Interview with Sandra Sandri

Sandra Sandri (Pilar Moreno)

Sandra Sandri appeared as Spanish runaway Pilar Moreno from Eldorado’s opening moments – and spoke its very last word! This alone makes her a legend. Inbetween, Pilar worked at the stables, became good friends with Ingrid, got kidnapped and briefly married childhood friend Sergio. Pilar was memorably in a tempestuous on-off relationship with resident villain Marcus Tandy. Even though he was obviously a complete bastard.

How was your experience of working on Eldorado?

Eldorado was very nice. I was very very young, I think if it happened to me now I would do some different things, but it was very happy.

Did it feel a pressure, being part of something so big at a young age?

No, no, no… the people from Eldorado took care of us very well. The only problem was the press weren’t very nice to me. But the people from the cast and the crew were very nice.

Do you have nice memories of working with anyone in particular?

Well, Jesse Birdsall… and with Fizz (Kathy Pitkin), and also the crew.

Where do you think Pilar would be today? Would she have stayed with Marcus?

I don’t know, I never thought about it! I don’t think Marcus would be with a woman of 40 years old, he’d probably have two or three 20 year olds!

I can’t imagine Pilar with Marcus with children, having a family life. Maybe I would be a nasty woman, more than Marcus! Because Pilar was very nice but she was also a hard woman.

Would you want to be in Eldorado again if it returned?

Yes, absolutely…when I think about Eldorado it was great, apart from the press. These days we are used to this very bad press, people telling lies, but 20 years ago I didn’t know anything about it. I don’t remember that being very nice, but for the rest, I enjoyed it. 

 

It was hard work, really hard work. We had almost no days off for holidays but it was really fun as well.