We were lucky to catch up with Raquel Trujillo recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Raquel, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

My first project as a playwright, “The Last Verse” which premiered in Spain in December 2023 and it’s currently on tour. It was actually the first feature script I ever wrote – I adapted the script into a theatre play – and, as we all know, the first baby is always special.

It was such an enriching experience in all senses. I learned a lot, I suffered a lot. And I was able to tell a story about one of my favorite Spanish authors of all time, Federico García Lorca, and his rushed, unfair murder. His plays – which I was lucky enough to perform in – were an essential part of my teenage years and my awakening as a storyteller. I feel like I owe him much in both my personal and professional life, and it is truly meaningful to me to play this tribute to him every night on stage.

But what means the most to me is that I got to live this whole experience with my family – the real and the chosen one – as they own a theater company and we produced the play together. Everyone who knows me knows how close I am to them, how important they are in my life, and being able to give that first story to them to make it come to life on stage was a dream. It will live in my heart forever.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Becoming a writer – or storyteller – was a very organic process for me. I unconsciously inherited that desire and passion from my family. They all work in theater. My aunt owns a theater company in Spain and, since she opened it back in 2009, that place has been our life and it has undoubtedly become a source of inspiration and indescribable learning for my career. My aunt is an actress and director, my mom a costume and production designer, my uncle an actor and playwright, all my cousins, even my dad, are actors – I know, a spectacle! I grew up on and backstage, acting professionally for more than twelve years in some of the most emblematic plays of the Spanish classical theater, giving voice and life to incredible characters. It was that experience what really made me realize how powerful stories can be, how much they can impact the audiences, society – especially young people.

Telling stories is such a meaningful and magical power, and since I was a kid, I knew that I wanted to contribute to that magic and, in one way or another, I’ve always done it. First, as a creative child, who used to make up crazy lives for her imaginary friends living in her grandma’s garage; later, as an actress, being the channel through which the story gets to the audience, and now, as a screenwriter, generating those stories, giving birth to those characters.

In that sense, my career as a storyteller has pivoted so much throughout the years, being able to tell stories in many different ways. However, it was during my exchange year in London that I fell in love with screenwriting, with that idea of putting visual images on paper that could be able to say much more than just words. I wrote my first script then, and I haven’t stopped since.

After that moment, I tried to link everything that I did to screenwriting. For instance, one of the turning points in my career was the development of my undergrad thesis for which I adapted a novel into a TV limited series. I wrote the six scripts of the project, a bible, and I produced and directed a teaser trailer. It was, without a doubt, one of the most fulfilling and challenging projects I’ve ever done, and it really opened the door to many other opportunities that came later.

This industry is never easy, especially if you are a woman, but I’d dare to say that being a screenwriter in Spain is genuinely harder – there are not the same resources, the same visibility, nor the same opportunities for people who are taking their first steps. I was lucky enough to work in development at Paramount in Spain for two years right after college and there, apart from getting invaluable learning as an aspiring screenwriter, having to read and analyze tons of scripts, I was able to witness firsthand how hard it is to make something happen, to move a project forward, especially for new voices. I knew that I had to take a step further, that I had to differentiate myself as much as I could if I wanted to devote myself to this art. That’s why I decided to apply to one of the most important (and hardest to get) fellowships in my country that would allow me to study an MFA in Screenwriting in the US; the cradle of cinema, TV, and entertainment. And here I am now, just graduated.

Right now, apart from my playwright project touring in Spain and my TV dramedy based on my crazy little theater family called Mucha Mierda (Break a Leg) – on my website raqueltrujillo.com, there is much more info about those –, one of the things that excite me the most and that I’m most proud of is my feature comedy, Abuelas. The script, that I wrote during my second year at AFI, got into the semifinals of the Screencraft Comedy Competition 2024 and Humanitas The David and Lynn Angell
College Comedy Award 2024. Besides, the script received a Development Grant from the Canary Islands Government (Spain) and recently got selected for the Spanish program, CIMA Impulsa, a program that helps projects written by women find their place in the market and get financed. I’m thrilled about all the love and help this project is receiving, and I hope it can see the light someday.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Movies and TV shows have always played an important role in my life. They have made me laugh when I was sad, they have made me feel hope when I had lost it completely, they have made me want to fall in love, want to travel, want to try new things… They’ve truly made me feel and if I’m able to achieve that in an audience who has also been able to forget during these couple of hours that their car is broken or that they have an important meeting tomorrow, then I will be fulfilled.

I aspire to tell stories that capture people’s hearts, that show the world as I see it, complex but full of exciting adventures. For me, there is nothing that describes life better than a dramatic situation surrounded by comedic responses; as Phoebe Waller-Bridge says “disarm the audience with comedy, then punch them in the gut with drama when they least expect it” and that’s what I long to do. I’m really interested in stories that portray the duality and nuances of family and its meaning – in my opinion, one of the strongest relationships a person can have. Stories that mainly talk about female experiences, like motherhood, friendship, growing old. But above all, I aspire to tell stories that make the audiences feel, forget, enjoy, and see life from a brighter perspective. Because, at the end of the day, film and TV are forms of entertainment in their truest sense, and I’m here to serve that purpose and Billy Wilder’s wisdom: “The best way to get your point across is to entertain.”

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I would say two things. First, the possibility of creating something that lasts, that shows the world the way you see it. And second, and most importantly, feeling like something you’ve created and crafted is helping people in any way, that is making them feel something, making them happier. I couldn’t find anything as rewarding as that.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://raqueltrujillo.com
• Instagram: raqueltrujillo8
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raquel-trujillo-rodriguez/
• Twitter: raquel_trujillo
• Other: Email: [email protected]

  https://www.imdb.com/name/nm14094839/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_1_nm_7_q_raquel%2520trujillo

Image Credits

Raúl Guadarrama, Jesús Bilbao, Aarón S. Ramos, AFI