WARNING: THIS DOCUMENTARY CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM SEASON FIVE
A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
[sad piano music plays]
[struggles to breathe]
Get back!
[Tokyo grunts]
-[man 1] We got it, guys. -[man 2] Everyone!
-[cheers and whistles] -[man 2] That's it, it's a wrap!
Let's say goodbye to Úrsula!
[Úrsula Corberó] Yup, I just died.
Now we'll tell you how it all went down.
[applause]
You got everything, man?
[majestic music plays]
[Úrsula] We're about to show you the series in a way never seen before.
I slept with the door open all night.
[Úrsula] We've been very close… for very a long time.
We're having a great time, yeah.
[Úrsula] We've been observed during our moments of rest…
-during our battles… -A hard day at the office.
[Úrsula] …even when we didn't want to be seen.
This son of a bitch is filming everything. You motherfucker.
[Úrsula] So, come in.
[Jesús Colmenar] He'll grab you and take you all the way to the edge.
[Úrsula] We've reserved the best seats in the house for you.
We want you to experience Money Heist from the front row…
-Luis, can you move over that way? -[Luis Alfaro] Sure, sorry.
-[Úrsula] …and with no filter. -Sweaty boobs.
[Úrsula] We'll show you our rooms.
Our rehearsals.
[Hovik Keuchkerian] One, two.
[Úrsula] Our training sessions.
Join us as we experience
the most intense season of our lives.
Come on, please.
[man] Action!
[music ends]
What matters is that the crew is happy.
[Úrsula] Welcome to our private lives.
I'll leave it at that.
[calm piano music plays]
That's my balcony there. [laughs] I live up there.
[Itziar Ituño] When I go home after days of shooting,
it's like unwinding.
I'll get out with my suitcase. I'll get out of the car that drops me off,
and before climbing the four flights up to my house on foot,
because I don't have an elevator,
I'll say, "I'll go grab a coffee," depending on the time.
-[Itziar in Basque] Good morning. -[in Basque] Good morning!
[Itziar] I feel comfortable because I'm with the people I went to school with
and played with in my neighborhood.
This is home.
But, I mean, the set is also like a home too, you know?
Because of all the time we've spent there working together.
-[Úrsula sings] -[Itziar laughs]
[minimalist music plays]
[Itziar] When the weather's nice enough,
it helps me to get out of the house and sit out here for a while.
I can focus more easily.
After a long time of trying different things,
over a lifetime really,
I took a master class with Tim Robbins,
and he taught us his method,
which is… there are only four emotions.
You use them to play absolutely everything in the world of acting.
I normally use blue for sadness,
pink for joy…
orange for anger or rage,
and this for fear.
When the three of us come out of the bank to negotiate with Tamayo,
in this episode,
they're very stoic, but they're scared to death. So…
They're worried, afraid.
And now here, for example, Lisbon screams, "Colonel Tamayo! White flag!"
Colonel Tamayo!
We have a white flag!
She yells with all her rage,
but deep down, the underlying emotion is:
"I'm so scared."
Because they're aiming at them. They're barefoot…
And so this is the emotion that's in charge.
But the one we see is the strong one, you know?
So this one.
[man shouts]
[Úrsula] Fear.
That's what we all felt when we had to confront this season.
[tense music plays]
Maybe you think we know how to do our job,
but the fact is, we don't.
Because we had never been to war,
and we had no idea how to approach it.
[Álex Pina] We wanted to do an escalating warlike conflict
because we thought we had to offer something more.
But we didn't know how to handle the war genre
or how to shoot it, because it's very complicated. Too complicated.
[music swells]
[Javier Gómez] Doing things you've never done, like this war thing,
it makes sense because everything else we could do, the viewer has already seen.
So, if you wanna surprise them, you have to tackle a new problem.
You have to go places you haven't mastered yet
so viewers see things they haven't seen before.
[man] Action!
To do that, well, you have to make life difficult.
[tense music plays]
I arrived with a lot of responsibility on my shoulders, you know?
There was this feeling that,
"We have to make this the greatest season."
"We have to make it the most epic season."
"We have to make this the most exciting part."
''Everything has to reach a climax.''
''All the characters have to be pushed to the edge."
[Álex Rodrigo] People from all over the world are waiting for this.
[sighs] So we can't fall short.
[tense music continues]
[Esther Martínez] Vancouver is always pushing itself
into inhospitable places in order to learn.
The creative team's always trying to learn new things we don't know how to do,
and the war genre was something we'd never done.
[music swells]
And here's the war!
[tense music plays]
We've been here for three and a half weeks filming a single scene.
Scene 22.
-[indiscernible conversations] -It's still going on.
[lighthearted music plays]
[Úrsula] And that's when we found out that all those gunshots and explosions…
[man] Action!
[Úrsula] …which seem like a lot of fun,
are actually the most boring thing that can happen on a shoot.
It's crazy. You have to repeat it and repeat it.
Oh, wow!
