For Fernanda Torres, “I’m Still Here” is more than just a film. It’s homecoming.
Director Walter Sales’ Portuguese drama has been nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress (Torres). She is the second Brazilian actor to receive an Oscar nod. The first was her mother, Fernanda Montenegro, who was nominated for Sales’ “Central Station” in 1998. Here we tell the heroic true story of Brazilian activist Eunice Paiva.
“It’s a truly incredibly similar path to my mother,” says Torres, 59, who won the Golden Globes for the best drama actress last month. “After the Golden Globes, my mother said, ‘I knew it was going to happen.’ And she was also certain about this (nomination). But I didn’t think it was possible – it’s a very tough year with so many great female performances. ”
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“I’m Still Here” is a complex portrait of real-life activist Eunice Paiva
Set under a military dictatorship in the early 1970s, I’m Still Here is a former House member of the House of Representatives of former standout Eunice and her husband Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello). Continued in. However, once Rubens is arrested and mysteriously disappears, the world of their family falls into chaos, and Eunice is tortured and interrogated about her husband’s political deal. When she is finally released, Eunice tries to find answers about Rubens’s whereabouts, and tries to maintain a similarity in normalcy for her five children.
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Torres carefully studied old interviews with Paiba, who returned to university at the age of 46 and became a human rights lawyer. (She died of 89 in 2018 after living with Alzheimer’s disease for 15 years.)
“She was very feminine and grew up to be the perfect housewife,” Torres says. “At the same time, she was very intelligent. As a person at this moment, Eunice teaches us about civilization. Brazil lives in an uncivilized regime, and she has a civilized manners. I fought against it.”
What is very noteworthy about Torres’ performance is her restraint. The actress has mainly worked in theatres and Brazilian television comedy, so “it’s never been more subtle,” she says. Torres recalls a particularly heartbreaking scene. Eunice takes the child to an ice cream parlor after a devastating setback. She smiles faintly, closing her daughter in tears, quietly and glancing around the room with her happy family.
“That’s when she realizes that her utopia is gone and that the life she had will never come back,” Torres says. I’m getting ready to shoot that day. Something was happening that I wasn’t in control. I had access to her like she was the real me.
Furcille moments from Fernanda Torres and her Oscar-nominated mom Fernanda Montenegro
Some of Torres’ early memories of growing up in Rio de Janeiro were watching her famous parents watch Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller perform at the dinner table. (Her father, Fernando Torres, was also an actor and director.) She never thought about becoming an actress again. Now I’m stuck with this profession. ” “
Stardom came early for Torres, who won the best actress at the Cannes Film Festival at the age of 20 for the 1986 drama Love Me Forever or Never. At the time, “I was doing melodrama and I really hated it. I was playing a stupid, innocent girl,” she recalls with a smile. However, the Cannes Prize, “It was like the World Cup! I was being celebrated. And this award gave me independence. My mother was so big, “Another actress called Fernanda” There’s a reason for it to exist.” ”
Throughout the 90s, Torres starred with his mother in the thrillers “Gemias” and “Four Days of September”, as well as in the first film “The Foreign Lands.” She also forked into other fields and achieved great success as a novelist, producer and newspaper columnist.
“Fernanda is one of the rare artists who excel in a variety of mediums,” says Sales. “She is an extraordinary comedian. She can play Antigone. She is an accomplished screenwriter. It comes not only from her emotional intelligence, but also from the joys and constant curiosity of her life. And the beauty about her is that you never feel any effort. It’s part of who she is essentially.”
Torres once imagined a Hollywood career, but didn’t think it was feasible due to the accent and language barriers.
“Brazil is a huge island of 200 million people and we are strong and enthusiastic about consuming our own culture,” says Torres. “There was a lot of things I could do in Brazil. As a foreigner, I never had this opportunity in the US. So I feel this Oscar nomination is mature, so this Oscar nomination is a good thing. I’m very pleased that I came. I’m not an idiot who was in Cannes!”
Torres is a Brazilian social media sensation, with over 4 million Instagram followers. She celebrates the massive box office revenue of “I’m Still Here” in her home country and the massive success of past Brazilian sitcoms that liken it to “Seinfeld” and “Friends.” (“They made a lot of memes!”)
But the arrival of another comedy recently painted a backlash with the already scandalous Oscar season. In 2008, Torres wore a blackface on an episode of the Brazilian sketch show “Fantastico.” The clip resurfaced days after last month’s Oscar nomination, with Torres expeditedly issued an apology.
In the early 2000s, Brazil was “a bubble,” Torres says. “When you sketch comedy, the mainstream was only white directors, white scriptwriters, white producers, and white producers. And everyone involved, when you do sketch comedy, you’re German, old, I thought young people would do all kinds of things (of people).”
But during the year to be followed, the racial justice moves began to explain “very aggressively, louder than very aggressive. There was a lot of blindness and we had to fight it. Now , it has completely changed. All of these movements have helped us to look better. I am a member of society that I understand, listen and try to change. I like to think.”
After the Globe Trotting Awards season, Torres is most excited to relax with her husband, filmmaker Andre Chawadington, and her four sons. She says she made her a better actress by playing Eunice, and she says she hopes to bring her spirit to any project she will embark on next.
“She’s a great guide to the dystopic era,” Torres says. “In nominations, you risk thinking this is for you. But in this case it has something to do with Eunice – it’s this woman who people fall in love with.”