A roller coaster, a whirlwind, an earthquake. That is what Iván Hochman lists when defining his 2023. This year it was Fito Páez in the furor series about his life, The love after Love; He was a writer named Hokusai in the theater (a character who precisely wanted to get away from the fame that Netflix gave him) and he was Milo, the young protagonist of his novel, who seeks to leave his parents’ house to jump into adulthood.
Hochman is 29 years old, an actor, teacher and writer. “I really like many things,” he comments during this interview in a bar in Colegiales (Spinetta t-shirt, cap with visor, round glasses, smoothie in hand). It is the phrase that best describes it. Reviewing his childhood, he says that in his house the CD of The love after Love and that their parents chose Brilliant on the mic for your marriage. National rock always accompanied him. He knows that at some point he will have his own band, but he does not reveal that today, which is divided between literature and acting.
He is recognized on the street for his role as Fito, which he arrived after a six-month casting and was his first leading role in a mega-production. They thank him, ask for photos, comment on a scene. Sometimes they even mistake him for Cerati and he laughs. From Fierce Tango (1993) that there was no such phenomenon.
Fito told me that I had done my job with a lot of responsibility, commitment and talent.
-Did so much exposure suddenly overwhelm you?
-No but It was a very intense, very demanding year, in which I had to learn a lot of new energies, knowing that I could go out into the street and be greeted by anyone. One day I came out of yoga, I was very nervous, on the verge of crying, and someone greeted me and it was a world collide. It is a very resounding change: I wasn’t looking for fame, or anything. I really enjoyed doing the series, but I needed to write the book and I needed to do the work too, all as a playful answer to how to move when you do something so massive. It was going back to basics, something small and super independent, where I still have a lot to experience.
-Were you able to capitalize on the success?
-Yo I thought film jobs were going to rain down on me, and the truth is that it didn’t happen. There were just a couple of proposals, but I didn’t get anything. I was without a representative all year, working alone. I am still grateful, because I worked on the play and the book. Many new things happened, many movements. Let’s see next year.
-Were you satisfied with your performance or are you very self-critical?
–I am very self-critical. At first I had a hard time watching it, because I saw it little by little and in order. I myself didn’t believe that the character was appearing. So in chapter 1 he is more shy and inward, and in chapter 8 he is more uninhibited and outward. All that progression, a kind of Breaking Fito, is what is interesting. When I started seeing her I didn’t like her, I felt like she was missing her. But when I saw that whole arc I understood what I did.
-Do you have a favorite scene?
–I like the ones that explore the most uncontrolled Fito, with long hair, distanced from me. I like the scene of the prosecutor’s office, after the murder of her grandmothers, who is with the piano and answers the prosecutor’s questions with sounds. It is the breaking point, the Fito that breaks. And I also like the sequence shot of the show Spinswith all that backstage at Luna Park until he goes on stage. The show days were the ones we spent the longest recording. I love the Vélez part (1993), it was a 15-hour day without stopping and the next day I found out that I had Covid. I gave it my all.
-What feedback did you get from Fito?
-I was very grateful, He told me that I had done my job with a lot of responsibility, commitment and talent.. It was a treasure that he told me that about an interpretation that involves him so much.
-The play that you premiered later worked as something therapeutic for you, right?
-Yes, totally. It did me good, knowing that I put my body and abstracted myself from everything. We started rehearsing before the Fito thing came out and we realized that we had to put something personal into it. That’s where the series began to come in, like the figure of the elephant in the room. We started with a prologue that said “Dear Netflix…” and we kept changing it because people started stopping me on the street at the touch. And that’s where the part of wanting to get away from the character began. That the title of the work was My name is also Hokusai It means that I am also Ivan and Milo.
Iván completed his Bachelor of Arts in Writing at the UNA (“the most beautiful degree in the world,” he remarks) and in those classes his first novel was created, Because you are leaving. This moves between emancipation, the tortuous world of real estate and the rental crisis. “I was interested in short chapters that could be read quickly., in times where it is increasingly difficult to read. “That it was a friendly reading, with a structure that flows,” he explains. His lighthouses are Zambra, Bolaño and Baricco. “I like broken and personal novels that avoid classical structures.”
His novel combines family vignettes with testimonies from friends sharing their moves.and lists such as “responsibilities and household chores that I will have to face when I live alone”, “things that are very good for me to resort to when I am in a crisis” and “situations that I should avoid to take care of my health”.
-How much does Milo have of you?
-It’s autofiction. I dove a lot, I remembered things, I took images that I rewrote. I ride a bike a lot, it’s important to me: I tried to transfer that feeling of speed and freedom to the book. The world of going to live alone, when to leave your parents’ house, those who left, those who never left, those who left and want to return. All that. There are novels about going out into the world, like The catcher in the ryeby Salinger, but I didn’t find many that deal with this topic.
-The issue of rent is a current problem, in addition…
-Yes, it’s re-crazy It is increasingly difficult to find a place to live. There is a character who says “You work to pay the rent” and that survival equation is too much tension, that is not life. It is a big crisis, I hope things improve.
-Do you see yourself making music?
-I’m composing little things, with piano and guitar, but very slowly. Now I’m putting my body into theater and cinema, I have the feeling that at some point I’m going to move to the countryside to compose, well isolated from everything. Groups like Strokes, Gorillaz and Radiohead marked my life; I would go there. What remains for me now is to find my own language.