The ammunition depot scene, what was it? Two scenes in three weeks?
TOKYO
[Ahikar Azcona] It wears me out.
Repeating a scene so many times wears me out. [exhales] I'm drained.
Far from being fun, it's really hard and super tedious, super repetitive.
I mean, you shoot 1,500 times with a billion different camera angles.
Also, creatively speaking, it's a little…
It's frustrating. You think, "I've been doing the same thing for two weeks."
[gunfire]
RIO
I hate action. [clicks tongue]
I mean, if I'm honest, I don't like it at all.
This is how much fun action is.
What time is it? We're drained. What time is it?
-They complain and complain. -It's like Groundhog Day.
It's 11:00.
I got home and I was throwing up dust and some black stuff.
We'd wake up and do it again.
-[gunfire] -I'm out of ammo!
[gunfire]
[Jorge Calvo] A lot of times, they feel like they're…
COORDINATING DIRECTOR
…a bunch of monkeys, right? Like puppets doing the shoot.
It's tough.
But, like I said, when I see it later, I'll understand.
I think about that a lot. "You'll see it later and you'll love it."
"It's cool that we spend two weeks doing this. It'll look fucking great."
-[action music plays] -[gunshots]
-[explosion] -[shouting]
[gunshots]
-[explosion] -[shouting]
They would pour some kind of ash in our hair.
It was like they were sprinkling salt and pepper on us, right?
It felt like they were about to put me in the oven.
They like covering us with this shit.
Give me water, a Kleenex, please, something.
[woman] Here you go.
Wow, it's the dust for all the explosions.
You're lying on the ground with all that stuff around you.
I mean, every time I ended up like… "Mamma mia." [laughs] "Look at me!"
[air blower]
[Carlos Díez] A lot of characters had eight to ten versions of a single wardrobe
because they started out clean, then they'd get shot two times,
then five times, then there was blood, then there was dirt,
then there was dust, then there were flames.
-[laughs] -[indiscernible conversation]
[Manila and Denver shout]
Jesús explained everything very quickly: "Now Manila comes!"
Jesús is very animated when he explains things.
-Like… -Bang, bang, bang! Gunshots!
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
I mean, it's good that he does it that way…
Then you go, "Son of a bitch!"
-[gunshots] -[heroic music plays]
-God damn it. -[Manila] Hold on.
I swear, I would look at him and say to myself,
"I'm getting a tic. My eye is twitching,"
because it's impossible to memorize all this.
"How am I gonna be able to do this?"
[Jesús] I think that was the most complex part, you know?
I mean, to keep those two key pillars standing through the whole thing.
There's the emotion underlying each scene.
Then there's all the things that are more technical, pyrotechnical,
which required a lot of waiting around on set
and required very specific setups.
Honestly, for the actors it was really exhausting, you know?
To be constantly sustaining such…
such strong dramatic tension in scenes that were so technical.
-[Denver] How do you feel? -[distorted] Bad!
[Migue Amoedo] That was one of the first things I shot
when we got back from lockdown.
And I wanted to place the camera there.
There, in the middle of all that dust, all that mud,
because I knew it would be a… Well, it was gonna be like a trench.
And the ammunition depot was a super-narrow place.
We had a bunch of lights blinking,
so it was a very challenging environment for sure.
You couldn't hear each other. You didn't understand things…
Hold on. That fire's too strong.
Special effects was always throwing around powder and particles.
-[Jesús laughs] Wow, look at his hair. -[Migue] Holy shit.
[upbeat music plays]
[Úrsula] Then, we realized there was one person
who was capable of enjoying all of it.
[Enrique Arce] Who said "fear"?
[Úrsula] He wasn't just a person. He turned himself into…
[Enrique] A fucking dragon!
[shouts]
I'm a dragon. I want to reference my hometown's culture.
Like our mayor at the firework festival. With a flamethrower, burning sculptures.
[shouts]
No, no. It was epic. It was super funny seeing Enrique Arce saying,
"I'm a fucking dragon!"
I'm a fucking dragon!
[shouts]
[blows] And shooting out fire like a madman, a lunatic.
[upbeat music continues]
[Javi Jal] He told us he was willing to do anything.
The thing is that you have to be careful
because, after all, he's carrying a weapon.
[heroic music plays]
It's going… [kisses].
It's a little heavy, very tiring, and very hot.
I chose a bad day to turn 48. But the end result… It'll be worth it.
[heroic music continues]
You can always give a little more.
If you want, I'll give you more emotion.
On the other hand, you can go too far.
[Úrsula] Sometimes, you can't help but go too far.
Even I went too far.
-[Tokyo grunts] -[moans]
[Úrsula] Luckily, for the first revenge against Gandía,
we had a professional boxer…
Hovik.
Who, in addition to being an actor,
is also a former Spanish heavyweight champion.
[dramatic music plays]
-[Bogotá grunts] -[man shouts in Spanish]
[Hovik] I wouldn't be the same actor if I hadn't been a boxer.
