When Fernanda Torres received the Golden Globe for Finest 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 residence nation, Brazil. President Lula tweeted congratulations. The mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo da Costa Paes, provided to welcome Torres residence on a firetruck from the airport. The long-working actress and author, and daughter of Brazilian movie royalty Fernanda Montenegro, may develop into solely the second Brazilian performer Oscar-nominated for performing, after her mom acquired 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 sudden Globes coup over higher-profile (within the West, not 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 every week of Q&As in Los Angeles and an look on “Jimmy Kimmel Stay.” 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 Finest 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 international film. It was lovely,” Torres stated 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 Photos [Classics], which additionally launched [Pedro] Almodóvar’s film. We had this dialog about this loopy circus that’s this sort 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. Everyone was proud of the darkish horse due to one thing good, even for the business, that this sort of film can have this consideration, with a international actress talking one other language. It’s such a [positive] signal for the business.”
Torres stated that, again in Brazil, the fanfare was wild for viewers watching the present at residence. “There was noise on the street, individuals flashing the home windows, screaming of their residences, 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 surprising, anyway? The revamped post-HFPA Globes membership has a formidable Brazilian lineup.)
Torres, who turned 59 final yr, stated 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 relaxed 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 considering that my life will change due to it. I don’t assume so.”
Again at residence, 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 Finest 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 facility of restraining, of permitting the viewers to really feel and to not have the performing vainness of exhibiting,” Torres stated. “It’s nearly like, ‘Don’t act.’ And that’s the thriller of this film, I believe. 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, centered 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 stated. “As soon as they requested Marcelo, ‘What was the day that modified your life?’ Everyone anticipated him to say, ‘It was the day I had the accident,’ and he stated it was the day this writer got here to him and stated, ‘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 nicely.”
Torres by no means had the possibility to fulfill Eunice. “No person knew about her actually, and he or she by no means needed to be recognized, which may be very uncommon these days, the place everyone is promoting themselves in selfies and the web. It’s a girl [who] was solely serious 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, essentially the most harrowing within the movie.
Torres starred for Salles in his movies “International Land” and “Midnight” within the Nineties. They stored in contact, however she was nonetheless shocked 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 celeb as a comedy actor.
After years of sitcom work in sequence whose recognition in Brazil she likened to “Seinfeld” and “Associates” right here, Torres thought, “Walter would by no means work with me once more. When he referred to as me, I assumed he was going to ask me to jot down one thing for him as a result of that’s what I assumed can be doable. Then, he [offered me] Eunice, and I stated, ‘Are you certain?’”
Torres has vivid recollections rising up along 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 stated. “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 believe she had extra pleasure onstage than being at residence with us. She beloved being at residence with us, however I may see she had a form 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 youngsters of icons whose success is publicly deemed to be indebted to their mother and father — interprets in Brazil. After all it does.
“We simply inherit no matter you invent. We simply inherit it,” she stated of the American notion. “You might be superb in America to promote your issues to different nations … and I’m now the nepo child individual that proved {that a} nepo child is price dwelling!” She laughed. “You don’t need to kill a nepo child as quickly as he’s born. I actually hate this concept as a result of that is historical, that folks study of their atmosphere. The eating desk of my home was the place the place my mother and father have been rehearsing. It doesn’t imply when you’re nepo child that your life is solved. Quite the opposite, it’s a must to invent your self. You will have different points.”
In our dialogue, Torres grew extra passionate in regards to 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 mother and father’ orbit regardless of probably questionable expertise and perhaps undeserved prominence of their very own. “It’s a type of issues that’s the unsuitable struggle,” she stated of the talk. “The nice struggle is to struggle for good schooling for everyone. Inequality shouldn’t be primarily based on the possibilities {that a} nepo child can have. You’ll be able to kill all of the nepo infants on this planet, and also you received’t resolve the inequality drawback. Taxing massive fortunes is a method of preventing towards inequality. Combating for well being for everyone, for schooling for everyone.”
She added that within the means of that debate, “You kill one thing that’s lovely, that’s individuals who inherit one thing that realized one thing. This comes from the cave age. It’s good that you simply study one thing out of your mother and father. So it’s simply the unsuitable struggle. However, in fact, it offers nice headlines.” (Together with inevitably my very own, which she acknowledged with amusing.)
“It offers individuals area to level fingers at one another pretending that they’re preventing towards inequality, and they’re simply killing one thing lovely that may be a circus household, as an example. 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 stuffed with unsuitable fights. We’re stuffed with noisy fights that don’t lead us to something. The struggle towards inequality, the struggle for taxing nice fortunes, the struggle for regulating the digital world, these are the nice fights. Come on individuals, get up.”
“I’m Nonetheless Right here” is in theaters from Sony Photos 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 guardian firm.