Jandro (Alejandro López García; 45 years old, Valencia) now shares a program with a character whose facial features are generated by augmented reality. Mapi (from Monday to Thursday at 9:50 p.m. on La 1) is the new television adventure of this magician and comedian, a regular on the small screen and especially on El Hormiguero, where he worked until 2020. A few months earlier he made headlines halfway around the world by becoming the first magician to win the prestigious American program four times deceive us, with the legendary Penn and Teller, two icons of illusionism, at the helm. Now Jandro is taking a break in La Eliana (Valencia), where he lives with his family, while preparing to present his show Descabellado at Madrid’s La Latina Theater in September. Then he goes to Chicago, where he will perform for a month. He loves board games, cycling along the Turia riverbed and growing Padrón peppers.
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Questions. Why Padrón peppers?
Answer. it gives me peace I like the process of seeing them grow little by little. Then you take them all and make a pimentá. Padrón peppers are served here every Sunday for dinner.
P Aren’t you growing more things?
R This is what I like best because they come out a lot. You put out the seeds, it’s watered, one day you cut them off and that’s it, it’s very simple. It’s great for lazy people like me.
P With the board games you would not get bored during confinement…
R That was our boom. My wife liked me. We have much. Sometimes for all ages you don’t know what to do and so everyone gathers around the table and you have a fun time. From the Stone Age, the Seven Wonders of the World, the island, Catan…
P Wikipedia describes him as an actor, presenter, comedian, magician, director, screenwriter and author. What do you identify with in all of this?
R With no one. i make things If there was a job that did things, it would be me. Things I like, that interest me, that excite me, that have to do with creating an emotion. And you do that by doing a monologue, doing magic, presenting a program, writing a book… If I think it can change someone’s mood, I’m interested.
P How did you get into magic?
R My father gave me the volumes of Juan Tamariz when I was 14 years old. I was amazed by the magic of seeing Juan Tamariz, Pepe Carrol, MagoMigue, Màgic Andreu on TV… I’ve always been a very curious person and there’s nothing more curious than magic, that you can achieve the impossible.
P He was an employee of El Hormiguero for 14 years until December 2020. Why did he leave it? you wanted to fly
R I still don’t have wings to fly… The idea was to keep trying other things and enjoy more free time, theater performances… There is only one life, we should have four or five lives to be able to do everything.
P Tell me the truth, now that you’re out, how do you work with Pablo Motos?
R I say the same thing I would say if I were inside, very well. It’s very demanding. A program that has been successful for so many years cannot be sustained unless you work hard.
P You’re almost a magic legend in the United States. Has your cache gone up since winning The Fool Us Show four times?
R Legends of magic in the United States include David Copperfield, Penn and Teller, and more. There they love me very much in the world of magic. But more than just increasing the cache, the expectation has increased. Winning the show seems more of an anecdotal thing to me, it doesn’t make you a better magician if you fool us.
P What makes us believe magic is real?
R What we do is accept things. Everyone lives in automatic mode. When you eat, when you walk, when you drive, you don’t analyze everything. If there’s something out of the ordinary, you’ll short circuit, it breaks your logic. Since you were on autopilot, it was easier for me to fool you. There is a lot of psychology in magic.
P His current program, Mapi, caused a lot of controversy on the networks before its premiere, with memes, jokes and even criticism before it was seen. Were you aware of this controversy?
R Controversy is for those who want it. Five days before the premiere there was all this movement on the networks and Mapi hadn’t even been released yet, it was a historic thing. But now it has flipped and is almost a pop icon on the networks. It seems good to me, it would seem worse to me if it went unnoticed and nobody knew it existed.
P What’s the worst thing about television?
R It’s a very unfair medium because when you’re on air you might stop working and they won’t call you because they see you on screen and vice versa. Many presenters and great pros are suddenly on top and the next day they disappear and have a very bad time. It’s very unfair. It’s enough that you’re not on TV for a month for people to think you’re not doing anything anymore. When I left El Hormiguero it was less than two months and there were already articles saying “What happened to Jandro?”. Nor that it was Chanquete and I died. They immediately bury you, they immediately praise you, and both are unfair. And there is a lot of instability. It’s a very delicate world.
Mapi and Jandro in La 1 competition.
P Have you had many failures in your professional life, many tricks that didn’t work?
R Yes Yes of course. I don’t usually call it failures, these are things that happen. Failure would be if you stay there. But when you look for how to do it differently, you analyze why it went wrong… I had unfortunate performances, very bad, to the point of doing things I shouldn’t have done or said on TV or in the theater. I’ve always taken a lot of risks on TV and live and will continue to do so. You can’t live in fear. René Lavand, an Argentine magician who was indeed a legend, said that audiences can forgive mistakes, but never boredom. We all make mistakes every day. What happened is that we do it in front of a lot of people.
P He exudes energy and smiles in his shows, but how is Jandro in real life? How much character is there?
R I never considered it. I go out and do what my body tells me, it’s an adrenaline-pumping moment. You give 100% even when you are angry or having a bad day, people paid to see you. It’s his time, not yours. I’m busy with magic all day, I jot down ideas with crayons in notebooks, every idea, every joke, every picture whatever comes to my mind, and I spend many hours of the day just thinking about very strange things that I will never do.
P Is magic valued as a profession in Spain?
R It’s not rated very well, it’s been lowered in category a bit. In the United States, however, it is the number one hobby. There are two main types of shows in Las Vegas, the Cirque du Soleil and the great magicians such as David Copperfield, Penn and Teller, Mac King, Piff, Mat Franco, Shin Lim… The magician’s profession is highly regarded in the industry entertainment business. Not here, it’s more associated with children. There are great child magicians in this country, like Iván Santacruz, but there is an idea that magic is for children, while those who are most surprised by magic are adults. It got a lot of attention here when I won the four Fool Us in Las Vegas for winning them away, but I did better numbers in El Hormiguero and they went unnoticed. But it’s enough if you do something outside to make them say, “Gosh, that’s so good.”
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