Boxing is managing pressure,
it's being alert but being… relaxed.
It's distancing and isolating yourself from the audience.
It's reading your rival.
All of that… Just take out boxing and put in acting.
It all applies perfectly.
[nostalgic music plays]
[Hovik] In 1997, I became Spain's amateur boxing champion.
In '99, I became a professional.
And in December 2004, I had my last fight.
That's ten years as a professional.
A ten-year-long career, so when I do an action sequence,
all that background naturally comes out, you know?
I mean, when Poga puts up his guard and goes like this…
Well, I mean that's the end of the series. Might as well send everyone home.
I'd like you to show me the posture here. I throw a punch. How do I cover myself?
So, as nice as I can, I tell him, "This is how you do this."
"Your feet go like that. Keep your feet parallel."
"Bring your right leg back and get in the right position."
[laughs] He's teaching me like a real boxer. And he's scary.
[Hovik] In boxing, your goal is to hide the punch.
Of course in film, you have to exaggerate as much as possible
for the camera, so that it can be seen.
So your fist has to travel across half of Spain
before it hits the other person.
It's the opposite of what I'm used to doing--
What I was used to doing.
SHOOTING THE FIGHT, GANDÍA VS BOGOTÁ
[minimalist music plays]
[indiscernible conversation]
[J. M. Poga] When we have to shoot an action scene,
I prefer it if my partner goes overboard.
If they have to hit me, let them hit me.
And I'll take it. If it happens, I'll happily take it.
Yeah, so,
that wasn't my fault. [laughs]
Well, I had to restrain him. And, I mean, he wouldn't stop moving.
Well, I had this knife I was supposed to threaten him with.
But the knife, the one we used, wasn't a fake knife.
I mean, it was a real knife.
And then his blood… [blows]
[J. Manuel] I thought it was the zipper on the overalls,
and when I saw the blood, I said, "Well, it's my blood."
Cut! Let's go.
[Jesús] You didn't notice?
-[man] He cut him with the knife. -I just noticed it now.
You just noticed?
I felt a little pinch. I didn't think anything of it.
[laughs] It's the first take.
They gave me three stitches right there.
The wonderful medics here, they gave me three surgical stitches
so I could continue the fight.
No big deal, right?
So, on we go.
-Ah, ah, ah! -[kisses]
[both laugh]
I'll remember Bogotá all my life 'cause this will be here, right?
And I look at it and I see my Bogotá.
Right here. This is my Bogotá.
We have actors that are so… [laughs] …dedicated.
Poga says, "If the stitches pop out, just give me more."
"We have to keep shooting."
It's crazy.
["Golden Swagger" by Big Heavy Horn Riffs plays]
[grunts]
[unintelligible conversation]
[grunting and panting]
Now I'm a vampire.
One more and we're going home.
This fight is going fucking great.
-[punches] -[inhales]
-What a fucking beast. -[man] Oh my God!
A round of applause!
[J. Manuel] It's magical, right? Amazing.
It's a privilege.
And now I'm gonna faint.
ÁLVARO MORTE, MADRID (FIRST DAY FILMING)
[man] Good morning at night.
[Álvaro Morte laughs] Good morning at night.
This means so much to so many people.
Being in this situation, you know?
Being back here to do this last season…
It has a feeling that's a little bit like…
like when you're reading a book you're enjoying
and you're almost at the end.
You look forward to it 'cause you wanna know what happens,
but at the same time, you also say, "Is this really it?"
I spend a lot of time in prep.
My best friends in prep are always the hair and makeup team.
They've done the freckles, which are made of alcohol.
-Did you cut the bangs more? -[man] No.
No, right? She's giving birth. You can't have perfect hair, right?
I'd love it if it looked a little like this.
See how fucking cool this looks with my ears sticking out.
Oh God. What is it like to shoot with Álvaro and Najwa?
He's not just any neighbor.
[Jesús] First of all, I have to say
that I was scared when I went to the set because they're such different actors.
Yeah, sure. That thing over here, sure. I think that's fucking great.
[Koldo Serra] At first I thought they wouldn't understand each other.
It might not work.
[man] Action!
[tense music plays]
Maybe there's no chemistry. No matter how hard you try.
INSPECTOR SIERRA
Then all you can do is be polite.
-I'm not hurting you, right? -Not at all, don't worry.
[Koldo] Álvaro is… like a Terminator.
There's no other way. And you need to do it right now.
Very cerebral, very technical.
He understands.
He even knows about cameras, and he'll ask you about the lenses.
Here you're going to use a 20…
-Twenty-nine. -Nine.
Yes. I ask the camera operators what they've got on.
That question's not just for Murillo.
You know that he's always gonna do things the way you asked, or how you agreed,
however you think the scene should go.
It's true. I do like it. I like working on the little things.
Then, there's a moment where I say,
"Alicia, listen to me." There.
On the other hand, Najwa is all instinct, just the opposite.
I'm not losing my fucking country because of you, asshole.
