Since he was little, Lautaro Parada knew he wanted to be an actor. It’s not too hard to imagine if you analyze his family tree, as he was born into an artistic family. His great-grandmother was one of the most important artists in Argentina, a precursor of radio theater and the “villain” of Cris Morena’s series. His grandfather was a top comedy star, with memorable characters that made everyone laugh. However, when he told them he wanted to follow in their footsteps, both gave him the same response: “Don’t do it”.
But he ignored their advice and began to forge his own career as an actor. In an interview with LA NACION, Lautaro Disi revealed how he broke, in his own way, the family mandate and pursued his deepest dream of developing in the artistic environment, just as his great-grandmother Hilda Bernard and his grandfather, Emilio Disi, did.
Lautaro never saw himself as a doctor, a lawyer, or even as an accountant. As a child, he wanted to be an “actor or rock star”. He grew up between the Teatro Lola Membrives, the set of Married with Children and the show of Susana Giménez. At the age of 12, he began studying acting at the Teatro La Galera of Héctor Presa in search of that desired future. However, he encountered an “obstacle.” He turned to his grandfather and great-grandmother, and received a surprise.
“The answer they both gave me was simple: ‘find something else’”, he told Lautaro to LA NACION. “It’s a profession where you suffer. I feel that being an artist is something that if you could give it up, you would. Something very strong and deep inside has to happen for you to keep fighting for it. The truth is that it’s quite a struggle in the artist’s profession in general, in any type of art,” he reflected.
Despite that “rejection” from two of his greatest references, ‘Taro’ -as they call him- did not listen and stood firm in his decision. “My great-grandmother went through the same thing. She wanted to be an actress in the 40s and at that time, being an actress was basically seen as being a prostitute. That’s how her father, my great-great-grandfather, who was a bank manager, viewed it. However, she, as a child, made the decision to pursue it.” And he did too.
Lautaro had a brief stint at the National University of the Arts (UNA) and began in theater with A Doll’s House and They Called Him Manuel. “When I read a character, it comes straight to my mind how to do it. If I read and nothing happens, I say no,” explained the 26-year-old actor who stars in Cleopatra on Avenida Corrientes.
Until recently, he had the fortune of knowing, enjoying, and learning from his great-grandmother, Hilda Bernard, mother of his grandmother Patricia Zelada, ex-wife of Emilio Disi and mother of Emiliano Parada, his father.
“I accompanied her a lot. I would sit through rehearsals of four or five hours of texts and I found it terribly boring because I was a kid,” he said with a laugh. But today, as an adult, those moments mean “super valuable memories” and he still has images in his mind of his great-grandmother with Duilio Marzio in The Last Encounter.
“She taught me a lot about what it means to speak on stage. She was particularly recognized for having a powerful voice and great vocal control. She helped me understand and memorize texts from a monologue, how to raise my voice, and speak with a pause. We read a lot of Federico García Lorca. Until she was 100 years old, she remembered a poem of his, The Unfaithful Wife. Even when she was older and confused me with my dad, she could recite that poem from memory. These are, for me, inexplicable things.”
Additionally, Disi recounted that during the time of Chiquitas, when they went out together, Hilda would be stopped in the street and greeted everyone: “She was the best, very kind to everyone, attentive and dedicated”.
Bernard was an actress who transcended generations. Some knew her from Radio Splendid, others from They Killed a Taxi Driver, and the rest from being the wicked (and very endearing) Carmen in the early seasons of Chiquititas. In any case, everyone has heard her name at some point. “Recently, I received an award for Hilda with Cristina Banegas and she, who is a super-established actress, told me about when she was little and studied with my great-grandmother. Generationally, it’s an enormous gap. It blows my mind the passage of time, from being the first woman in radio theater to being an icon of a children’s series, spanning from the 40s to the 90s and 2000s. It’s crazy.”
Bernard died “peacefully and with much tranquility” on April 20, 2022. She was 101 years old. “In her last time, all she wanted was to get back on stage. She worked until she was 95. Her last play was Posthumous, by José María Muscari. Then she suffered a stroke and contracted Covid twice, but from that moment until she passed away all she wanted was to return to the stage,” revealed her great-grandson.
