Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘Superstar’ transports the audience to the early 2000s to present pop icon Yurena aka Tamara’s rise to stardom. The six-episode series gives space to the characters who surrounded Yurena in her journey, from her overly-protective mother to her agent who made her sex video and leaked it to the press. Each episode ventures into a different territory, presenting a character study that shows the character in a new light. All of these stories are introduced to the audience via a narrator called Joaquin Sardana of a TV show called ‘Tiempo de Marte.’ Like every other aspect of the show, he is also a mix of reality and fiction. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Joaquin Sardana is Loosely Based on a Real Spanish TV Presenter
Portraying the pop culture of the 2000s would be incomplete without considering the talk shows that became major conduits for propelling people like Tamara to stardom. Hence, in telling her story, it was important to capture that side of the entertainment industry. In this context, the Spanish talk show ‘Crónicas Marcianas’ was a major milestone in the pop icon’s life. The show was created by Xavier Sardà. ’Superstar’ creator Nacho Vigalondo used him as the reference point to create a fictional TV presenter called Joaquín Sardana, who hosts ‘Tiempo de Marte.’
‘Crónicas Marcianas’ ran from 1997 to 2005 and was one of the most popular midnight shows in Spain at the time. While it was tagged as “trash television,” it was an absolute ratings hit and won several awards as well. It was created by Xavier Sardà, who started his career as a journalist working in print media for major Spanish newspapers like Mundo Diario and El Noticiero Universal. His next step took him to radio, where he quickly established himself as a major presence, especially with the invention of his alter-ego, Mr. Casamajó. Eventually, he turned towards television, where he started as a presenter for ‘Children’s Play.’ But the real turn in his fortune came in the form of ‘Crónicas Marcianas,’ which he created in 1997.
The success of ‘Crónicas Marcianas’ can be estimated by the fact that a simple presence on the show could turn a person into a celebrity, which is what celebrities like Tamara benefited from. Over the years, the show turned more and more outrageous in terms of the people and the stories it presented, and eventually, its rating started to fall. When the show ended, Sardà took a hiatus from television for about two years, but then he was back with another string of projects that have kept him busy over the years.
Joaquin Sardana was Invented as the Audience’s Guide Into Tamara’s Story
When creator-director Nacho Vigalondo was asked to make a show on Tamara and the craze surrounding her, he decided to take an approach that would completely rewrite people’s perception of her and the group of people whose stories were inextricably attached to hers. However, in doing so, he needed to welcome the audience via a narrator who had been there to witness and propagate Tamara’s stardom, but wasn’t close enough to have any major impact on her life and career. This is why Xavier Sardà appeared as the perfect choice, and Vigalondo gave him a fictional twist to serve the show’s surrealist tone and turned him into Joaquin Sardana. One of the reasons that Xavier Sardà perfectly traversed that neutral territory in the story was that Vigalondo believed that even without him and his show, Tamara would have managed to become the pop icon that she is now.
He believed that Sardà’s show amplified her reach, but she would have managed to find the same level of success without him. Still, Sardà and his show were important enough that the story could not be told as effectively without them in the picture. One of the things that Vigalondo wanted was to capture the essence of the 2000s, and Joaquin Sardana and ‘Tiempo de Marte’ were going to help him do that. He wanted the show to come off as close to a 2000s show as possible, and to get the same signature, he found the directors and editors who had worked in those TV shows back then and were familiar with the way they were filmed and edited to be presented to the audience in the most dramatic way possible. The responsibility of making ‘Tiempo de Marte’ was given over to them, and the choice bore intended results.
Another thing that makes Joaquin Sardana interesting is that Vigalondo played the character himself. While he wanted to make ‘Superstar’ as an ode to Tamara and the celebrities of her time, he also wanted to have fun while making it. So, he chose to step into the shoes of Joaquin Sardana, and even brought his long-time collaborators Aníbal Gómez and Paula Púa to play the show’s co-hosts, Boris Izaguirre and Rocío Madrid. The trio’s real-life chemistry brought the authenticity that the show’s creator wanted and made ‘Tiempo de Marte’ a character in itself that plays a significant role in telling Tamara’s story.