I don't know what I'm doing. Shit!
And Najwa… She's an animal.
A wild animal, not a puppy.
Essentially, I'm more chaotic.
Yes, you son of a bitch. [laughs] I got you.
[Álvaro] Then I see her working and… that's it.
That's it. She's Sierra. She's already in another place,
and I really liked it.
It's really cool because the two of them… Weirdly, they understand each other.
-[woman] Cut. -[man] Okay, great!
Bastard!
-[man] Come on, we're cutting. -Bastard!
[Najwa Nimri] This is wonderful.
He's always very precise.
I love this job, man.
I'm not.
For fuck's sake. Sorry.
We strike a balance that's pretty cool.
And we share a sense of humor.
Oh my God, holy shit.
Ah, balls.
[Álvaro laughs]
There wasn't a single day,
not a single day, when we didn't have a good time.
Look how pretty this thing I'm making is.
[all laugh]
-Of course, we help each other a lot. -Yeah.
It's not like, "I'm going to do this sequence myself."
Rather, "Let's see how we can find the best way
to do this sequence together."
And that goes both ways.
[Úrsula] Just when everyone had put their minds at ease…
[water breaks]
…the unexpected happened…
No.
[Úrsula] …at the worst possible moment.
Her water broke.
That's how life goes, right?
It's a birth like you've never seen before,
in a place that's full of water, full of disgusting stuff.
But with this character, Sierra,
who's so peculiar.
Holy shit!
[screams]
[puffs]
It's the most punk birth in history.
But of course, giving birth is giving birth, right?
I'll give birth… I'll give birth on my own.
There were times it was like directing Gollum.
Just like… Grandma.
"How will we do it?" I said, "We'll see." First, you grab onto something.
-[metal clashes] -[shouts]
You squat down. And you begin like… Gollum.
…and millions of women…
"Now take the mattress and bring it over." I said, "But…"
…throughout history.
Najwa was there, dragging the mattress and…
and carrying the water and all that.
And she was totally…
unhinged.
Welcome to the spectacle of life!
On the days that we shot the birth scene,
I was screaming for eight hours.
[moans]
Oh God.
-She was there just pushing. -[moans]
[shouts]
[pants]
"I can't!"
[shouts and moans]
"Bastard!"
[screams]
"Spain!" I can see the whole crew behind me.
She says "I like Madrid. I like torreznos."
And the Puerta del Sol. And the corruption.
And I'm not losing my fucking country because of you, asshole.
And I said, "How can you say that dialogue, like that,
in that situation, and have it move me?"
Because I was saying, "Yes! Yes, I do too!"
["Reload" by S.J. Collisson and V. Westlake plays]
Always doing more.
What was really surreal was, obviously,
seeing Najwa with the prosthetic…
When everything's all done? No.
…um, vagina for those shots
where she records herself with a ruler and a cell phone.
It's very realistic because it's painted from the inside out.
We tried to represent all the layers of color on the skin.
["Reload" continues playing]
Of course, as always, we wanted to make things real.
We would've liked to have a newborn baby at least
so we could bring a baby out crying and capture that crying or something.
But, of course, we couldn't. And we did it with a doll.
The baby's made of silicone.
And it moves its eyes, eyebrows, eyelids, mouth, and it breathes.
[Álvaro] They would put, like…
I don't know, some cream and stuff on it to make it look sort of like the placenta
on a newborn baby.
And because of the cream it was super slippery.
And then you would go and pick it up and…
it would fall out of your hands.
And you would continue the scene until you could hold it up. "I got it!"
Like in The Lion King. "Here is Simba."
-It's a robot! -Yes.
The doll looked like a real baby because its eyes moved.
-Why do I have a baby in my arms? -Give it to me.
He doesn't wanna carry it.
It made these scary sounds. Like, it's very Chucky.
-[grunting] -[Koldo] Cut.
-Okay, what's that sound? -That sound is my doll.
[imitates doll]
It makes these really weird noises.
It's gotta be almost mythical. It's one of the most important moments of the season.
-[baby cries] -[laughs]
[Migue] Álvaro, can you turn it?
-Like this? -[Migue] So we almost see it in profile?
I would tell him, "Álvaro, put it against the window, like this."
"With the light, so we see it in silhouette."
-[baby cries] -[Alicia cries]
They were trying to act and trying to handle it
and doing it really organically, really beautifully…
[Alicia pants]
But actually, it was really dirty.
And they were there with all that stuff just lying there,
with the grime and filth.
Later, once this is edited with the action in the bank,
-[Najwa] It's gonna be… -People are gonna be breathless.
When they saw the edited episode, they said,
"It looks like the season finale."
And I think that… That part of it's also…
you know, really supported by the fact that the main story line of the episode
is Sierra's character giving birth.
And from that event, which is so intimate, right?
It converges with something as awful as an explosion in the building
in front of hundreds of extras.
Shit, that also sounds like it wouldn't work, but it works.
