Brazilian actor Wagner Moura (Bahía, 49 years old) appears installed in front of a computer in Los Angeles. He has lived in that city for years with his three children and his wife, the photographer Sandra Delgado. He has just a few hours left to step on the red carpet at the Independent Spirit Awards, another one since The secret agent, he thriller by Kleber Mendonça Filho, will premiere at Cannes, where Moura already won the award for best actor. “It’s taking a long time…” laughs the now Oscar candidate for best male lead, one of the four nominations for the Hollywood awards for the film that premieres in Spain this coming Friday.
The secret agent it’s a thriller, and at the same time a stark portrait of the cruelty of the Brazilian dictatorship in the seventies, and the importance of resistance, even in small details, in the face of injustice and of protecting the memory of the oppressed. Moura and Mendonça Filho met at the 2005 Cannes festival, when the former was presenting the film Lower City and the second worked as a film critic. “We are both originally from the northeast of Brazil. When Kleber jumped into directing, I started following his films and I told him that if one day he had a project for me…”, Moura explains in the perfect Spanish he learned to play Pablo Escobar in the series. Narcos. “We talked to each other, not much more. Until Bolsonaro’s coup d’état.”
At that time, director and actor became the spokespersons for the intellectuals against the riot. “We started communicating to see how the other was doing, and we became close. I suffered Bolsonaro’s censorship with my film Marighella (and biopic, directed in 2019 by Moura, from the writer turned leader of the Brazilian Communist Party), which was not released until 2021. He also struggled with his own. So when he started writing The secret agent, I got into the car. “We both create political art.”
Ask. His character is not a caudillo or a leader, but someone who fights against the dictatorship from almost everyday life…
Answer. (Interrupts) And those are fundamental. Like those people in Minneapolis who record ICE agents with their cell phones. I already directed a film about a revolutionary, about Marighella, now it is the turn of the common man. Because they are the most numerous victims of dictatorships. These are the people who are persecuted here in the United States for the color of their skin, for their phenotype, for their accents, for their religiosity, for their political ideas. Authoritarian regimes are coming after them, so I loved playing a man who wants to stay true to his values. You don’t need to be a Che Guevara, just resist evil.
“We progressives lost the battle of social networks”
P. Do you agree that there is a parallel between what has happened in recent years in Brazil and the United States?
R. At least we are now rid of Bolsonaro. It is obvious how similar recent history has been in both countries. And I am very struck by how they are the same type of people specifically chosen to be in power and whose ideological pattern is the same. Now and at other similar moments in history. I am very proud of how Lula, when Trump pushed to free Bolsonaro, was politically adept. The way in which Brazil reacted to the invasion of institutions has to do with our memory of the military dictatorship. Americans have never suffered a dictatorship, and that is why they do not harbor that fear. Many believe that democracy is a given. Others don’t, and there is a beautiful legacy here of battles to achieve civil rights with leaders like Martin Luther King. Let’s see, the United States is the nation that exported democratic ideals and social equality to the entire world. And look how we live.
P. The tension is growing to the point that what is narrated in Civil War, Alex Garland’s film in which you played a journalist in a dystopian American civil war, is beginning to be possible.
R. It’s amazing, right? How the relationship between the States and the president has become strained. We are going through a very ugly time, even I am afraid of meeting ICE. I say this because I react explosively when there is a situation of injustice or authoritarianism before my eyes. And now I don’t know if I could do it because those bastards can kill you, as we have seen. I know many Latinos who are hiding at home, without taking their children to school. We live in very sad times. It is curious how the same patterns that occurred in Brazil are repeated. For example, demonizing actors, artists, journalists and universities. The extreme right in Brazil was very effective in turning Brazilian artists into enemies of the people. With a speech with messages like these people live off public money. Or how they made the truth disappear.
P. Facts no longer exist, they are all opinions.
R. Fair, caused by technology applied to social networks. The truth as we knew it is over. The facts no longer matter. Now people deal with versions of reality. It seems crazy to me. What you see is different from what someone else sees. maga or a Bolsonaro. And that person may not be bad, but lives in a parallel world, with different information and content, a lying world disconnected from the real one.
P. Is it social media’s fault?
R. A decade ago in Brazil we were very naïve. A decade ago we thought that Facebook could be a tool for connecting, mobilizing people and democratizing information. Today the union between technology oligarchs and the extreme right is evident. Somehow, we progressives lost the social media battle. But you have to keep giving it, you have to keep going with the little disobediences.
What you see is different from what someone else sees. maga or a Bolsonaro. And that person may not be bad, but rather lives in a parallel, lying world, disconnected from the real world.”
P. Is there hope?
R. Yes, and it’s called solidarity. In moments of sadness, shadows, authoritarianism, or when environmental tragedies occur, solidarity is there. It excites me a lot, and I think that human beings have a tendency to take care of ourselves, to remember each other. Oh, and memory. Today Brazil is facing historical memory in a healthy way. There I include sending Bolsonaro to jail, because the coup past can no longer be erased. That’s why I think it’s very nice that The secret agent, whose ending highlights the importance of historical memory, was released at that time.
P. How is the Oscar campaign going?
R. Well, working a lot. It’s more than promoting a movie. Since May, when Neon bought the film for its US release, we have been working on it. I also try to enjoy myself, because that doesn’t happen every day, right? At least to me (laughs). Well, it’s nice, although you have to know where reality is, and reality catches up with me when I return home and my children are waiting for me.
My life is a constant fight against melancholy and baldness. Although the most beautiful characters are those who bring pain”
P. Until The secret agent, He has not performed in Portuguese for a decade. What happened?
R. Well what did I do Narcos for two years in Spanish, which biopic about the Brazilian diplomat Sérgio Vieira de Mello was filmed in English because of his international work, that I participated in European filming and in series… And that I embarked on making my film about Marighellawhich although it was in Portuguese it is true that I was not acting. It has happened like this.
P. Why is there such a markedly melancholic tone in all your characters at the end?
R. It’s true (laughs). My life is a constant fight against melancholy and baldness.
P. And how are the battles going?
R. The one with the hair, worse. You have to comb your hair in a very special way. And that of melancholy too. Anyway, two more battles that I have lost. Look, the most beautiful characters are the ones who bring pain.
P. Do you choose a lot with each step you take?
R. As far as I can, yes. I had an agent here who told me: “Do this to get that.” And I responded: “It’s just not my thing.” I’m proud to say that even when I was young and struggling to pay rent, I never did anything to embarrass me or to pay the bills. Let’s see, yes I have filmed bad movies, but with the best of intentions.
P. Will you continue with the tour A trial: after an enemy of the people (a modern version of An enemy of the people, of Ibsen, conceived by the Brazilian director Christiane Jatahy)?
R. Yes, and in the summer I will represent it in Spain. Before that I will film with Lisandro Alonso a version of The taste of cherries, by Abbas Kiarostami, and then I will direct my second feature, Last Night at the Lobster.