It happened a year ago. (49 years old, Santander) was spending the summer with his friends in Zahara de los Atunes when they began to recognize him on the street. It was a curious case: success came to him on a delayed basis. In 2024, the actor had starred in the miniseries Angela premiered on Atresplayer. A year later Antena 3 decided to broadcast it free-to-air and a few months later it premiered for the third time on Netflix. There he became number one. “What a shame! People stopped me, they said things to me. Son, what am I going to tell you? Well, I was excited. And anyone who tells you otherwise is lying,” he says with a loud laugh from a terrace in the Plaza de las Comendadoras.
Then the gesture changes: “We all have our wounds and the actor’s trauma is not feeling seen.” At that moment, no customers at the other tables seem to pay much attention to the conversation. It is one of the first spring afternoons in Madrid and everyone seeks to make the most of it.
Although the peak of popularity was new, Zatarain is more than familiar with that slow-cooked success of Angela. At the age of 20 he began to train, at the age of 30 he conquered the great musicals of Madrid and at the age of 40 he arrived on the small screen with series such as Shame. Now, about to reach 50, he stars in a movie for the first time, To an island of youwhich hits theaters on April 10. “They gave me the role without doing the test and I had insecurities. I thought: ‘What the hell project is this if they catch me at the first try?'” he jokes.
“It seems that, if you deal with an LGBT story, you always have to do it from the point of view of the wound. It’s very good, but you can tell other things. Damn! That’s enough of so much suffering.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. Among the dunes of Maspalomas, the Fiesta de la Rama and the On low heat by Rosana, the film proposes the love story between a recently jilted British chef and a stubborn half-island fisherman. A gentle romantic comedy as familiar as it is unusual in the Spanish scene. “It seems that, if you deal with an LGBT story, you always have to do it from the wound. It’s very good, but you can tell other things. Damn! That’s enough of so much suffering. This film has an activism, if you can call it that, that comes from normality,” he explains.
Airing that freedom in such a casual way seems simple, but Zatarain knows well how much it costs to leave those wounds behind. His is linked to a city, Santander, and to a dream, to become a classical dancer. When he was eight years old, he tried to convince his father to let him go to classes, but he didn’t listen. He was the youngest of seven brothers. “It was the jungle. You were very protected, but then it was difficult to find your place. Hence the need to feel seen,” he reflects.
From visits with his sisters to the cinema to see The Neverending Story or Karate Kid, his other great passion was born. But when the time came, he didn’t have much of a choice about how to pursue her either. “Things at home were very bad, my sisters decided that I had to go to Madrid to study. I left Santander with an injury and it took me a long time to reconcile,” she clarifies. In the capital he began studying Journalism with a clear objective: to become an actor. Although his was not going to be a typical race. “I have always been very little, it’s my way of doing things. Everything comes to me little by little and that’s how it will continue to be.”
“Musicals fed me for many years, but it’s exhausting. People have no idea what it’s like to do a show eight times a week. It’s a fucking outrage! The industry is solvent, but the musical actor is still very unprotected”
He started with the musical to get rid of the thorn in dance. Until he was 30 he was part of different casts, he was later awarded a scholarship to study in New York and he returned to become the protagonist. In perspective, “my goal was always to be an audiovisual actor. But I think I was afraid to imagine myself with that exposure. There are people who are prepared before and others after. I took refuge for a long time in the musical because I exposed myself less.”
Of Grease a Oh mamaZatarain experienced musical fever in Madrid. “They fed me for many years, but it’s exhausting. People have no idea what it’s like to do a show eight times a week. It’s a fucking outrage! The industry is solvent, but the musical actor is still very unprotected. We lack a union of actors that fights for our rights,” he protests. Once settled, he decided to launch, dozens of videobooks through the fierce search for a representative.
Finally, after 40, his television career took off and, thanks to seasoned supporting actors, he began to circulate on all available platforms. For Movistar Plus+ he did; for Netflix, ; for Prime, and for Disney+, . “This happened to me when I was 24 years old and I would have gone crazy. That’s why it didn’t happen to me. I wanted to validate myself with recognition as revenge for what had happened to me in my life. I’m grateful that you gave me time to do therapy and find who I was,” she shares.
With that poise that only age brings, he faces the details of being an actor in 2026. About social networks – “sometimes you are more reconciled with them and other times you hate them, because you hate yourself. In the current movement with the influencers There is a lot of the actor’s ego. There are many of us and not all of us are invited, but that does not mean that there is no room for others”—to the constant positioning—“I wish we were all like Javier Bardem and could say ‘no to war’ with all our might. But not everyone is in that position, nor can they be. It bothers me, but there are those who find it more difficult and that does not mean that they think one way or another”—.
“In the current movement with the influencers There is a lot of the actor’s ego. There are many of us and not all of us are invited, but that does not mean that there is no room for others”
What bothers him most about the industry is the obsession with labeling actors by their roles. In their case, lovers or parents of a rather high class family. “It happens to me and I admit that it makes me angry. They pigeonhole you into playing straight and, suddenly, they are surprised.” But that sambenito has its days numbered. This year he will play the role of an Iberian macho in the rural thriller Thoroughbred with a feel good movie with LGBT accent.
“I aspire to do these extremes, even if it is in very commercial projects. All of this makes me very old. I want to do mainstreamseries that all God sees. I know perfectly well what I can do and it doesn’t give me any complexes,” he says. After starring in his first film, does he have any goal left for turning 60? Zatarain thinks and laughs again: “Buy my own house.” The important thing is not to arrive first but to know how to get there.
