When Fernanda Torres gained the Golden Globe for Greatest Actress in a Drama for the very good political drama “I’m Nonetheless Right here,” the occasion grew to become like a vacation in her house nation, Brazil. President Lula tweeted congratulations. The mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo da Costa Paes, supplied to welcome Torres house on a firetruck from the airport. The long-working actress and author, and daughter of Brazilian movie royalty Fernanda Montenegro, may grow to be solely the second Brazilian performer Oscar-nominated for performing, after her mom obtained a nod in 1999 for “Central Station,” one other movie from “I’m Nonetheless Right here” director Walter Salles.
When IndieWire spoke with Torres simply two days after her surprising Globes coup over higher-profile (within the West, no less than) actors like Nicole Kidman (“Babygirl”), Angelina Jolie (“Maria”), Tilda Swinton (“The Room Subsequent Door”), Pamela Anderson (“The Final Showgirl”), and Kate Winslet (“Lee”), she was taking a look at per week of Q&As in Los Angeles and an look on “Jimmy Kimmel Dwell.” All have since been canceled within the wake of the continued fires in L.A. However with the sizable Brazilian contingent within the Academy and love for Torres in Latin America and abroad, she nonetheless has a shot at Greatest Actress for her transferring efficiency because the real-life Eunice Paiva. A lawyer in Brazil who died in 2018, Eunice was the mom and activist who, within the Nineteen Seventies, stood as much as Brazilian army dictatorship amid the government-forced disappearance of her politically dissident husband, Rubens.
“I used to be completely the darkish horse, the one Portuguese-speaking actress in a overseas film. It was stunning,” Torres mentioned of her Golden Globe win. “Proper earlier than, Tilda [Swinton] got here to our desk as a result of Tilda had been assembly with [‘I’m Still Here’ distributor] Sony Footage [Classics], which additionally launched [Pedro] Almodóvar’s film. We had this dialog about this loopy circus that’s this type of marketing campaign. She was so proud of my award. I used to be strolling to the stage to see Kate Winslet, so more than happy, and Nicole. All people was proud of the darkish horse due to one thing good, even for the trade, that this type of film can have this consideration, with a overseas actress talking one other language. It’s such a [positive] signal for the trade.”
Torres mentioned that, again in Brazil, the fanfare was wild for viewers watching the present at house. “There was noise on the street, folks flashing the home windows, screaming of their flats, just like the World Cup. The mayor referred to as me speaking a few firetruck to obtain me on the airport.” (And was her Globe win that stunning, anyway? The revamped post-HFPA Globes membership has a powerful Brazilian lineup.)
Torres, who turned 59 final yr, mentioned it was good to have the expertise of profitable the Globe now, “as a result of I really feel mature, to not go on stage and have this ‘oh my god’ speech, to have the ability to obtain it in a peaceful method. I’m glad that it occurred to me at an age and a time of my expertise the place I don’t really feel like Cinderella. I’m in a position to go on stage and obtain it in a really noble method, that I didn’t lose my thoughts, crying and pondering that my life will change due to it. I don’t assume so.”
Again at house, anyway, Torres has a cupboard of honors: not solely a runner-up prize from the L.A. Movie Critics Affiliation for “I’m Nonetheless Right here,” however a 1986 Cannes Greatest Actress win for the erotic psychodrama “Love Me Perpetually or By no means,” plus loads of Brazilian prizes.
She’s lengthy acted within the highlight — in Brazilian movies and on two of the nation’s wildly well-liked sitcoms, “Os Normais” (2001 to 2003) and “Tapas e Beijos” (2011 to 2015) — underneath her mom’s shadow, to a level. And within the case of “I’m Nonetheless Right here,” the 95-year-old Montenegro performs an older Eunice, rattled by Azlheimer’s illness within the movie’s final scene however upon seeing a newscast about Rubens Paiva’s case, acknowledges who she was within the ’70s. A lady who stood as much as extremism, performed with calibrated emotional management by Torres, in a efficiency that includes no screaming or crying however as an alternative a quiet resistance.
“It actually opened a brand new world for me for performing, the ability of restraining, of permitting the viewers to really feel and to not have the performing self-importance of exhibiting,” Torres mentioned. “It’s nearly like, ‘Don’t act.’ And that’s the thriller of this film, I feel. As a result of as we [the actors] don’t reply, the viewers fills it and desires to reply in your house.”
Salles’ Venice-winning movie, from a script by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, adapts a well-known memoir by Eunice’s son, the Brazilian icon Marcelo Rubens Paiva, targeted on his mom. Marcelo continues to be alive, and an enormously celebrated author of Brazilian scripts, performs, and novels.
