<\/p>\n
Wagner Moura in the movie \u201cThe Secret Agent.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Victor Juca)<\/p>\n
In the genre-bending period knockout from Kleber Mendon\u00e7a Filho \u2014 one of Brazil\u2019s leading filmmakers \u2014 Moura plays Armando, a grieving widower on the run who joins a community of people hiding from their pasts in trying times. Under a new name, he works toward finding an escape for him and his young son, but the powerful bigot he stood up against in his former life as a scientist is getting closer to finding him. A simple man must become a stealth operative in order to survive.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love that this is not a film about someone who\u2019s trying to overthrow the government \u2014 he\u2019s just a guy who sticks with his values, with who he is,\u201d Moura says about his part. His salt-and-pepper short hair and beard confer an air of seasoned, handsome ruggedness.<\/p>\n
Moura, 49, has thus far amassed a body of work that includes the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar in the Netflix hit series \u201cNarcos,\u201d<\/a> a fearless Reuters journalist in the dystopian \u201cCivil War\u201d<\/a> and diplomat S\u00e9rgio Vieira de Mello in the biopic \u201cSergio.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to be the Che Guevara of film,\u201d Moura says, aware of the connective tissue of a career still in ascent. \u201cI gravitate towards things that are political but I like being an actor more than anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n For his simmering performance in \u201cThe Secret Agent\u201d (opening Friday), Moura won the lead actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Mendon\u00e7a Filho also received the directing prize. Their acclaimed crime drama has been selected to represent Brazil at the Oscars \u2014 and its chances are good. (It just added two awards from the New York Critics Circle.)<\/p>\n \u201cWagner is an incredibly intelligent person who has an understanding of life, of society, of human behavior,\u201d Mendon\u00e7a Filho says via Zoom from New York. \u201cActors find wonderful ways of representing life, and that\u2019s what he does. [There was] not a lot of directing from me, because we had been talking for so long about the film, the role, about the historic moment of the world and the country, about alcohol and smoking, about talking to children and talking to people in general.\u201d<\/p>\n Moura and Mendon\u00e7a Filho met for the first time at Cannes in 2005, when the actor was there with his gritty love triangle \u201cLower City.\u201d At the time, Mendon\u00e7a Filho was both a film critic covering the festival and a budding filmmaker with a short in competition.<\/p>\n Learning that they were both originally from Brazil\u2019s northeast \u2014 Moura from the state of Bahia and Mendon\u00e7a Filho from Pernambuco \u2014 served as an immediate point of connection. A glaring cultural, racial and economic separation exists between the nation\u2019s geographical north and south, the latter the wealthiest and whitest region of Brazil\u2019s massive territory.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a divide, which is quite complex to explain, so when you get to meet an actor and he comes from the northeast, it means something,\u201d says Mendon\u00e7a Filho.<\/p>\n \u201cAs an actor, back in the \u201990s, it was like: There\u2019s no way I\u2019m going to work on television,\u201d Moura says. \u201cBecause the kind of characters that actors from the northeast would play on TV were stereotypes, like the doorman. If you spoke with a particular accent, there was no way.\u201d<\/p>\n The two crossed paths over the years and expressed a desire to work together. But it was their shared outspokenness during the regime of former president Jair Bolsonaro, recently sentenced to 27 years in prison, that drew them closer. Their public statements made them targets of the country\u2019s virulent right wing.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more I bring Brazil with me, the more interesting I am as an artist, instead of trying to blend in and be what I\u2019m not,\u201d says Moura.<\/p>\n (Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n \u201cThat put us on a special pedestal for the fascists in Brazil,\u201d says Mendon\u00e7a Filho. \u201cWe ended up calling each other often and saying, \u2018How are you dealing with this?\u2019 And we became brothers, just talking about the whole situation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe both suffered the consequences,\u201d Moura recalls. His directorial debut, \u201cMarighella,\u201d a political drama about Carlos Marighella, the Black Brazilian writer-turned-revolutionary, premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2019 but didn\u2019t open in Brazil until 2021. \u201cI had my film censored,\u201d he says. \u201cThey managed to make it impossible to release it.\u201d<\/p>\n For Moura, \u201cThe Secret Agent\u201d represented a cinematic homecoming after not starring in a Brazilian film for over a decade. Bolsonaro\u2019s administration, the COVID-19 pandemic and commitments abroad prevented him from taking on a major acting job in his country and in his native language.<\/p>\n Mendon\u00e7a Filho admits he initially worried if Moura, after so many years working away from Brazil, would bring some of the \u201cWhere\u2019s my trailer?\u201d attitude people assume exists in Hollywood. \u201cHe didn\u2019t,\u201d the director says. \u201cHe\u2019s intelligent enough to adapt to each project.\u201d<\/p>\n Moura has never gone Hollywood, even though he\u2019s found success in English-language films and TV series since he first crossed over with the 2013 sci-fi epic \u201cElysium,\u201d<\/a> acting alongside Matt Damon and Diego Luna.<\/p>\n \u201cI had an agent here who was like, \u2018You do this to get that,\u2019 and I was like, \u2018That\u2019s not my thing,\u2019\u201d Moura remembers. \u201cI\u2019m proud to say that since I was a young actor, even when I had to pay the rent, I\u2019ve never done anything that I was like, \u2018Oh, man, this is embarrassing but I have to do this in order to get there,\u2019 or \u2018I have to pay the bills.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Not every actor can say that about their career, I suggest.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019ve done s\u2014 things but the intention was right,\u201d he backtracks modestly. \u201cYou just never know how it\u2019s going to turn out. I only did things in my life for the sole purpose of thinking: This is going to be great. I\u2019ve never done anything for money or as a step to get to something else, or because \u2018Oh, this film is going to be seen by so many people.\u2019 I\u2019ve never cared about that.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n