La Casa de Papel started as a little show from Spain, and it has become a worldwide phenomenon. The show is so big at this point that when it debuts volume 1 of season 5 – the show’s last season – there will be a worldwide audience watching it. And a lot of those people will be watching in Spanish.
Pedro Alonso, who plays Berlin, Patrick Criado, who plays new character Rafael, and Luka Peros, who plays Marseille, discussed the show’s reach as they sat down with Remezcla, with Alonso calling it a “Julio Iglesias moment,” a reference to the famous Spanish singer’s worldwide reach. The show – set in Spain and with a Spanish cast – has nonetheless proved a hit in Latin America as well, something the stars are very aware of. Just as they’re aware that the success of La Casa de Papel means “people will start to look for more,” shows in Spanish.
As the show gets ready to debut its final season, the actors mostly focused on the burden of expectations a final season carries, with Criado specifically cautioning that “you have to be careful with expectations,” but nonetheless remarking that he was really happy “with the journey of his character” in the final season, particularly in regard to the “emotional load” the character had to bear because of his relationship to Berlin.
Peros agreed that you can never go in with “too many expectations, as you never know what path the writers will take.” He did confess that he had multiple scenarios of what could happen in his head, but in the end “you just have to relax and go with the flow.”
That doesn’t give us much of a clue as to what’s coming on the show, but Alonso did tease a particular scene he was very excited for people to see – a scene he shared with Patrick – and promised “a lot of action sequences” in the first five episodes that premiere on Netflix. As for what comes after, and how the series can end, Alonso promised that volume two of the show would be about “clarifying the missing pieces so the family arc makes sense,” as well as exploring both the light and the dark in numerous characters.
For a show that gave us some great action scenes, but that was ultimately rooted in the relationships between people, that’s the best we could have hoped for. And with any luck, from here on out, the success of a show like La Casa de Papel means that more and more chances can be taken on Spanish-language television. The audiences are there. The stories are waiting to be told. It’s way past time.
La Casa de Papel season 5 volume 1, which consists of 5 episodes, will be available on Netflix on September 3rd.