Guitarricadelafuente has spent nearly a decade building a career from a place that, at first, served almost as a hiding spot. The artist, whose real name is Álvaro Lafuente, began singing under that pseudonym precisely because he was shy, and wanted to maintain some distance between himself and the person behind the songs. But, over time, music ended up doing the exact opposite, giving him the tools to show himself.
Now, his journey has taken on a new dimension with La Bola Negra, the film directed, co-written and produced by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi — known in Spain as “Los Javis” — inspired by Federico García Lorca’s unfinished play, and representing Spain in the race for the 2027 Oscar for best international feature film. For Guitarricadelafuente, this means that many people are discovering him for the first time, through something entirely different from his music.
“They should know that I really come from music and making songs,” he tells Billboard Español. “I’ve been fortunate that, in this film, in some way, the character I’ve portrayed is an extension of what I was feeling musically. I think it’s very beautiful that this has been able to happen.”
La Bola Negra follows the lives of three gay men at three key moments in Spanish history: 1932, 1937 and 2017. Guitarricadelafuente — who co-stars in the film alongside Milo Quifes and Carlos González — plays Sebastián, a young musician (trumpeter) forcibly recruited by Franco’s forces after surviving an attack during the Spanish Civil War. From this project, the song “La Nieve” was born, an original piece he wrote alongside Raül Refree and Lucas Durán, further intertwining his two worlds within the film.
But long before portraying Sebastián, there were the songs he began sharing online, almost anonymously. In 2018, he released his first original composition, “El Conticinio,” recorded with a PlayStation microphone. That same year, he launched “Guantanamera,” which reached No. 69 on PROMUSICAE’s songs chart. Those early steps shaped Guitarricadelafuente, a project that, according to the artist, was born as a way to protect himself from his own shyness.
“I’ve always been someone very timid,” he explains. “The reason I call myself Guitarricadelafuente was to create a nickname so that no one would know it was me behind it. From the first time I got on stage, I was always using the guitar as a shield so no one could see me.”
Over the years, that relationship with the audience changed, and music ended up giving him something he initially lacked: the ability to show himself and, at the same time, to play with different versions of himself. “Music has given me the tools to express myself as I feel and to show myself for the first time on stage, but it’s also given me the skills to personify different roles,” he says.
Perhaps that’s why, when Los Javis saw him perform in 2024 at the Primavera Sound festival and suggested shortly after he co-starred in La Bola Negra, they saw something in him that Guitarricadelafuente wasn’t entirely sure he had.
“I thought they were crazy,” he recalls, laughing. “I said, ‘Wait, where have you seen me act? How do you think I can do this?’” When they invited him to Madrid just a few days later, there wasn’t even a finished script yet, and the directors first wanted to know if he was willing to play Sebastián before continuing to develop the character. The answer came more from trust than experience. “If these directors that I admire so much, and everything I’ve seen from them seems incredible, see this in me, then I’m not the one to say no.”
The experience also changed his relationship with performing. If, on stage, he could decide how far his alter ego would go, with Sebastián that control was handed over to the directors. “It makes you reflect and awaken things from your past or reveal things you don’t want to confront, and it helps you face them,” he says.
When the time came to work on the original song for the film, he sought inspiration in the music of the Spanish Civil War and in Lorca, an influence that had already been present in his own songs. The melody, however, emerged during filming. One night, after shooting one of Sebastián’s scenes, he returned to the hotel and sent Los Javis a voice note with what would eventually become “La Nieve” (Spanish for “The Snow”).
The imagery of snow had already appeared in Lorca’s notes for La Bola Negra, and although in his work it could be associated with death, Guitarricadelafuente found in it an idea that also resonated with the characters’ journey. “To lose your way is to reach the snow,” he explains — because in the film, it’s precisely the proximity of death that pushes the characters to decide how they want to live. “I thought it was very beautiful that ‘La Nieve’ could also sound like something liberating.”
To play Sebastián, he also had to learn to play the trumpet for several months, an experience that sparked his interest in brass instruments, which he now wants to explore in his music.
The evolution of his music is evident when comparing his album La Cantera (2022) with Spanish Leather (2025); while the first is tied to what he had heard and learned in Cuevas de Cañart, Aragón, Spain — the village where his paternal grandmother is from — the latter opens up to wider horizons and his own generation. Much of Spanish Leather was also created in Los Angeles, where the distance reinforced his belief that deeply personal things can connect far beyond their place of origin.
“We are the result of the place where we were born by chance,” he says. “When you reach the essence of your origin or something very intimate, very important, very powerful, that’s when it becomes expansive.”
Currently working on new music, he says his way of finding inspiration has changed as well. “Before, I had to put myself in hermit mode, become very closed off,” he shares. “Now I feel like I’m finding beauty and poetry in all of this, and that inspiration can be like a shield and a weapon against everything that attacks you.”
La Bola Negra, also starring Glenn Close and Penélope Cruz, is considered a strong contender for the 99th Academy Awards. Currently playing in selected theaters, it will arrive to Netflix on Dec. 2.
The 2027 Oscar nominations will be announced on Jan. 21, 2027, with the ceremony taking place on March 14.
