Spanish filmmaker Santiago Segura believes comedy is hard to export

A few days ago the Gamereactor team was able to attend the presentation of the San Diego Comic-Con in Malaga, the first outside the US. We were able to talk to different personalities, one of them was Icíar Bollaín. And we also talked to Santiago Segura, nationally and internationally known, for his humorous films, sometimes familiar, sometimes irreverent.

Among many topics, we talk about the difficulties of exporting the humour of his films, which is usually very local, to foreign countries, the most recent Father There Is Only One. "We have been exporting American comedy films for decades. Exporting local humour is almost impossible. They say comedy doesn't travel," the actor said. "I love the films Will Ferrell used to make, he's a god, but people don't go to see them". Along with Ferrell, Segura highlighted other actors, including Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, and Jim Carrey, as his references in comedy and the type of humour he looks for. "For me, they are comedy heroes. We did The Amazing World of Borjamari and Pocholo, even Isi/Disi, that kind of comedy with characters, but I don't think they translate well," he said.

He also spoke to us about his best known character, ex-police officer turned dirty, irreverent, old-fashioned detective, Torrente, and its international run, when he tried to create something along the same lines as Leslie Nielsen did with The Naked Gun. "Torrente is a movie they tried to buy. Mexico tried to make a Torrente. France and even the United States, too," the actor explained. "They paid for the rights and worked on it, but it didn't work. I helped them and gave them ideas, but El Fary is a very special singer. But it's another culture, it's like football".

He also told us an anecdote about creating and selling an action figure of the character and the rights to it, which he still retains today. "When I signed the first Torrente contract, I put that the merchandising rights were for me and the producer laughed". For the figure, he talked to SideShow, but they wanted to make a cheap one. "If we make it here, 1,000 people will buy it, but it would have an astronomical price. At 5,000 euro, you can sell it, but it's not Indiana Jones or Superman."

If you want to see the interview in full, we leave it (also subbed) below.