EYDER PERALTA, HOST:
The new movie "The Secret Agent" follows a man named Armando in hiding in the Brazilian city of Recife in 1977. Armando, who uses the alias Marcelo, is on the run from men hired by an industrialist to kill him. It's the latest film from Brazilian director Kleber Mendonca Filho, who has made a string of politically pointed movies about his country. "The Secret Agent" stars Wagner Moura as Armando, and he won best actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his role. The actor's also known from "Narcos" and "Civil War," and he joins us now. Welcome.
WAGNER MOURA: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
PERALTA: Tell us about the Brazil of 1977, when the movie is set.
MOURA: Brazil was under a very heavy dictatorship from '64 until '85. And '77 was the beginning of the opening, but not quite. I mean, the echoes of the dictatorship kept going. I was born in '76, and I remember. I still remember as a kid the atmosphere of what it was to live under a dictatorship.
PERALTA: So your character, Armando - he used to work at a university as a scientific researcher, but yet he still becomes a target. How does he become a target?
MOURA: This is an interesting thing because when we talk about a dictatorship, we always think of the military and brutal force and censorship and things like that. But what happens is they empower people in their words. And we have seen this in - even in Brazil under Bolsonaro and in other countries, I think. And the first thing that a far-right/authoritarian government tries to do in their book list is to go against universities, journalists and artists. And this is sort of what happened in Brazil, of course, during the dictatorship, but also in Brazil under Bolsonaro from 2018 to 2022. And that was actually what put Kleber and I together, because we were born (ph) to injustice in a very explosive way.
And in this case, I couldn't do that because Armando is - he's trying to hide. He has to protect his son. He cannot call attention to himself. Everything had to happen very internally. And like I said, the genesis of this film was Kleber and I shared perplexity on what was going on in Brazil. So it's a little bit of myself, but it's a lot of Kleber, too, and his temperature is a little lower. So I think this character is a mix of Kleber and I. And the circumstances where the character finds himself in are very tricky, right? He has to be more quiet. He cannot call attention to himself.
PERALTA: I think another thing that seems odd but real about this film is that the violence is actually in the background. People - you know, they move around dead bodies, and even under a death threat, Armando manages to live. He manages to dance, right? And it's certainly my experience when I go to really violent places. Is that your experience?
MOURA: Yes. You know, when I did "Narcos" and I was living in Colombia, in Bogota, in - remember that Bogota back in the '80s was probably the most dangerous city in the world. And I was talking to my friends that lived there, and they were like, Wagner, we were living our lives. We were going to bars. We were all - you know, we were just - and I think that's what happens in war zones as well. People try to carry on with their lives. That gives the character more complexity, right? Like, when we are in very hard and tough situations, it's not that we are closed in a shell. I like characters that want to live.
PERALTA: So this film is set at the tail end of the Brazilian dictatorship. You've made a movie in 2019 about a resistance leader against that dictatorship. Last year, the movie "I'm Still Here" won an Oscar, and it was about the Brazilian dictatorship. Why do you think these stories are resonating now?
MOURA: I think we have to keep talking about that. You know, it's a very recent scar in all Latin America, South America especially - Brazil, Argentina, Chile, you know, like, Uruguay. We all had very strong and horrible dictatorships. And I know young people in Brazil that go, oh my God. I wasn't aware of that. So was there a dictatorship here? So I think that what we do - not only artists. I mean, it's not our main job. But it's important to bring back facts. And Brazilian cinema always had this quality of trying to understand the country. That's why there are so many documentaries coming out of Brazil.
PERALTA: I don't want to give anything away, but there's a really important scene in Armando's life, in your character's life, that we don't see. It's only seen in a newspaper article. A researcher is looking at it in the present. What does that show us about how little we know about political dissidents?
MOURA: I like that scene very much. I think that scene is in tune with the rest of the film, you know? Like, Kleber doesn't give answers to many questions. So I feel that the fact that we don't show what happened to him is in tune with the rest of the film. But also, too, I don't know if you remember, but we see that in a newspaper. And the headlines are, corrupt teacher, corrupt professor gets killed. And that's another way of killing him. So he got killed, and then they killed his memory. He was killed twice. You know what I mean?
PERALTA: Yeah. So - and I think in the end, we don't actually get much answers, which is often the case in real life.
MOURA: Yeah. Yeah. We don't get answers, but I don't feel that it's - it's sad, but I feel a glimpse of hope in the end in - with that girl, the researcher. I think that's a very important character because she's young and she's concerned about the truth. And what she offers to Armando's son is a pen drive with information. What she puts on that table is memory. She goes, like, this is what I know about your father. But I love the fact that there is a younger person in that country that's concerned, and it's also offering him memory.
PERALTA: Wagner Moura stars in the new movie "The Secret Agent," in theaters now. Wagner, thank you for being with us.
MOURA: Thank you. It was a pleasure talking to you.
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