‘Berlin’ Star Pedro Alonso on Revisiting His ‘Money Heist’ Character for the Netflix Prequel Series

, much like , the character he plays in , is distinguished, charming and charismatic. The success of the crime series has made the Spanish actor a global star and his fame has only gone up since the launch, on Dec. 29, of prequel , in which he reprises his role as the conniving, manipulative thief who is also a hopeless romantic.

Alonso admits to feeling “vertigo” at the level of media exposure that came with the success of but says he doesn’t worry about being typecast in the role. Instead, he sees the chance to return to Berlin in the spin off series a “vital gift [both] narrative and professional.” spoke to Alonso about why is as much a romantic comedy as a crime thriller, the “paradox” of its central character, who is both a romantic and “an emotional terrorist” and how the success of has allowed him “to have many other lives,” including, most recently, as a novelist.

* The riskiest thing we did had to do with the tone [of the new series]. The first month and a half of shooting we talked about tone hundreds of times. We were moving more towards a romantic comedy. The character was starting to become more of a feel good movie protagonist. At one point we found ourselves in Paris, talking about love.

I was afraid the character would be distorted, that he would lose his DNA. [Having Berlin as a romantic lead] wouldn’t have made sense, would it? We are doing a new genre and we found we were speaking from another place. That made us work with a wider stylistic range. [Berlin] the character is at times, creepy, unpredictable, and definitely unpresentable, but he still strongly seeks romantic love, even if it is through very questionable strategies [laughs].

For me, the greatest difficulty was to feel comfortable in the character [despite this] very intricate weaving job. We had to reinvent the series. I think it is a very clear evolution of what we had before. It’s another galaxy. We’ve thrown ourselves into the romantic comedy genre. We’ve brought it back to life to kill it off for good [laughs] I think Berlin is an emotional terrorist, a sociopath, a liar, an evil beast.

But in a world where almost all of us live very disassociated lives, he tries to make every moment [intense] both for himself and for those around him. He conceals everything as a means of wreaking havoc. Of course, having a guy like this talking about love, is a great contradiction. When I was offered to play Berlin, I wasn’t afraid that the character wouldn’t have a life, a career, beyond the series.

It’s like playing Sherlock Holmes. Berlin is a category, a narrative category. As soon as I saw the new characters [in ] I said to myself: the previous Berlin is from a different universe. This is another time, another approach, another tone, another genre. I did experience vertigo at the level of media exposure of the [ ] phenomenon.

But, for me, [playing Berlin] has been a vital gift, a narrative and professional gift. And it allows me to do other things. This year I produced, directed and wrote a non fiction series. I made a science fiction film [ ]. I published a novel [ ]. I take on the ‘burden’ that this role entails because it allows me to have many other lives.

I don’t think it’s a bad deal. Yes, and . You can only hear it very briefly, but we also recorded . At home, when I sang as a child, they would tell me: ‘Pedro, don’t sing.’ And I don’t think I ever did, before singing [in ]. I had never sung a whole song in my life. I had a little difficulty doing it.

I had to do it because we were shooting a fictional character. I had to overcome a lot of my modesty. But now, we’re very clearly in concert mode [laughs]. We are recording melodic, romantic Italian songs as if we were [Italian pop duo] Albano and Romina. This is one of those gifts that my profession has given me.

Singing for me was like jumping into the ocean. I never thought I could do it and enjoy it in this way. I want to sing more. Berlin THR Newsletters Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day More from The Hollywood Reporter.