Conversations with Wagner Moura of NARCOS

um, thank you very much for coming this afternoon. I'm Dan Feinberg from The Hollywood Reporter and you're not really here to see me, so let's bring out Pablo Escobar himself, Mr. Vagner Moa, so we've talked about this before and this. It's something that always surprises me. You get this offer to have a larger than life character. You meet an iconic figure in a language you don't actually speak. What is your reaction when someone says this is the role of your life? Here's the trick. It's in Spanish um, it was actually the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.

First of all, the program director Joseph Pil is a very good friend of mine. I don't know if you have done it. The guys have seen this movie called Elad Squad, uh, it's a very political Brazilian movie about the way the police act, you know there in Brazil and we are very good friends and he is the director and creator of

narcos

and when he invited. For me to do it, first we thought, I mean, first I thought it was supposed to be in English, so I thought okay, I can speak English with an accent and then they decided to do it in Spanish, which I think is a very smart decision. because I never remember as a kid watching those World War II movies where the Germans spoke English with an accent that's weird, so I think that was one of the things I like about Nar.

That's a very authentic show, I think the fact that we filmed everything in Colombia in Colombian locations, the fact that this is spoken in Spanish, but I didn't speak a word of Spanish, so before Netflix even knew about it. that because there's another thing because this guy is really crazy so he told me well I want you to play the public soundtrack yeah cool so I flew myself to Mar and he never, Netflix didn't even know he was considering me to play paper. so I, but I flew alone to Medin and spent four or five months there.

I enrolled in a university for a Spanish course for foreigners. I was in a classroom with people from all over. Japanese, Germans, Korean teenagers and uh. uh and it was and at the same time I was in the city of the republic. Cobar grew up, which was also great, so when I started the show, five months after that, after I arrived, the other actors started arriving and I felt like I was someone. on an island that oh another actor oh my God you know and uh and when we started I had a coach uh a dilet coach with me all the time on the set uh but it was difficult, it was very difficult Javier Bardam has a great quote about acting in another language , he says that when he acts in English when he works in English it is because there is a big office in his head with people working, sending emails working on the phone to make that work and when he works in Spanish the office is empty and that is a great metaphor, I think at the beginning in the first episodes of n that's why I chose episode nine, you can see that my Spanish is uh it's like me it's not ideal and uh it's like half of his brain is there doing the character and you know, connected with the character and the other half of the brain it's like I'm pronouncing this right, this, this, this, it's, it's a little difficult, well, is there any advantage? to have to concentrate to that point on the dialogue definitely yes, yes, I mean, when I remember when I did Hamlet in Brazil because it was the best thing I have ever done in my life, I mean me, myself, not as a result for the people who saw it, but for me as an actor it was the most important thing I have ever done in my life and we translated it into Portuguese, which is my native language, so I translated from English to the director and myself, and that was the exercise.

Translating it put me in the character and in the universe of Shakespeare in a way that when I went to Medene I thought about that, I thought that learning a language will surely bring me something. You know, being there struggling with the language with the language that the character speaks, uh, I'm sure that would bring something to me and it did. I was totally focused on it and um, yeah, so it was great, um, it was a great way to start a process. I myself like the long process of, you know, discovering, studying and discovering the character.

Now you're in those classes with the Japanese students, etc., with the Korean students. Do you tell them what you are doing? I wasn't ashamed to say it was because I was I was I was 40 pounds lighter than I am now I was really very thin it was the most it was it's a big misinterpretation I mean because I couldn't speak the language I didn't look like him, I was skinny, you know, it didn't make any sense, actually, uh, so yeah, when I got into Pennsylvania, scar is the most famous non-Colombian person. Sorry, Shakira, but he's everyone. knows who Pablo is, so, uh uh, so when I got there I told everyone that I was, that I was a student from Braz Ian, that I was there to learn Spanish, which wasn't a lie at all because I was embarrassed to say Hey, I'm here. to play Pablo Escobar they ended up finding out that I was and they were really a big help, they said: yes, we are going to help you, well, let's talk a little more about the reaction of Colombians towards this person who is a legend of FOC, a villain. hero Robin Hood, you know, a kind of boogeyman, he is so many different things to the people of that country, it's crazy, he is, he is, Pablo is, the history of Colombia is divided into before and after Pablo Escobar and most say 90% of the population in Colombia has a very accurate understanding of who Pablo was and how and all the terrible things he did to the country, but still, when it was in me, I went to this place called barium PA Scobar, which is the neighborhood that Pablo built for poor people in Magin and the first thing you see when you arrive is a wall with the image of Pablo and right next to Pablo you see Jesus Christ so if you say something bad about Pablo there you are in a big problem and you can understand because in South America the government is, generally, not all the poor neighborhoods of Brazil and that's where the drug trafficking takes place and that's where they control the population, that's where The state doesn't come in, so they and they work like they're mayors or, you know, so they can give medicine to sick kids and they can get the idea that drug dealers can be Robin Hoods.

