Ricky Martin Says Storytelling Is His Refuge and His Kids Are the Ones Who Keep Him Open Enough to Do It Well

Ricky Martin arrived at the 83rd Venice Film Festival as part of the cast of “Hombre al agua,” the new film directed by Gael García Bernal that is screening out of competition at the Mostra, which runs from September 2nd through September 12th. The Puerto Rican singer and actor, 54, sat down with EFE on the occasion of the screening and spoke with the kind of openness that has become characteristic of how he talks about his creative life, describing storytelling as his refuge and the place where he feels most himself regardless of the medium he is working in.

The film, which also features Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem in competition with their film “Bunker” at the same festival, tells the story of a Cuban lifeguard whose life changes after he saves a wealthy Mexican businessman, eventually going to work for him and marrying his daughter, only to find that his new life is not what it appears to be. García Bernal plays the lifeguard, and Martin plays an actor who is hired by the protagonist’s wife to portray her husband in a biographical production that exists as a film within the film. The concept is layered in a way that clearly appeals to Martin’s appetite for work that allows him to play with identity and performance simultaneously.

The Role That Only Took One Day to Film

Martin’s scenes in “Hombre al agua” were completed in a single day of filming, a detail he mentioned with the kind of enthusiasm that suggests the brevity of the shoot did nothing to diminish the experience. He described the film as genuinely fun and said that working with García Bernal as a director made it even more enjoyable, crediting him with giving actors the freedom to play and contribute while maintaining a structure that keeps the production moving forward. When asked about the decision to take the role, Martin said the answer was never in question, describing it as something he would never have considered turning down.

He said the film continues to give him something new every time he watches it, suggesting that the layers built into the narrative reward repeated viewing in a way that simpler productions do not. For a performer who has spent three decades navigating music, television and film across multiple languages and markets, the ability to recognize a project with that quality and say yes to it quickly is something Martin seems to regard as both a skill and a responsibility.

Storytelling as the Thread That Runs Through Everything

Martin’s description of storytelling as his refuge is worth taking seriously as a framework for understanding a career that has moved fluidly across genres and disciplines. He spoke about finding vulnerability as the key to convincing an audience of something lived or witnessed, and about the desire to create a conversation through that vulnerability rather than simply to entertain. The author of global hits including “María,” “La Copa de la Vida” and “Livin’ la Vida Loca” has spent years making the case through his choices that his creative ambitions extend well past pop stardom, and his presence at Venice alongside García Bernal is another data point in that argument.

He described wanting to keep seeking stories, creating them and making other people’s stories his own, listing music, film, theater and literature as equally valid containers for that impulse. The books he has written, the stage work he has done and the film roles he has accepted all feed the same hunger, and Martin speaks about that continuity with an ease that suggests he stopped needing to justify the range of his interests a long time ago.

On Parenthood and Staying Open

One of the more striking moments in Martin’s conversation with EFE came when he spoke about the role his children play in keeping him intellectually and emotionally open. He described how decisions he made ten years ago would never be the decisions he makes now, and attributed part of that evolution to the daily recalibration that comes with being a parent. His children, he said, regularly present him with perspectives and stories that challenge his assumptions in ways he did not anticipate, and he described that challenge as something to embrace rather than resist.

He said artists can be extremely rigid, and that staying open is both a creative and a personal necessity. The 83rd Venice Film Festival, which includes some of the most anticipated films of the year in its competition lineup, is a fitting place for Martin to make that point. His willingness to spend a day filming a supporting role in a García Bernal project because the creative invitation felt right is itself an expression of the openness he described, and the conversation it has started about his artistic priorities suggests the instinct was correct.