“On the age of 20, he had an accident, a really foolish accident and misplaced motion from the neck down,” Torres mentioned. “As soon as they requested Marcelo, ‘What was the day that modified your life?’ All people anticipated him to say, ‘It was the day I had the accident,’ and he mentioned it was the day this writer got here to him and mentioned, ‘Why don’t you write this story?’ When he was recovering on the age of 20, he wrote this e book and he grew to become an idol to all my era and have become a pal of mine. I do know Marcelo very effectively.”
Torres by no means had the prospect to satisfy Eunice. “No one knew about her actually, and he or she by no means needed to be identified, which could be very uncommon these days, the place all people is promoting themselves in selfies and the web. It’s a lady [who] was solely excited about actual life and never promoting herself, so he needed to write this e book from Brazil to find Eunice.” After being captured, Eunice was tortured and imprisoned for almost two weeks, the entire time not understanding the place her teenage daughter was or if she was nonetheless alive. Torres performs these scenes with profound understatement, probably the most harrowing within the movie.
Torres starred for Salles in his movies “Overseas Land” and “Midnight” within the Nineties. They stored in contact, however she was nonetheless stunned after her rising success on tv and as a novelist (her e book “The Finish” got here out in 2014) that he needed her to play Eunice given her Brazilian superstar as a comedy actor.
After years of sitcom work in sequence whose reputation in Brazil she likened to “Seinfeld” and “Pals” right here, Torres thought, “Walter would by no means work with me once more. When he referred to as me, I believed he was going to ask me to put in writing one thing for him as a result of that’s what I believed could be attainable. Then, he [offered me] Eunice, and I mentioned, ‘Are you certain?’”
Torres has vivid reminiscences rising up together with her mom, Montenegro, and her father, Fernando Torres, who was additionally an actor (“Kiss of the Spider Lady” on display screen). “My mom feels pity for individuals who have by no means skilled the sensation of being onstage. She thinks that performing is the final word factor you are able to do in life, one thing that modified her life for certain,” Torres mentioned. “She didn’t push me [to be an actor], and he or she didn’t forbid me, however I may really feel how a lot pleasure she had onstage. I feel she had extra pleasure onstage than being at house with us. She liked being at house with us, however I may see she had a sort of pleasure onstage. I used to be raised within the wings of theater.”
So, in fact, I needed to ask her whether or not the idea of “nepo infants” — the kids of icons whose success is publicly deemed to be indebted to their dad and mom — interprets in Brazil. After all it does.
“We simply inherit no matter you invent. We simply inherit it,” she mentioned of the American notion. “You might be excellent in America to promote your issues to different international locations … and I’m now the nepo child person who proved {that a} nepo child is value dwelling!” She laughed. “You don’t must kill a nepo child as quickly as he’s born. I actually hate this concept as a result of that is historic, that individuals be taught of their setting. The eating desk of my home was the place the place my dad and mom have been rehearsing. It doesn’t imply if you end up nepo child that your life is solved. Quite the opposite, it’s important to invent your self. You may have different points.”
In our dialogue, Torres grew extra passionate concerning the American-headline-driven discourse that blew up in 2022 when New York Journal revealed what it deemed the definitive information to all of the nepo infants in Hollywood: actors and artists borne from their wealthy, embellished dad and mom’ orbit regardless of probably questionable expertise and possibly undeserved prominence of their very own. “It’s a kind of issues that’s the flawed battle,” she mentioned of the talk. “The great battle is to battle for good schooling for everyone. Inequality shouldn’t be based mostly on the possibilities {that a} nepo child can have. You possibly can kill all of the nepo infants on this planet, and also you gained’t resolve the inequality drawback. Taxing large fortunes is a method of preventing towards inequality. Preventing for well being for everyone, for schooling for everyone.”
She added that within the strategy of that debate, “You kill one thing that’s stunning, that’s individuals who inherit one thing that discovered one thing. This comes from the cave age. It’s good that you simply be taught one thing out of your dad and mom. So it’s simply the flawed battle. However, in fact, it provides nice headlines.” (Together with inevitably my very own, which she acknowledged with fun.)
“It provides folks house to level fingers at one another pretending that they’re preventing towards inequality, and they’re simply killing one thing stunning that may be a circus household, as an illustration. I come from a circus household. So I’m proof that nepo infants have an opportunity! [laughs] They need to have an opportunity on this planet. Don’t kill the nepo infants! These days, we’re filled with flawed fights. We’re filled with noisy fights that don’t lead us to something. The battle towards inequality, the battle for taxing nice fortunes, the battle for regulating the digital world, these are the great fights. Come on folks, get up.”
“I’m Nonetheless Right here” is in theaters from Sony Footage Classics. The 82nd Golden Globe Awards have been held Sunday, January 6 on the Beverly Hilton Resort in Los Angeles, CA. They aired on CBS and streamed through Paramount+. Dick Clark Productions, which owns and produces the Golden Globes, is a Penske Media firm. PMC can be IndieWire’s father or mother firm.