It started with Pablo is totally widespread in South America today and you can't blame these people because if I'm a poor guy who doesn't have a house and a guy comes to me and says, hey, guess what I'm going for? To give you a home, I'm going to think this guy is really cool, right, no, no, the moral code is different, you know, but people have a very precise understanding of who Pablo is. at Columbia, well, this leads to a question from Ryan Jerck. Did you meet any member of Pablo's family? If so, did they support you?

Did you support the program? I did not want to. I think I've read it. basically everything that was written about Pablo in both English and Spanish and I saw it all and what happened in Colombia was quite recent. This war that you are seen in on Narus took place 25 years ago. Actually, it's surprising how. Colombia rebuilt itself and became a very modern and interesting country after all that, so everyone you know knows in Colombia, basically everyone knows someone who died in the war in Colombia, who knows someone who participated in the war by Juan Pablo Raba.

The actor who plays Gustavo his um his aunt died in the avian bombing so it's quite recent then and I didn't want to have a commitment to Pablo's family goobar I didn't want them to expect anything from me I didn't try to imitate Pablo , that was the first decision that I made, that I made, I didn't want to, what I did was try to know as much as I could about him so I could forget the whole thing and create my own version because at the end of the day that's what we do, That is, what actors do we do?

Any of us, the actors here, are going to interpret, if we, you, are going to interpret. Pablo, for example, when I saw Ben Aloro playing Pablo or there was this great Colombian actor who played Pablo in a Colombian opera and I recognized in his works the P that I had to study in the books but they are completely different from you. I know what I'm talking about, so at the end of the day it's the way nature sees or it's how you connect your emotions to the character's emotion. It's very personal so I didn't do it and it's crazy because I didn't try. imitate or try to walk like him or something like that but I ended up doing it without knowing without you know what I mean what Pablo does with the painting I was doing this and people know what Pablo used to do That's really interesting, well, That's one of the things about doing a period piece is that you have all kinds of external things that can help you, so how did the costume help you?

How did the mustache help you? How did the extra per pound help you? You're completely totally uh uh i' I'm now I'm trying to get rid of Pablo and and it's very difficult, it's easier to eat and get to gain weight and this this is not my friend uh uh uh, I'm going through a detox thing now. I'm just going vegan and eating alone for a month so I don't get rid of this energy because there's one thing you guys will agree with me on. It always amazes me that our art takes place in our body, the painter goes there and paints something beautiful on this thing that he paints.

He is totally connected to his emotions, but it also takes place outside of the musician. Our thing here is that it always surprises me when I see an actor coming out of a scene, a very strong and emotional scene, and he's probably thinking, oh, what am I going to do tonight? I think I'm GNA, have a beer and, but him. he grabs a cup of coffee and his hand is like this I think this is beautiful I love this about our profession because we give information to our body and the body believes it is true it does not know it is a lie you know your mind knows it, but the body and it's all here, so it's not like, oh, I'm, I'm taking the character with me, this is it.

It's not like this just takes place here, so I have his belly, I have his and I have all the energy from these two years that I'm going with this character so don't worry it's not that bad I'm a good person but I'm trying to get rid of that you know we're done In the second season I'm really trying especially to get rid of the belly well, but it helped me a lot, yes, because you feel different, right?, you feel that it's not, it's like when you make a habit , It makes a big difference. go to the wardrobe and oh that's how the character is okay so when you and you're your my own body when you feel fast you feel different it's like okay did it make it hard to leave the character behind at the end of days ? filming what to leave the character behind at the end of Sho no no like I said not at all when I finished filming I just wanted to go home and you know drink beer to do something to see my children but what I say is this What stays with you without your permission, you know you don't want to, but it's there, you know well that you talked about the number of people you interacted with who had a relative who died or a relative who had been with Pablo or whatever these people tell you What are the

conversations

you have with these people?

I was always trying to find out what it was like for them to grow up in those circumstances, you know, and it's interesting because that's the same, it's the same story in people who grew up in Iraq or in places where war was something that was a reality, They try to have a normal life, of course, it's not at 8:00, everyone has to do it. being at home because of the bombs and you know and the murders, but they have normal lives, they have, they fight to know, they go to school, they hit a bomb, oh, a bomb, you know, and it becomes normal, which is interesting because in It's terrifying, but at the same time it shows how human beings adapt to realities.

