Он особо выделил случай Хавьера Бардема, с которым он работал в фильме «Пока не наступила ночь», за который получил номинацию на «Оскар» за роль кубинского писателя и поэта Рейнальдо Аренаса: «Он потрясающий актер», – сказал он. said. В видеоролике сам Бардем поздравил Шнабеля с наградой и подчеркнул его способность сделать фильм «чистым холстом, на котором он рисует».

He still experiences the surprise caused to him by the Guipuzcoan society, “who ate pintxos before dinner and threw napkins on the floor,” in an environment such as the old town of the Guipuzcoan capital, which “I am passionate about,” and under “the cloud of “conflict,” permeating everything. He also remembers Gros Beach, where “I used to surf.”

However, the New York artist and film director no longer sees the city as the same, he perceives it as changed and states this with a certain sadness. Donostia no longer feels like the “neoclassical” city he knew, with its market and surrounding area, “now the market is like a shopping center,” and the Tabacalera exhibition center “has become a very ugly art center.”

He makes no secret of the fact that over the years he has gotten to know the Basques, those “stoic” citizens with whom it is difficult for them to be your friends on the first day, but who, once there, “are your friends forever.”