All the Rage
With artistic and storytelling flair, HBO Max’s Furia (Rage) tells the interconnected stories of five women pushed to the edge – and revenge. Creator, writer and director Félix Sabroso opens up about his auteurial voice, the show’s heightened reality and writing for the actors who would lead the series.
By his own admission, Félix Sabroso has spent countless years developing TV and film projects that have never reached audiences. But across his career, the Spanish creator has never sought to compromise his unique approach to storytelling or the visual aesthetics he hoped would make him stand out from the crowd.
In the meantime, the writer and director has mostly worked on independent films and supported other people’s work, with writing and directing credits on Veneno, Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo’s biopic of transgender singer and personality Cristina Ortiz Rodríguez, and Mentiras pasajeras (Fleeting Lies), a comedy from Pedro and Agustín Almodóvar’s production company that blends humour and melodrama.
But it’s with Furia (Rage), an eight-part series now streaming on HBO Max, that Sabroso believes he has finally been able to bring his full creative vision to a mainstream audience.
“It’s been a long process and I have insisted always on defending my creative freedom and working on projects that have my unique voice,” he tells DQ. “It’s cost me a lot of years of projects that haven’t made it to the audience. I’ve been able to direct some independent films and on films and series that have been commissioned, gladly and happily, so I could then create something like Rage.”
Bringing together five of Spain’s most acclaimed actresses for the first time, Rage centres on five different female characters who find themselves pushed to the edge – and revenge – by a range of extreme situations, from extortion and oppression to deceit, exclusion and manipulation. But with the episodes set in a shared universe full of irony, satire and humour, each character’s actions may have consequences for those around them.
With eye-catching yellow hair, Carmen Machi plays Marga, a snobbish artist whose TV director husband Roberto is having an affair with their maid, Tina. Vera (Pilar Castro), Marga’s friend, is a media-loving cook who closes her business because of the sickness of an incisive critic.
Nat (Candela Peña) is a fashion shop assistant who counts Marga and Vera among her clients and feels threatened when the company changes its staff and hires younger people. Adela (Nathalie Poza), Tina’s mother, is unemployed and is about to be evicted, along with her elderly mother, by her cruel landlord.
Meanwhile, Victoria (Cecilia Roth), Adela and Nat’s neighbour, is a forgotten actress from the erotic cinema of the 70s and receives an offer that could be her comeback. These five women go to the limit and exact revenge, but not even they are spared in this contemporary satire.
Unusually, the first five episodes centre on each of the protagonists individually, before the final three episodes bring them all together, surrounded by a supporting cast that also includes Claudia Salas (Tina), Alberto San Juan (Roberto), Ana Torrent (Rosa), Claudia Roset, Mima Riera, Pedro Casablanc and Marilu Marini.
“What I wanted to do was create a portrait of current times, of the uncertainty we feel when everyone seems to be trapped by a system we’re participating in actively, and that sensation just creates a sense of rage constantly,” Sabroso says. “My intention was to create a kaleidoscope with my stories, and create independent stories that were interconnected to show the relationship between these women and create that satire of the current moment.”
He chose to focus on female characters to counter the fact that “we’re used to seeing men in roles where they portray rage and violence.” If he did the same, Rage would just have become “your standard action drama.” However, switching up the protagonists changes the conversation.
“It allows me to create a character arc that’s so much more interesting. And also, it’s to make it right with women, give them the place they haven’t had in history and put them in the front line to tell the situation of what is going on in society at the moment,” Sabroso says.
“As the show develops, the tone gets a bit more bitter, more realistic. The episodes touch upon very big themes throughout and there’s a constant reflection on how the difference between social classes is becoming so much more evident in western countries and how violence has become a form of expression. These women aren’t just victims of what’s happened to them. They are integrated into the system. They’re not just black and white characters, they’re victims but they’re also playing a part in what’s happening to them and that’s what makes them so interesting.”
Produced by Producciones Mandarina, the series utilises bold costume and production design choices that highlight the heightened sense of reality portrayed in each episode. Catchy music choices also keep the show moving forward, coupled with the occasional dance sequence.
Leaning into the satirical nature of the show, Sabroso wanted to create a programme with “a very different form,” with an intention from the beginning that Rage would not be entirely realistic. “The choice of the framing, the colour palette, the art direction and the wardrobe is super intentional to underline this is a satire – and to create in each episode a different universe,” he notes, “and give the show a coherence, so when viewers are watching, they are clearly set in each of the episodes and within this world. That’s also down to Jau Fornés, the co-director, who wanted to use specific lenses and made specific choices, and the DOP, Carlos Cebrián, who also played a very important role in this process.”