Lautaro’s paternal grandfather was Emilio Parada (or Disi, as the public knew him). He even adopted his stage surname. “I got to talk to him and I think he would have fully agreed with that,” he commented. “When I was 15, he came to see one of my first plays. It was a great pride for me. He left and told me ‘very good’. I was overjoyed.”
“He was a great man. I laughed a lot with him. He had the comedian’s syndrome. A person who makes so many people laugh is somewhat serious in life. Suddenly you were having coffee and he would throw out a joke that would have you falling off your chair with laughter,” he remembered with a smile. However, he acknowledged that Emilio, unlike Hilda, wasn’t “that friendly” when fans asked him for photos.
Lautaro and Emilio were very close and had a special relationship. However, when he was little, he didn’t really grasp who he had in his family. After living from ages 4 to 9 in Miami with his parents, he returned to Buenos Aires and on his first days in school, a classmate told him: “You’re Emilio Disi’s grandson”. Regarding that scene, which stuck with him to this day, he acknowledged: “I had never seen anything of my grandfather. I went to the theater a few times, but for me it was normal.” He truly understood when a friend of Emilio’s gifted him an action figure of his grandfather from Exterminators: “That’s when I said ‘of course, he’s quite a big deal since they made a toy of him’.”
Lautaro also went to school with Johanna ‘Yoyi’, the youngest daughter of Guillermo Francella. The actors, who shared several films together, would meet at school events, leading to some amusing situations: “They would be chatting in the back as if nothing was happening while people went crazy”.
Unlike what happened during Bernard’s final days, the farewell with his grandfather was “a bit unpleasant.” The star of Explosive Brigade had lung cancer, and his grandson recounted that although during the early stage of his hospital stay he was “relatively fine,” the end was hard: “He suffered in his departure”.
Nevertheless, despite the illness, until the last minute, Emilio did not lose his essence: “One day he escaped from the hospital. The nurses weren’t around, he put on pants a friend brought him, a polo shirt and some sneakers and went to a bar around the corner to eat a milanesa with fries and drink some wine. To me, he already knew it was his last time of life,” Lautaro recounted.
However, the story didn’t end there, as he didn’t have money to pay for what he consumed, he asked the waiter to put it on his tab. “The whole family was desperate looking for him until the friend who brought him the clothes explained the situation.” What was the ending to the story? Emilio returned to the hospital by himself and Elvira Ferrer (his last partner) went to settle the bill. The actor passed away on March 14, 2018, at the age of 75.
Lautaro had the opportunity to experience art at home. In addition to his great-grandmother and grandfather, his uncle, ‘Pepe’ Parada, was a well-known show producer, and Hilda’s second husband, Jorge Goncálvez, was also a producer and director. “As a kid, you have this imagination of being an artist, but as I grew up and faced reality, I chose it and embraced it still. There’s something there that won’t let me do anything else,” he recognized.
Despite the objections, Disi chose to fulfill that childhood dream, to train as an actor, and to adopt a surname as imposing as his grandfather’s: “I feel that I was quite independent in being able to create my own path. The people who know me and have worked with me know that it all becomes anecdotal. More than a burden, I feel I owe something to the profession, a respect for the lineage because my whole family, in one way or another, worked in this field.”
Today, Lautaro’s day-to-day life is divided between rehearsals, performances, recordings, and photo productions. On Saturdays at 6 PM, he stars in a classic, Cleopatra, at the Multi-Stage Theater (Avenida Corrientes 1764) and on Fridays at 9 PM, he shines in the comedy Losers at the Gargantua Theater (Jorge Newbery 3563), under the direction of Gigi Fallotico. In addition, he lives with his partner, Micaela Oro, who is also an actress and director at Microteatro.
He is even thinking long-term. He dreams of acting at San Martín, a theater that holds much family history for him, and working with actor Gonzalo Urtizberéa and director Mariano Stolquiner. Currently, he is filming an audiovisual project and writing some of his own works to, in the future, launch himself as a director.
Despite the fact that when he was a child his great-grandmother and grandfather told him not to become an actor, he ignored it and fought for his passion. Today, from a distance, he considers it all to have been “a test.” Both artists were very respectful and gave him space to carve out his own path. “Whenever I asked for help, they gave it to me, but I feel they didn’t see the need to put any more pressure on me than necessary,” he explained and assured that even though they once told him otherwise, both Hilda and Emilio were “tremendously proud” of him for following in their footsteps.