Talking to The Instances in 2019, Brazilian performing legend Fernanda Montenegro described receiving an Academy Award nomination 20 years earlier for her position in Walter Salles’ “Central Station” — and her intensive campaigning for it — as “a trip to Jupiter.”
Montenegro’s stateside recognition was unprecedented: the primary time a Brazilian actor competed on the Oscars. However the glitzy, lengthy technique of interviews, events and trade occasions was surprising and extremely international for the honored star.
“I was 70 years old, speaking in another language, representing another culture, and I was celebrated by major artists who I’d never stopped watching on the screen,” Montenegro added. “They treated me as an equal.”
Now, in a fairy-tale-worthy full-circle second, her daughter, Fernanda Torres, has landed her personal lead actress Oscar nomination — Brazil’s second in historical past — for the searing Nineteen Seventies-set historic drama “I’m Still Here,” additionally directed by Salles, wherein the 95-year-old Montenegro has a quick look.
“I was also going to Jupiter but with a better spaceship,” Torres, 59, says about her awards-season expertise throughout a current interview at CAA’s workplaces in Century Metropolis proper after doing a Q&A with Salles on the company’s screening room.
She’s spent appreciable time in Los Angeles over the previous few months, on a jam-packed schedule of screenings, press and tv appearances (together with a January look on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”). Although we’re chatting close to the tip of this lengthy journey, the fashionably informal Torres, carrying a leather-based jacket, nonetheless speaks about “I’m Still Here” with spirited conviction, laughing continually.
She compares her quite a few postscreening Q&As to an evangelizing mission. “It’s like a priest going village by village, taking the word of the Lord,” she says.
“I’m Still Here,” a Portuguese-language movie, isn’t the obvious awards contender. Primarily based on Marcelo Paiva’s memoir, the film chronicles the true story of Eunice Paiva (Torres), a housewife turned lawyer and activist who raised her youngsters and fought for justice after her husband, Rubens, a former politician, disappeared in 1971 throughout Brazil’s navy dictatorship.
“It’s amazing how this film touches hearts,” Torres provides. “Little by little, people started to talk about it, and it became this dark horse in the middle of big films.”
The cinematic campaign paid off. “I’m Still Here” additionally obtained Oscar nods for worldwide movie and — in a shock — greatest image, alongside such Hollywood behemoths as “Wicked” and “Dune: Part Two.”
Fernanda Torres within the film “I’m Still Here.”
(Alile Onawale / Sony Photos Classics)
In January, Torres made historical past as the primary Brazilian actor to win a Golden Globe. Brazilian followers have been euphoric ever since, exalting each social media put up about her and the movie with likes within the tens of millions.
“In Brazil, we are very proud of our culture and we consume our own culture,” Torres explains. “But it’s very rare that someone [succeeds] abroad, so when it happens, there’s this pride that someone is recognizing something that we always knew was a talent. It’s like a confirmation.”
Torres’ Golden Globe win and her eventual Oscar nomination had been trigger for widespread elation within the South American nation.
“There was a humble woman who said, ‘I thought that I was there. That trophy was for me. It was for all artists. I thought it was ours,’” a deeply moved Torres recollects a couple of TV clip of a lady emotionally reacting to the actor’s Golden Globe win that went viral. “In Brazil, it’s achieved this depth. I know fame, but this is not fame — it’s more than that.”
Montenegro, who misplaced the Oscar to Gwyneth Paltrow in “Shakespeare in Love,” is overjoyed to see her daughter repeat her unbelievable feat being nominated all these years later.
“She’s very happy — she’s proud,” Torres says, beaming with adoration for her vivacious mom. “She’s 95 and still working like a furious lion. To live so long and to see this happening, and for a film that we are in together, is beautiful. I mean, it’s pure magic.”
However amid the pink carpets, photograph shoots and glamorous encounters with Hollywood A-listers, one runs the chance of forgetting what’s actually necessary, Torres presents.
“You can lose yourself thinking it’s about you,” she says. “In this case, I always remember that what makes people so surprised with my presence in the film is the fact that I was able to connect and be faithful to Eunice Paiva. She’s the star in this film. She taught me a lot about acting, about restraining emotions, about not being melodramatic, about self-control.”
Since its premiere on the Venice Movie Pageant final 12 months, “I’m Still Here” has accrued important reward for Torres’ unassuming efficiency grounded in internalized grief. Apart from Salles’ path, Torres additionally channeled some key recommendation from her mother.
With the U.S. and different nations world wide now dealing with the specter of authoritarianism in an actual manner, Torres believes that her character’s affected person but diligent resistance generally is a mannequin for the way we are able to endure and defeat retrograde ideologies and oppressive governments.
“She understood that it would take a long time for the dictatorship to be over and that her fight would take decades, but she never gave up,” says Torres. “She went back to school and became a human rights lawyer. We have to be prepared for a long marathon, like Eunice.”
Paiva, who died in 2018, continues to be enacting change at dwelling by “I’m Still Here.” Not solely has the movie introduced collectively individuals from opposing ideological factions into Brazilian cinemas (it has offered greater than 4 million tickets since its launch in November) however within the nation’s Supreme Courtroom, minister Flávio Dino cited Salles’ movie whereas discussing amending a 1979 amnesty regulation in order that sure crimes dedicated through the dictatorship — such because the concealment of a physique — might be prosecuted.
Past politics, Torres thinks “I’m Still Here” has accomplished so effectively world wide as a result of audiences really feel an elemental empathy for a mom and her youngsters in misery. Salles’ narrative focuses on the human expertise beneath dire circumstances.
“Walter always quotes my mother because she once said, ‘I just want to do existential theater.’ And Walter made an existential movie.”
As for the way the highlight on the movie and her efficiency may impact her profession, Torres stays cautious. After she gained an performing prize on the Cannes Movie Pageant in 1986 (one other nationwide first for Brazil) for Arnaldo Jabor’s “Love Me Forever or Never,” issues didn’t change.
“There was nothing abroad for me,” she recollects. “I didn’t speak English as well as I do today, and I was not a special beauty, which helps when you are young, so I went back to my country, where there was no cinema industry, and I did a lot of theater.”
This time round, after many profitable years on widespread TV initiatives, she would like to work with Pedro Almodóvar or Denis Villeneuve, or to be a part of the solid of “Severance.” (“I would pay to be there with Ben Stiller, [John] Turturro and Christopher Walken, please,” she says, a pure fan.)
“When people ask me about Hollywood I think, ‘What is Hollywood?’ Hollywood can be anywhere.”
The Oscars will happen throughout Carnival week, Brazil’s festive nationwide celebration. “People would go nuts,” says Torres concerning the response that any win for “I’m Still Here” would little doubt generate. For now, Torres has already transcended her earlier movie star standing to enter a rarefied echelon as a part of Brazil’s collective consciousness in a brand new manner.
“The pinnacle of achievement in Brazil is to become a costume in Carnival — for people to go in the streets dressed up as you,” Torres explains, smiling. “And it’s happening already. People are dressing up as me holding the Golden Globe or as me in one of the sitcoms I did.”
About what may occur on Oscar evening, the regal but disarming Torres is selecting to be glad about all of the accolades she’s already obtained.
“I think the chances for me to win are very low,” Torres says, perhaps too humbly, of a race that has already seen its share of twists and turns. “It can happen, but I don’t know. I don’t like expectations. I want to be there, happy just because I’m there.”
Whether or not or not Torres’ identify is within the envelope, it’s already etched in Brazil’s historical past.
