Half a century after her first performance playing the character of Chilindrina in “El Chavo del Ocho”, Mexican actress María Antonieta de las Nieves feels that she can stop time just by painting freckles on her face and queuing in The hair.
“When I put on the dress, the freckles, and the ponytails, everything is transformed by magic. He is a magical character, something that God gave me and I hope he will continue to give me many more years, ” he said in an interview.
De las Nieves entered the Guinness World Records book this week for her career as a professional actress playing for the longest time a child character, Chilindrina, who has incarnated for 48 years and 261 days.
Considered for decades as the most important Mexican television series in Latin America, “El Chavo del Ocho” aired from 1971 to 1980 and since then María Antonieta de las Nieves has continued to play the same character on television shows and other events.
“For me, it was not a challenge to represent the same girl as the years went by because I transform when I put her clothes on. I am proud of the recognition that I never imagined they would give me, ” she says.
She is the best-known girl in Mexico and perhaps in Latin America. The only daughter of Don Ramón, an unemployed widower, Chilindrina is a mischievous and scandalous creature, authentic, sometimes manipulative of her friends.
In the series “El Chavo del Ocho” she is one of the sources of joy in the neighborhood, owned by Mr. Barriga, and a girl who has not aged in half a century.
“There have been five generations who have seen me. Now they see me as grandchildren of those who knew me at the beginning and I hope to endure another 20 years. These 50 have been wonderful: having traveled the world with this character is something unique,” he says.
THE GOODBYE TOUR
About to turn 71, Marie Antoinette is a woman full of vitality, grateful for a long artistic career, which includes performances in films and plays, dubbing, and soap operas, although she is immediately identified with the freckled girl in a short dress, shoes patent leather and a pair of black glasses.
“Now I’m working on the farewell tour. It’s not that I’m going to say goodbye, it’s that I want to travel to many places to thank the affection, the admiration, the respect, the laughter, and the joy,” he says.
La Chilindrina is a symbolic character of the culture of Mexico, but María Antonieta does not feel only Mexican because she is loved the same in Latin America as in Europe or Asia.
“I feel like I am from the country where I am. I hope to travel and have the opportunity to feel like Spain, Italy, Japanese Japan, and Chinese in China. In Asia they pass the dubbed program and thanks to that I can speak in any language,” he explains.
Years have passed since the innocent Chilindrina appeared. Then the children were oblivious to technology, they played in the neighborhood with their friends and they do not need devices with lights to be happy.
One might think that the freckled girl from the neighborhood department 72 has a lot to teach today’s sophisticated kids. María Antonieta does not believe it, she thinks that Don Ramón’s daughter is the one who has a lot to learn.
“The children of today teach me. When would I think that we were going to have a phone and we were going to see each other life regardless of the distance? It is something wonderful,” he says.