[woman] …what this is about. It looks like they're planning to enter the building.
[music swells]
[Úrsula] It's in moments like these, when there's shouting,
gunshots…
-[gunshots] -Motherfucker!
[Úrsula] …and explosions…
[explosion]
…that we like to talk about our feelings.
The ones that drown us.
When you shoot someone, you feel like shit.
[Úrsula] The ones that are strong.
In that case, we should kiss.
[Úrsula] The ones that come from within.
Like love.
-No. -[Denver] Are you okay?
That's classic Money Heist stuff, totally.
Love in impossible settings. Love at impossible moments.
-The whole army is after me. -Hey, don't worry about it.
I know.
[Jesús] The heist is the reason for that.
That's what really makes these…
these love stories so intense and these moments so intense.
Because I've been in love with him all my life.
Stop messing around. It's no time for jokes, okay?
It's not a joke, buddy. [laughs]
There has to be love. There always has to be love.
There has to be love in this series.
But there also has to be love in life. There's nothing more important than love.
Having a paycheck at the end of the month is also good and gratifying,
but love,
it has to be there.
I think people are more interested in how these characters' lives turn out
than in how many bombs are gonna explode, even if it's flashy and fun to watch.
When these moments happen, people could say,
"Are they really gonna start talking about this now?"
And I think, "Yes! Of course they are." They can sprinkle in a little humor.
[extras shouting]
[Álex P.] We make it feel plausible.
It's our own universe where they can have a conversation about love
while they're shooting or about to die.
The thing is, since we're gonna die, because this is getting ugly, you know?
-No, telling you makes me feel calmer. -No.
In moments where tensions are high, we might have a fit of laughter.
-[woman] Ready! Let's go to two! -It fits that moment perfectly.
To be honest, this is hard to pull off 'cause of all the commotion.
Today, nobody's dying.
-Nobody's dying, okay? -Okay.
[Álex R.] I'm obsessed with keeping the emotion cranked up
and making it epic as well as emotional.
It has to be like… like a thrill ride.
The tension is continuous. It just never stops.
When they're shooting at you and you're fighting for your life,
and the other guy is dying, with his leg under a statue…
Yeah, finding that moment is a dramatic achievement, you know?
It's being present. It's here and now.
"Does it have that urgency?" "Yes." "Let's see what we can do."
Don't worry, Fatty, just breathe. We're getting you out of here.
"Don't leave me." Or, "Stay with me, please."
"No, no, no. I won't leave you."
[grunting]
Yeah, it must be like that in war, right?
Arteche!
I can't hear anything, Major. Tosco's injured.
Launch!
[Belén Cuesta] Outside the kitchen, there were all of these bad guys
who were like a bunch of G.I. Joes.
It's like you get completely sucked into the situation.
A lot of physical action,
lots of dust too,
lots of noise, and then also a lot of emotional stuff.
I don't think it's the best time to talk about these things.
So, it's all so dynamic.
But you might say,
"I can't believe all this is happening in the middle of a war."
I think that it's precisely the war and the heist
that trigger all of these things.
We're in a fucking war, okay?
I'm with Stockholm. The record couldn't be straighter.
[Jaime Lorente] The hardest thing was inviting the emotion
almost without any words because we had very little dialogue.
But we had to get what was going on.
In fact, Money Heist has this thing that, as an actor,
if you want to work on everything that's happening to your character,
you'll never get it right.
Are you really in love with her?
[inhales] Well, if at that moment, I'm thinking,
"I told the Professor I didn't want to go because my father had been killed."
"I didn't want my son to go through that. But I did go in, I did it for Rio."
"Now they're gonna kill me and my wife. My son's gonna end up alone."
"We're trapped. Everyone's gonna die."
If you start thinking about that, all you can say is: "I can't do this."
-I am in love, head over heels, okay? -Come on.
-"Come on" what? -I know you. I mean…
I know who you are. I know what you like. I know your dreams.
Sometimes we complicate things,
like with the plot, with the triangles, you know?
We complicate it 'cause we already went down that path emotionally.
Denver and Stockholm have already been through a lot.
Manila takes it in a new direction.
My life is like a fucking commercial.
[nostalgic music plays]
Right now, this relationship is in a very unstable place
and very vulnerable.
And to be honest, I have no idea.
Yeah, same here.
-I think they could take it anywhere. -Same here. Let's see what happens.
Yeah, Stockholm's all over the place this season.
[minimalist music plays]
[Esther Acebo] All the scenes in Money Heist have this crazy intensity.
I always say that, in every scene, you're either fighting for your life
or for the life of someone you love,
or you're about to kill someone or about to save them.
So, I mean, the energy level is always at 1,000.
One of the things I've decided to do
was to get physically prepared for the role of Stockholm.
Because she already fought to find her place
in the third and the fourth season.
I think in the fifth season, she has great little heroic moments.
And it was important to be really well prepared.
[trainer] That's it. Go, go, go, go.
[Esther] I took it as a challenge. I mean, I love it.
