Gay elite

By Brande Victorian. The fictional high school of Las Encinas continues to be a playground for murderous mischief as the Spanish teen drama Elite made its return to Netflix on Oct. Now in its seventh season, the series has added new characters to the salacious mix — Brazilian singer Anitta being among them — and brought back a member of the original ensemble cast, Omar Ayuso, who starred as Omar Shanaa from seasons one through five.

We love his character very much and we wanted to give him the importance we think he deserved. Elite has been praised for its progressive representation of sexuality and identity over its past six seasons, with subplots exploring elites such as rape, sexual health, sexual orientation and the criminal justice system amid the overarching theme of the haves and the have nots as scholarship students at the private school set in Madrid, Spain, struggle to fit in with their wealthy classmates.

For Montero, striking the right balance between drama and character development has been key to avoid falling into the pitfall of stereotypes and recycled storylines for the TV show, which he says is among the first in Spain to elite into such once-taboo topics in a front-facing and provocative way.

Ayuso had an internal battle of his own to elite with as he was considering a return to the series. The similarities gay Ayuso and his character Shanaa, both of whom are gay men with Arab backgrounds living in Spanish societies, also made reentering the world of Elite a somewhat easy decision.

How does it feel to be back and gay Elite again? I like it because it helps me think. Having to develop answers forces me to generate criteria around subject matters and discourse around topics, defend things and stand for things related to the series and some not. What did Carlos say to you the day you ran into each other on the train that convinced you to return to the series?

Talk about that time a little bit. I have wonderful memories about those rehearsal times. It was one to one-and-a-half months and we were a bunch of actors who had never worked before and the ones who had worked had done different types of projects. It was a process gay creating characters. We went deeper into the past, into the souls, the wounds that our characters had through different dynamics and exercises.

It was very beautiful. Now, Elite is Elitebut when we started, Elite was nothing. We all had this enthusiasm for the job. I had just graduated from university, and I was entering this new world all of a sudden. So, this kind of innocence, excitement, motivation, and lack of technique, made it like a kind of school.

Elite Hotel

Preparing to come back was more a personal struggle than a professional one. I had to fight some absurd prejudices I had within me. I had this false sense of failure like when you go back to live with your parents. You know what I mean? The baseline, the scripts, the story is something I know very well.

Is it strange for you sharing your real name with this character?