‘Sketch’ Panfilo and Obama revolutionized Cuban television – TVN Panama

“I still can not remove the jump in the stomach that I have since 15 days ago I was called to do this,” he says the comedian Luis Silva, who plays the Cuban character made famous Obama.

“I had to take sedatives because one gets very nervous,” he said in a telephone interview with AFP on Thursday.

Since and he spread the skit in which Obama gave the popular Cuban greeting: “what ball?” (How are you?), Silva, a cyber 37, is mobbed by the press.

On Wednesday spread on social networks, before leaving on Cuban television, another Obama episode and Panfilo in the comedy “Living the story”, the most watched program on the island, where the state monopolizes the media.

in the skit, the president, from the White House agrees on the phone be with Pánfilo in Havana.

This character represents the average Cuban who survives on the ration card that guarantees a minimum of food every month, and that fight against deficiencies and daily difficulties on an island under a US embargo since 1962.

in the second episode, Obama comes home Panfilo, the bag is removed and feel to play dominoes as he released several phrases in Spanish.

“Obama, Obama how good you came to know Havana” hum Panfilo and his two friends in front of a smiling Obama accompanying the chorus with the snap of fingers.

the scene was recorded on Monday during the first day of Obama’s visit to Cuba.

“That moment was impressive, very tense, his mouth was dry. We had no idea if we could tell the ‘short’ president, we will repeat, the end was not necessary, “he recalls.

Even the US president” got the script, and I freaked out because I was speaking in English. You understand some phrases and could follow the conversation, “said Silva.

Obama said in amazement,” she recorded everything in one take, without cuts. “” As a whole actor left the set and waited, standing in silence, for the others we finished the scene. “

Obama’s appearance on Cuban television was a media US operation, which coordinated its embassy in Havana with utmost discretion few weeks before the arrival of the American president.

“Every day is the script, which is ours, for the White House make corrections sent. We asked that we let little text (dialogue) for President, “he recalls.

The comedian, who in 2001 created his character for theater and took him to television eight years later, create with this idea Obama wanted to “relate to people on the street, with the average Cuban.”

During his three-day visit to Havana, few Cubans could see even by far the president. in the events in which he participated was reached by invitation and rigorous safety device emptied the streets of the historic center of the city.