RODRIGO SANTORO - THE BRAZILIAN

BY FRANK ARIVESO

World-renowned actor Rodrigo Santoro can recently be seen starring alongside Academy Award Winner Anthony Hopkins, Evan Rachel Wood, and Geoffrey Wright in the hit HBO series “Westworld” created by Jonah Nolan and produced by JJ Abrams. Rodrigo starred as the male lead in the Hulu series “Reprisal” for producer Warren Littlefield. He also stars in the feature “Project Power” on Netflix, opposite Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon Levitt. He will soon be seen in the Netflix foreign language film Seven Slaves for director Alex Moratto. In 2018, he appeared at Sundance for a movie he starred in and produced to critical acclaim titled Un Traductor. His extensive list of credits includes a lead role opposite Benicio Del Toro in Steven Soderbergh’s Che, a lead role in the iconic film Love Actually, Focus opposite Will Smith and Margot Robbie, 300: Rise of an Empire opposite Eva Green, Rio 2, The Last Stand opposite Forrest Whitaker, What to expect when you’re expecting opposite Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez, Hemingway and Gelhorn for HBO opposite Nicole Kidman, The 33 opposite Juliette Binoche about the Chilean minors, Jane Got a Gun opposite Natalie Portman and the Brazilian film Heleno, chronicling the true-life story of the most notorious and successful Brazilian soccer player, Heleno de Frietas. STRIPLV sat down with Santoro for a quick interview, and this is what transpired.

STRIPLV: Tell me a little bit about your character Biggie in “Project Power” and what you brought to this role.
SANTORO: Well, Biggie is a salesman, the main representative of power. I would say he is a visionary. He is very confident in his vision. He wants to take the product all over the world. Very confident, smooth salesman, but underneath that character that he built for himself to seduce people, I think he is a very secure person. It’s a character that, since the beginning, I’ve tried to humanize him. I think that villains are interesting to play but also very tricky because it’s hard to humanize them because the audience right away they just don’t like them. They say this is a bad guy. I don’t like him. My job and my challenge as an actor is to try to at least make people understand who he is, it’s a person, not a villain, not a bad guy or a good guy, and it was interesting to take that journey with Biggie also his transformation is something very exciting and stimulating for me it’s a process that I have went through before but not as intense this time. I’ve learned a lot with this experience.
STRIPLV: What do you think sets this story aside from other stories about super-powers?
SANTORO: I think it is a very fresh approach to super-powers. It’s not a superhero movie. It is about regular people that have a chance to have a super-power for five minutes after they take a pill. But the pill is very dangerous to you. It can do harm. It can kill you. This is very interesting, and the idea of playing with super-powers but not exactly talking about superheroes is just interesting material to play with. Especially nowadays in the world we are living in. I think that there is a very clear metaphor in the title of the movie. It is called “Project Power.” We are clearly talking about our need for power as human beings. How far do we go? To have power what we are capable of doing and questioning all of that.
STRIPLV: I understand that you had to wear some very interesting prosthetics to do this film. Without going into too much detail, can you tell me more about that?
SANTORO: Biggie goes through a very intense transformation throughout the film. Physical transformation. I had a very long makeup session. I think it was about nine hours. I had the pleasure and the luck to work with an amazing makeup artist whose name is Mike Marino, and he really did an amazing job. So, the interesting thing about this film is that there is very little CGI everything is shot in a practical way. That is the style of the directors. One of the things that were interesting to me to exercise, to be focused, to be working on my concentration. Because it was so many hours in that makeup chair getting ready, and then I had to incorporate the prosthetics into the external and become one thing. It was a great experience. I would say that I have never done anything like that before.
STRIPLV: What was it like working with the two directors on this project?
SANTORO: Those boys, they are the best. I remember the very first call that I had with them after I had read the script. We got on the phone via Skype. I just liked them right away. We started to talk about the movie, and the first thing they said was, “What do you have to say about this character?” Do you any ideas any suggestions? And I’m like, I like these guys. They were already open like that, you know? They wanted to collaborate, and it’s great to be able to work like that. I truly believe in collaboration and the reason the movie turned out so great, and I am really proud of it. The reason was the way it was done. The atmosphere on set was so relaxed on set. It was such a great environment and a lot of improvising. It was a very creative environment. That is what we as artists need, and when we get an environment like that, it shows. At the end of the day, you see it, the result. It becomes that something you can tell, and I think that’s what this was.
STRIPLV: What was it like working with Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon Levitt?
SANTORO: I’ve been a fan of Jamie and Joseph for a long time. But you never know when you meet them how it is going to be. I try not to create any expectations. It was a happy surprise because they were so down to earth. Accessible and both of them. Jamie is just very intelligent. He is very smart. He’s quick. He is able to talk about anything. And he wants to make sure that everyone is ok, and everybody is having a good time. He would play songs for us on set. He would talk about so many different things. I loved it. I had a great time. Joseph, too. I had good conversations with Joseph too on set and in between takes. Really such a sweet guy, very talented, and very generous. Joseph was always there, just trying to feed you as an actor in the scene to help you. It was a true collaboration; I had a great time with both of them.