‘The Secret Agent’ is More Than Just a Great Political Thriller

That’s the way life is, because you don’t have, you know, “Oh, I have to convey something here.” I just have to be in a scene and connect with what’s going on in that particular scene. Of course, I know the story. I know who the character is, but it’s just very subtle.

Courtesy of NEON

And in terms of working with the other actors, there’s a lot of kind of ensemble scenes.

Great actors.

What’s it like working in those kinds of scenes?

It’s great, because I felt like in The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy is meeting so many others, like a road movie. You meet many, many different, amazing characters and amazing actors, and each of them inform something about what’s going on. I remember my first day of shooting. I shot the scene with Dona Sebastiana. That lady, she’s not even an actress.

Is she not an actress?

No, dude.

She’s amazing!

She was an extra in Bacurau. Kleber, he brought her to the film. I think a character is always a mix of what’s in the script, what the director wants, and myself. I try to put myself a lot in the scene. So in these scenes with her, I was like in love. You can see, I was just looking at her, and what a fascinating woman, loving her.

And that was day one.

Day one, observing her and laughing at what, the way she speaks with that voice, and smoking that cigarette.

Even the cigarette?

She’s a big smoker.

That scene, that’s the tour where she’s showing you around?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

What was that set like? Because that that apartment is an amazing location.

It’s a real apartment. Everything with Kleber is like, all his friends. So he has a friend, who has an apartment, he has this place, oh, this is perfect. So all of his friends were extras in the film. It’s a very like,

Including in those scenes, like in the big scene with all the neighbors together?

Yeah, everybody. When I get there, there’s a little party, those are all Kleber’s friends.

That must be wonderful too, because then it’s like you’re just entering into reality.

I was happy there. Because I hadn’t worked in Portuguese for twelve years, which is crazy. I directed that movie in 2017, but I didn’t act in it. It was so liberating. And to be in Recife, which is Northeast of Brazil, close to the city where I’m from. So we share lots of cultural codes. Just the fact that I was speaking Portuguese. I was very happy, from day one to the end of the shooting.

Do you find it easier to act in Portuguese?

Yes, yes, for sure.

Why do you think that is? Do you just have to think less about it?

Yes. Javier Bardem says something that I love. He said to me, he acts in English is as if there’s a big office in his head, with people working. And when he works in Spanish, the office is empty, and I think that’s a great metaphor. I’ve been working in English and in Spanish. I did Narcos in Spanish. I’ve been doing things in English, and I love it, it’s great because it’s also a challenge. But it’s very liberating to [act in Portuguese]. It’s also about memory, because when I say, when I say a word like, like “mãe,” which is mother, it comes with a memory of my mom. Mãe, how many times I said that. Now, when I say “mother,” I know what it is, but doesn’t come with the memory.

I know what it is to have that disconnect when you’re speaking another language. It’s not your home.

Yeah, it’s an effort.

In the movie, there’s a lot of talk about accents and regional dialects. Were you putting on an accent for the movie?

Sort of, because I’m also from the northeast, but it’s different from the accent from Recife. Sometimes actors take accents too seriously, and it takes me away. Even when it’s great. I go, “Oh, he really studied a lot to do that.”

You feel it in the performance.

Yeah, “He did a great job with that accent.” But what I did was, when I played Fernando at the end, I went full in the Recife accent, because it was one scene. Of course, you couldn’t notice a difference.

I’m always interested in that stuff because, of course, I can’t hear it myself. But to somebody from Brazil, it must play differently. Have people in Brazil seen the film already?

We showed the film to the President. It was really cool.

That must have been exciting.

It was very emotional.