I've always been involved with sports. I'm active.
It's something I really enjoy and have experience in.
So, I'd get an episode and check the scenes
for any situations where my character would have to endure something
that I knew was difficult for me. It just felt like a challenge.
Suddenly, I have to climb a ventilation shaft.
I didn't realize it was going to be small and claustrophobic.
I said, "How am I gonna do this?"
I wanted to try, instead of walking on all fours,
like on my knees, to do an exercise we call "the bear,"
which actually helped me a lot. We worked really hard.
And this way, when you get to the shoot,
you know your body is used to that exercise,
it's used to that movement and will be able to do it.
[trainer] Okay, go back to the first position. Three, two…
Okay, awesome. Good, huh? Really great.
Okay, I have to confess that it was also a wonderful stuntwoman
who took care of the big jump.
I got there feeling motivated, like, "If I can, I'll do it."
I looked at the pipe, I looked at the floor, and I said, "Ah, no, no."
[man] Go up more, Marcela.
I had to do that last little baby bit.
Like a little chicken, two meters from the floor,
and when they said "Action," I did the last part of the jump.
[tense music plays]
Arturo!
You still need to have strong arms. And I said, "I just can't."
And it's like, "Yes, you can. Of course you can."
First, they help you. Then you get to set and you do it.
You say, "Yes, I can."
[dynamic music plays]
[Esther] The training helped me with other things,
not just with specific physical actions,
but also with, like, a sense of effort, of sacrifice…
I've gotten here some days after shooting and I'd say, "I can't."
There's always someone who will tell you, "Yes, you can."
I don't know, my experience was exciting.
Like, "Let's see how I handle this."
I mean, then I had to do a scene where I'm high as a kite,
almost falling on the floor, using a body cam,
which is something I'd never done before, and suddenly he says,
"Do you wanna do this? Are you up for it?"
And it's like, "Please, of course. I want to do everything."
They put a huge harness on me.
I had bruises for days afterwards, but I actually enjoyed it a lot.
Stand by. Quiet!
[music ends]
There's always something physical in Money Heist.
So if you're not in shape, that's bad.
[Darko Perić] I'm a simple guy.
I like to think of myself as any other guy from the neighborhood.
I take my son to school, which is also in the neighborhood.
Then I go to the bar…
A sparkling water.
Well, I take my script,
then I record my lines on my phone.
I promise you that once we get out of here,
I'll take you out to eat three nights in a row,
and I'll show you why Argentinian meat is the best in the world.
And then what? You're gonna take me to the movies?
I'm awake.
Come quick.
They're here.
The thing is, I started listening to myself
because, of course, everything I do here, living in Spain,
is in Castilian, and it's not my language.
So I realized that the best way for me to study is to listen to myself,
reading my lines, you know?
I put on my headphones, grab a basketball, and go down to the court.
[quiet, tense music plays]
Leg trapped.
Major hemorrhage.
Open wound.
There's blood. [pants]
Lots of blood.
[Palermo] Don't fall asleep. We're almost there.
And then what?
You're gonna take me to the movies?
They're here.
[music swells]
[tense music plays]
[Álex P.] We're three seasons in to this second heist.
And we've already gone through a lot of material in seasons one and two,
so we needed to escalate the drama, the emotion,
to push the viewer over the edge.
We'll go in by making that fucking ceiling fly!
[Javier] At this point, that could only mean a war.
Suddenly, the word "war," in a series that combines so many different genres,
introducing the war genre was very exciting.
And sometimes, when it's exciting for you
while you're writing, that means it might be exciting for the viewer too.
PARATROOPER BRIGADE, MADRID
MILITARY UNIT
[military music plays]
[Jesús] We had to storm the Bank of Spain. The army had to enter.
Our guys had to confront each other face-to-face,
in open warfare, and we thought "This is the moment."
[Sagasta] Let's go! Everyone down.
Move it!
[Fernando Cayo] The tension goes up to another level.
Until now, we'd tried not to get our hands too dirty,
but now we're going one step further.
[tense music plays]
It totally felt like we were creating our own Vietnam.
Take cover.
[tense music builds]
[machines beep]
[explosion]
[minimalist music plays]
[Úrsula] And all that military hardware would fall
on the most luxurious set we've ever built.
[Abdón Alcañiz] It's a huge luxury to see how this space evolved.
And soon this whole evolution is gonna be reversed.
We're gonna break it. It's gonna explode. It's gonna be blown to bits.
Every piece you can see in the museum,
the tables, the painted tabletops, the paintings, everything…
Everything single item was made by us, by hand.
We knew from the first minute
that every single piece was gonna be destroyed.
I had to make a dossier with everything that's actually inside the Bank of Spain.
All the references they have are listed in the Official State Bulletin
when they buy any work of art.
[Abdón] If you look at this museum,
we've gone through the entire timeline of the history of gold.
We're even talking about a private collection with a Goya, for example.
