“To me, the format doesn’t matter a little. What matters to me is telling good stories,” he tells her. Javier Gomez Santander a Viva. And he doesn’t lie. At 41 years old, this Spaniard born in Peñacastillo has become a all-rounder of narration. He began his career as a journalist, published a novel and learned to write series scripts. Production, podcasts and cinema? At his pace, they are also adding to his resume.
As in any path, chance also played its part in Javier’s. When he released his first novel in 2015, The crime of the knitting machine sellerlittle did I know that it would reach the right hands.
The book, born from a kind of professional break after leaving his job as a television host, reached the producer and director Álex Pina through one of those turns of life. By then, Pina was beginning to develop a new project: a series called La casa de papelwhich would become the most successful Spanish-language fiction of all time.
The paper house was an unusual miracle. Nobody thought it was going to succeed all over the world.
-You entered the world of screenwriting with The Money Heist, almost by chance. Was it some kind of school?
-Before The Money Heist I had never seen a script. When Álex called me to work on the series I confessed it to him, but he encouraged me to do it anyway. The learning arc was brutal: the following season he was co-executive producer and was in charge of the script room. With each delivery I learned a new trade. I didn’t know what the production was about. When I arrived at the room for the first meeting, I sat in a corner, as if not to be in the way. That’s when they tell me: “You have to sit at the head, because all these people come to ask you things. You are the boss of all of them!” When the meeting ended, Álex called me to ask how everything was going. My answer was: “I don’t know, but I have made decisions for several million euros” (laughs). It was quite an adventure.
-Then you don’t get bored revisiting the series.
-I am delighted with The Money Heist. It was such an unusual miracle… Nobody in their right mind thought that from a peripheral country an audiovisual was going to come out that would reach the entire world. I saw it again a year or so ago with my girlfriend, who had not seen it. Well, I didn’t see her when she came out either, actually. Premieres made me nervous. He watched her in the editing room. So, I saw her as a spectator and it happened to me that she didn’t want to stop. And I already knew what was going to happen! I have magnificent memories of the series. My dedication was absolute: in each project I launch myself with the passion of first love, which is always lived with great intensity.. It is also true that first loves destroy you when they end, but I give myself like that…
-And how are things now that that “first love” is over?
-When it finished The Money HeistI decided to slow down for a while because it had been five dizzying years of work and madness. I told myself: “Either you stop now or you will never do it.” That break helped me see what to do with the next years of my life. That’s when I decided to form La Pegaso, my production company. The idea was to set up something of my own, to be able to make projects tailored to me, always with one foot in journalism and the other in fiction.
We assume that stealing is wrong. What we propose is to see what is underneath.
The new
Now, La Pegaso is ready to take flight for the first time. He will do it with a podcast, Watchmakers: The thieves of luxurywhich has just premiered on the main platforms.
For the project, Javier joined forces with the Argentine crime journalist and writer Nahuel Gallotta, in charge of research and co-author of the script.
According to insurers focused on the theft of high-end watches, there are around 10,000 thefts of these pieces per year. The values can range between six thousand and three hundred thousand euros (the value of an entire house on the doll!).
In the six-episode series, narrated by Javier, the journalists follow the route of the stolen luxury watches and investigate their characters. The millionaire who has “his” collection watch of his; the watchmaker who has a special relationship with the piece; and even private detectives who specialize in these robberies. And of course, the protagonists: the thieves and their stories.
-How do you steal a watch?
-It is a very particular theft: You have to know how to detect the watch model instantly and how to start it. They say a good watch marker can distinguish one in a second. Since the podcast was born I have been watching, as if I were going to steal them too. But I can’t identify a single one (laughs). What has changed in me is the way I look at the city. Many thieves tell us that they go to restaurants to see what watches people are wearing. They eat there, like anyone else, while they observe. Then they organize a follow-up and, a few days later, they break into the victim’s house to steal the watch.
-What else did you learn?
-That good watches should be worn in winter. Thieves wait until we are wearing a short-sleeved shirt, which is when they are easiest to see.
-Which stories from the podcast do you stick with?
– At de “the suit gang”, a group of Argentine thieves, from Moreno’s party, who had enormous success. The story is told to us by his lawyer, a man who was asked to teach them how to infiltrate wealthy people. The first thing they asked him was if he knew a dentist because their teeth were missing; “You could see the neighborhood.” Later, they learned to wear suits and eat in luxury restaurants.
-Did they internationalize?
-Yeah. Over time, this man helped them with their first tickets to Europe, where they had a ten-year career between 2000 and 2010. They were never arrested and made a lot of money before returning to Argentina. They ended up filling the night of Buenos Aires with ecstasy.
-They traded the watches and jewelry they stole in Spain to drug traffickers, and thus they created a drug route that went from Amsterdam to Barcelona, and then to Buenos Aires. They doubled the profit they would have made with watches alone.
-Did certain preconceptions you had about what the life of a thief is like be dismantled?
-For me, the line remains clear. When making the podcast, we assume that stealing is wrong. What we propose is to see what is underneath. First of all, you find poverty. We do not have a single thief who has left the rich neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. They all come from stories of lack of opportunities, although it is also true that there is a life choice. There are interviewees who are in prison and, when we ask them if they regret it, they tell us no; that prison serves to make contacts. In the speech there is always something about Robin Hood that is not true. In the end it seems that they only rob the rich, but there are also those who break into workers’ homes. It’s not that it’s okay to steal from a rich person, but this excuse is repeated.
-Another project you are working on with La Pegaso is a film, your first film work.
-Last year I was in Mexico researching for the podcast when I came into contact with a true story: the investigation of a serial femicide. I spoke with the team that handled the case: from the prosecutor to the police. They told me their story and I started writing a script with the full intention of making a movie. It is a new way of working for me, because it is a script based on real events and research. It is different from journalism, because in a report you have fewer resources and more hurry. And it’s not like writing a series either: it changes the pace, the focus, and even the development of the characters. Like everything in life, I learned it as I went along.
Would you like to direct and add a new work to the collection?
-For now, I will be in the production, which we will do between La Pegaso and Animal de Luz, a Mexican production company. I’m not ruling out any horizons, but it’s likely that by the time the movie is filmed I’ll be involved with some series. Although who knows… Maybe I’ll ask the director to let me peek in and start a new job.. I like to explore and, if they let me, I stick my nose in.