But it was the writing process that would prove to be the key to ensuring the series works as a whole, bringing the five worlds of the central characters together in an interconnected way that is changed and altered by the butterfly effect of one story on another.
Sabroso describes writing the scripts as a “very complex process.” In fact, episodes one to five unfold simultaneously, while chance encounters between characters moving between episodes help to provide the audience with extra information or deepen their understanding of events they might have already seen.
“It was also complex because I was working alone,” he says. “It wasn’t a pool of writers. I was creating all of this solo. I did work with a co-writer for two episodes, but the whole of the universe was created by me.”
To do that, he was guided by two main “pillars.” The first was that he developed the stories using copious amounts of documents and notes to help him build the world of Rage. The second was that he already knew which actors were going to play each role, as he wrote the scripts specifically for them.
“Throughout the whole of my career, my cast have played a major role in the success of my projects,” Sabroso says. “I’ve always felt constant support from the actors and actresses I’ve worked with, and they’ve always been very involved, both in the character and the story I’ve pitched to them.
“I’m used to writing to seduce the talent I want to work with, so I definitely had this in mind when I reached out to them hoping they would want to come on board. I’ve worked before with Candela Peña, Carmen Machi, Pilar Castro and Ana Torrent, who placed so much trust in me. They knew they were working on a very special project, becoming characters I had written for them. These are very A-list actors here in Spain, and it was such a huge challenge to get them all together to work on their roles. I knew I had to create something that was worthwhile for them.”
Bringing together such a high calibre of cast might have led to significant scheduling challenges, but Sabroso says the production “seriously lucked out” when it came to the calendar, because everyone was available at the same time. And considering the way some of his previous projects had fallen, the challenge to fit filming around the cast’s other commitments wasn’t a hurdle he was too worried by.
“Throughout my career, I’ve had a lot of trial and error because I have a very personal gaze. My projects have an auteur essence to them, and that is not easy to market,” he says. “Some of the projects haven’t got past the development phase because the platforms didn’t want to take a risk, but this process has been very easy, quite seamless. And even though it hasn’t felt like everything happened quickly, it has in the end.”
As a director, Sabroso usually likes to rehearse with his cast. But when it came to Rage, and because he’d worked with many of the stars before, he decided to take a different approach this time, meeting each of the actors individually to “walk” them through their story and discuss the tone of the show. Then on the first day of filming, he helped them “find their feet” and create the most suitable working environment.
“To keep them on their toes, I did ask them to be very literal in the words I had written,” he says. “I didn’t want any ad-libbing, any improv, because the dialogues are very intentional. They’re not created to be natural. Even though there is a realistic base, it’s not 100% realistic because it’s satire, and that’s why it was so important to be true to the words on the page.”
That approach speaks to the specificity with which Sabroso works as a writer and director – two roles in which he feels equally comfortable. “And I feel very sure of myself on set because I’ve written those words,” he adds. “I know what’s going to come before, I know what’s going to come after, and that helps me when I’m creating the narrative arc because I know what I can show, what I have to hide. Sometimes I do give them space to create – I want both the cast and the crew to be able to come with me with some suggestions, but within my writing and directing process.”
As Rage continues to roll out on HBO Max following its two-episode debut on July 11, Sabroso hopes the series will open up more opportunities for him to bring his creative voice to the screen.
“Now I’m turning 60, this is the first time I’ve been able to merge a project that is very personal, an auteur project, with a mainstream roll-out that is reaching so many countries,” he says. “I hope it will resonate with the audience, and hopefully seeing how this series is working will allow me in the future to carry on with projects that have my personal voice and perspective.”
Like that? Watch this! Suggested by AI, selected by DQ
Arde Madrid: In 1960s Madrid, a fiercely loyal Francoist spinster and a roguish chauffeur are sent undercover as staff in the home of Hollywood star Ava Gardner, tasked with spying on her decadent lifestyle for Franco’s regime.
Veneno: The lives of two women intertwine when an aspiring journalist decides to write a book about Cristina Ortiz – La Veneno – a charismatic transgender icon.
The House of Flowers: After their father’s secrets are exposed, members of the dysfunctional De la Mora family scramble to maintain the perfect image of their prestigious flower shop and their personal lives, while tackling outrageous scandals and deep-rooted family drama.
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