[Ángel] There are Goya paintings in there. The Quimbaya gold.
We've got Amnesty International on our backs.
You wanna pick a fight with UNESCO?
[Úrsula] More than 180 days of work, by the hands of more than 50 people,
including builders, sculptors, blacksmiths, designers,
carpenters, and painters.
You can print it, texturize it, and so on.
But why do we paint it by hand? Well, fuck, because we can.
[Álex P.] When you have a story to tell, you have to tell it in an honest way.
And we built something wonderful so we could destroy it
and be true to the story we wanted to tell and the genre we wanted to work with.
And start getting used to the idea that there'll be absolutely nothing left.
-Nothing should be left. -[man] Devastation.
If a single statue is left standing, we failed.
MUSEUM OF GOLD
We're making the most beautiful place in the Bank of Spain.
A banquet room with a gold museum.
What about all this gold, are we not gonna melt it too?
[Javier] We wanted a coffered ceiling. That was nonnegotiable.
We were excited about a coffered ceiling so we could break it.
Yeah, so we could break it.
Imagine if it was a drywall ceiling. Nobody would want to see it.
"I'm gonna show a drywall ceiling breaking."
"Okay, sure."
"I'm gonna break an 18th-century coffered ceiling."
And you say, "Let's go!"
[Ángel] That ceiling was constructed in the 18th century.
It was brought from a palace in Jaén during the Civil War
to protect it from the bombings.
And actually, when I read the script, I said, "But it's just one scene."
There's only one scene in which the set is entirely visible.
I have to admit, I felt worried every time I read the scripts.
They burned down Berlin during World War II.
Nobody said, "Don't bomb this neighborhood, it's beautiful."
"My God." That's what you think when you read the script and it says,
"The skylight falls, it falls." You say, "Let's see how we can do this."
Then you do it.
[Úrsula] Because, yeah. We built all of that stuff
for a total of one minute and 30 seconds of screen time.
Not this time. There's no plan B.
In a sense, it's the beauty of chaos.
War brings destruction, and this was the essence of our story.
And it all looked absolutely beautiful, but we were gonna blow it up.
One of our references was Gervasio Sánchez's photograph
of the library in Sarajevo.
We were looking for that aesthetic of destruction.
It's a very obvious metaphor, isn't it?
With the mental state our characters were in.
The confinement, the siege…
FILMING THE EXPLOSION, NOVEMBER 2020
[minimalist music plays]
Wow! It's incredible!
Have you seen this?
-This is spectacular. -This is where I'm gonna spend…
[Úrsula] The banquet room, when I saw it, I said, "You're gonna destroy this?"
The museum, everything…? What a pity.
Yeah, I said, "Oh my God, so much money." [laughs]
This is gonna break more than one heart. [laughs]
[disorderly music plays]
I didn't sleep at all that night.
In fact, I had several different dreams where the explosion went seriously wrong.
So "Action." That action is for everyone.
Obviously, this was one take.
The set falls on top of us on "Action." That's the basic idea.
You have a single take to tell the story you wanna tell.
While the roof falls and he's sent flying off,
the glasses burst and the lamps burst.
I sat down, crossed my fingers…
[disorderly music builds]
Javi Jal gets there and it blows up.
[explosion]
Everything will be destroyed. Everything will break.
[explosion]
It's all gonna go flying.
-[gust of wind] -[glass shatters]
This is glass. We're gonna blow it up.
[explosion]
Then the sculptures fall.
[shouts]
All this is on a hinge.
[items breaking]
Then the tables break.
[electronic music plays]
We've been working on this for a long time.
We started during the lockdown.
Here we have the remains.
-Right, Javi? -Yeah.
-From the fireworks display. -Yes, that's all that's left.
We've gone through a lot, but in the end, it worked out.
-It came out the way we wanted. -It was incredible.
ALBA FLORES, MADRID (RETURNS TO FILMING)
-Hi, how are you? -[woman] Hi.
[minimalist music plays]
-[man] Good morning. -Hi, good morning.
[Alba Flores] I felt very distant from the character, but I said,
"They'll come and work their magic."
-The scene we have is really beautiful. -[Alba] Yeah, dude.
-You're gonna die? -[Úrsula] Yup.
-Oh, man. -[Úrsula] I die in the next episode.
-[woman] Oh, wow. -Episode five?
-Yeah. -How do you die?
-[laughs] I blow myself up. -[Alba] You blow yourself up?
I still think that…
a timely death is a victory.
The characters have a journey, and if you stretch it out for too long…
-I think it's better to put an end to it… -Totally.
…tastefully.
[nostalgic music plays]
What do you think happens?
What, after they shoot us in the head? [laughs]
And I realized, "How nice… How nice that they wrote it like that."
"Because in the end, what matters to her is having experienced
something real with someone, with people."
I think I'd like people to say that…
that they shared things with me.
But, you know, like something that's real.
I feel bad because it's episode four. In episode five, my character dies and…
It's like a spoiler, like we're revealing this ahead of time.
