The worn wooden floorboards squeak under Rafael
Molina’s heavy steps as he paces the saloon. Outside, the sound
of galloping horses breaks the silence of the surrounding desert.
All around him, the Old West town’s empty shops and
abandoned houses look as if they have just been ransacked by
cowboy bandits.
“When I was a kid, I could only dream about all this,”
says the 68-year-old former actor and stuntman. “My aspiration
was to see a film set firsthand. Today I own one of the most
famous ones in the history of Western movies.”
But this busy movie site is located in Spain — not
Montana or Texas. It’s one of three faux Old Western towns in
the small village of Tabernas and the surrounding desert of the
Almería province. Since the late 1950s, these rugged mountains,
arid plains, and dry canyons have provided the backdrops for
more than 170 movie Westerns, including The Good, The Bad
and The Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in The West
(1968).
Molina belongs to a small community of local cowboy
actors and stuntmen in Tabernas who have played a role in
movies and TV shows since the first productions in the 1950s.
They can perform anything from fistfights to horse drags.
Knowledge and skills often pass from father to son, keeping
tricks of the trade in the family. Steeped in the golden era of
Westerns, these actors embody the values of their movie heroes:
pride, bravado, freedom, and a trusting relationship with horses.
“I’ve always liked horses and the [U.S.] West,” says 29-
year-old Ricardo Cruz Fernández, a stuntman and cowboy who
appeared in recent productions including Game of Thrones.
Fernández started his career as a cowboy after completing a
stuntman course a decade ago.
Between productions, he performs daily shows at Fort
Bravo for thousands of tourists who visit the set each year. In one
show, Fernández portrays a bank robber who absconds with some
gold. Visitors encounter him in the saloon, fist and (fake) gun
fighting with actors playing his double-crossing accomplices.
The town also offers cancan dance shows and set tours by horsedrawn wagon.
“I prefer to play the bad guy, because it gives me a wider
range of possibilities,” says Fernández. “The good guy only has
to keep things in order.”
Almería has hosted more than 500 productions, including
blockbuster films (Patton, Terminator: Dark Fate) and TV
shows (Doctor Who). “Our landscapes are very convenient. We
have sea, desert, and snowy mountains all within a short
distance,” says local producer Plácido Martínez. “We can serve
as Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and endless other
natural settings.”
Matteo Fagotto. The Wild West lives on in southern Spain.
In: National Geographic. Internet: (adapted)