joining Penélope Cruz for a cover story tied to his acting debut in La Bola Negra. Alvaro Beamud Cortés photographs the pair in black and white, with Kate Tabakova’s styling giving the singer the matinee-idol treatment.
A tank top lends tuxedo trousers a private, dressing-room quality, while his curls and reclining poses supply the romance. Beside him, Cruz’s blonde bob completes the impression of a classic screen partnership.
The role behind that transformation demanded something more personal. In the accompanying conversation with Lee Daniels, Guitarricadelafuente explains that singing lets him perform an aspirational version of himself.
Guitarricadelafuente for V163
Playing Sebastián, a young man discovering his sexuality amid the Spanish Civil War, brought him closer to experiences he had found difficult to revisit. “Sebastián was very close to me,” he says. “It was an intense journey to reach certain emotions, to unveil personal things from my past I didn’t want to unveil, and feel so many parallels with Sebastián.”
That connection shaped his experience of Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo’s film. Cruz’s character, Nené, gives Sebastián hope that he might live freely, a possibility Guitarricadelafuente wishes he could have seen on screen when he was younger and still in the closet. He recalls watching the film beside a teenage gay couple who held hands and cried. For a singer making his first film, the measure of the performance became the recognition it offered someone else.