[Úrsula] But it wasn't a spoiler.
It was a plan.
…living in the final thought you have…
[Álex P.] When Nairobi and Tokyo are talking,
we're actually anticipating a fatal event,
because that conversation is about death, right?
And so,
we think that when the viewer gets to this point,
they'll begin to have the feeling that
on one hand, "They wouldn't dare."
But on the other, we're saying, "We're going in that direction."
We want Tokyo's death to hurt you.
So we're gonna tell you about Tokyo's life, her past,
Tokyo's love, Tokyo's pain,
and who she really is
on the episode we kill her.
[Jesús] To me, she's always been a cursed character.
We needed to see it. We needed to see what that love was like.
[upbeat violin music plays]
We needed to feel the importance of her backstory
and why they needed to steal.
How they were really just two neighborhood kids
who needed to run away.
I want to enjoy you all the time.
[Úrsula] The whole thing in Lisbon is something like…
It's like a dream. Like…
some fantasy.
[optimistic piano music plays]
[Úrsula] This is such an addictive series, dude.
I've complained, I've suffered…
But, I mean, of course in the end, there's something…
[laughs] Fuck.
What really moves me about this series is the people, dude.
And I don't know if I'm ever gonna find that again in my career, you know?
Meeting people who are so…
People that give it their all.
That moves me. A lot.
I'm really moved by Jesús Colmenar.
I'm really moved by the actors. By Álex Sancho.
By everyone. I mean, It's like… I feel like they put everything into it.
And that is something that's very "us,"
very much our culture.
This also has to do with our passion, you know? That's it.
There's something very passionate in the way that we do things.
The people who have come together here are very… committed.
And I think that's the secret of the series.
I think that's just… [sighs]
That's priceless.
[music intensifies and ends]
Hello, hello, hello, hello.
Úrsula entering the set.
Last day of Money Heist.
[Úrsula] The ending is really symbolic for Tokyo.
[pensive western music plays]
[shouts]
[Úrsula] There's a moral to the story too, you know?
About enjoying life,
which I think is interesting and it's…
very easy to grasp in the episode.
[Tokyo] And those five bullet wounds reminded me of my samurai.
And it's kind of like…
a mix of all the different lives she's talked about,
that she's lived.
Because, at the end of the day, the Professor gave her a second life.
That's really beautiful.
-[sobs] Something ends today. -No.
But now is the first day of your next life.
It's so generous of Tokyo to take her own life to save her friends.
At the same time, she's offering Rio that same lesson, you know?
The lesson that she's learned throughout out her life, which is,
"Finish one story and experience the next, because life is full of wonderful moments,
but only if you let go of the past."
There's actually a basic theme throughout the season, which is
"How many lives am I capable of living?"
[in Spanish] ♪ How many hearts How many lives are there? ♪
♪ How much heart And how much life do I have? ♪
♪ How many hearts How many lives are there? ♪
♪ How much heart And how much life do I have… ♪
I was at home listening to the song, and I said,
"Wow, it's everything that's going on in this moment."
"It fits really well, honestly."
Maybe there's a bit of that in the song.
Maybe unconsciously everything that was happening to me as a character
was also reflected in that.
[Úrsula] I've been trying to get used to the idea that I'm done, but…
[Rio] No!
It's hard.
It's hard…
for my brain to understand that.
♪ To have me, kill me It turns out I have no owner ♪
♪ Shoot me, to have me, kill me It turns out… No! ♪
♪ So still and broken In front of the mirror ♪
♪ Those aren't my eyes That's not my reflection ♪
♪ A muffled scream Is heard in the distance… ♪
I survived!
♪ Where am I going? Where am I going? ♪
♪ How many hearts How many lives are there? ♪
♪ How much heart And how much life do I have… ♪
"Today is the last day of something beautiful and exciting,
but it's the first day of your next life."
"And all of us who love you wish you many lives."
"Thank you for these years, Úrsula. Good luck in all the careers yet to come."
[cheers and applause]
♪ I hide and my fear… No! ♪
♪ Once again ♪
♪ Killing myself ♪
♪ Breaking myself again ♪
♪ Losing myself again ♪
♪ Breaking myself again Losing myself again ♪
♪ Asking myself again ♪
♪ How many hearts How many lives are there? ♪
♪ How much heart And how much life do I have? How many… ♪
Okay. That's all, folks.
♪ …and how much life do I have? ♪
♪ I hide ♪
♪ I hide and my fear speaks ♪
♪ I hide and my fear… No! ♪
♪ Killing myself again ♪
♪ Breaking myself again Losing myself again ♪
♪ Asking myself again ♪
♪ How many hearts How many lives are there? ♪
♪ How much heart And how much life do I have? ♪
♪ How many hearts How many lives are there? ♪
♪ How much heart And how much life do I have? ♪
♪ I hide, I hide and my fear speaks ♪
♪ I hide and I'm not myself ♪
♪ I'm not speaking, my fear speaks ♪