You know, what about the physical locations within Colombia where you were filming and were they actually specific locations where some of these were located? Things happened, yeah, actually, uh, the last scene. I don't want to spoil anything, but the last scene, Pablo's last scene that we filmed in the same place where Pao was killed and which was also energetically wise, is also strange and uh, and we. The shot that we filmed was all filmed in Colombia, you know, basically in Bogotá, most of it in Bulot, but we always also filmed in Meene and in places where there was an audience, in places where the real thing happened, so I think this makes a big difference in terms of authenticity on the show now is the mythical Pablo that we all heard about or saw on the news etc., but what information did you find that you researched that allowed you to understand this as a man?

Do you know which one it was? piece of information that got you into this is no longer the icon this is me always what I think that the what for me is always about seeing the character as a uh for us, the actors, it is about seeing the character as Pablo Is Escobar a person? human being right, he was in Colombia, especially he was a kind of journalist, one time they asked me how you can portray him as a human being and I said because he was, believe it or not, oama bin ladin was a being human, I mean, people liked him.

They had families they had friends they had people who connected with them who admired them so and Pablo was a very very interesting character yes I yes yes Pablo was not a real character yes he was a yes I did receive the script where there was this guy who was a great couple, the biggest drug dealerjournalists, very serious, and, and, and, pragmatic, and, you know, dates and, um, a lot of information, wise information, very, very precise things, and and there are books that I like the most are the books that They were written by people who knew Pablo.

They are very intimate things, like his lover, his son, his brother, and all of them, there is no agreement between them, one says something else, the other says something else about the same thing, so you imagine that someone is lying. , but it doesn't matter, it doesn't really matter because the things that they, it's their approach, it's the way they saw this. The character, of course, the way his lover saw him was different from the way his son saw him, so there's no lie, it's just a different approach to him and it's great, those books are great.

His lover, Vgia Baju, who is very, very intelligent. The smart woman she lives in and now lives in Miami because she basically denounced everyone in Colombia so she's afraid of going back there and getting killed so she's a very smart person and her book has the best title of all time , it's called Loving Pablo. hating Cobar is great, isn't it? Did you ever analyze it that way in your mind? The kind of difference between Pablo and Escobar yeah, it's uh, yeah, uh, yeah, I think it's the same, it's all mixed up, but she saw she she she she found this this this difference well, as you say, there are real dangers tangible for some people associated with this story, did any of you have any real nervousness, tension or fear?

No, no, not really, I was just worried. about how people in Colombia would receive the show, uh, but it was okay, in that sense, you know, a lot of movies like this tend to become the main character, you know, Scarface would be an easy example. Scarface is not a good man and yet the character has become this iconic hero if anyone was afraid that you would somehow do something to Pablo that would turn him into this Scarface-like figure that would be on posters in college dorms. for hundreds of years. I don't think so, no, no, well.

Who is watching that? The writers are making sure they do a representation of Nuance. Are they the directors? Are they all? I guess basically I think that's one of the good things about Padila. I mean we all had a very, very close collaboration, we, uh, I'm always working on the scripts with the writers, we have a lot of freedom to create, be and me and my struggle. We must also be as precise as possible with Colombian history because American writers, no matter how much they have studied it and know it, it is such a different cultural thing that sometimes it is difficult for them to understand how a Colombian Latino behaves in a certain situation. , so we all had a very and the directors, the Latino directors on the show, especially one guy, a Colombian named Andy Bas, who directed this.

This episode that you saw now was very intimate, very um, we always collaborate with the environment in

narcos

, despite the team of the topic we are talking about, it is very, very light and great, what is it like? Netflix is ​​different, how is it different to work as part of that company? They're very cool, they're very cool people, they're very, they understand and they gave us this amount of freedom that I'm talking about. I felt like it was great to work with them, but what I felt when I did the first season was that generally when an actor does a series it's like he's not doing it.

I know what's going to happen to your character. I knew it so I felt like there was a break and then we had to end it like I was making a big movie where we had to rap in the middle and but. The interesting thing about Netflix is ​​the fact that, and thinking about that idea, you can watch the whole movie at the same time if you're strong enough, you can see, you can see that's really cool, it's really interesting because you just don't wait until next time. week to see the next episode, that's interesting. I think that streaming is something that there is no turning back from here.

You know, my kids don't understand that they have to do it. watch a cartoon at a certain time, you know what I mean, oh no, Adventure Time isn't right now, no, I don't care, just put it on, you know, it's really cool stuff and the fact that Netflix is ​​everywhere . world, it is also interesting because it brings uh cultural when I saw Beast without a Nation, for example, which is a great film. It is a social political thing so particular to Africa. It's interesting to see that all of this is spread around the world through Netflix and in general, they are in basically every country in the world, so it is a game changer.

It's really great. You mentioned before that we watched the ninth episode here because you didn't want to show one of the first ones. You are an actor? Who sees your own stuff or do you stay away from it? No. I did when we did the first season. I was able to watch the episodes before we released them so I watch it like a lot of times I was watching it but when Us when Netflix was released I didn't watch it so the DS are always mad because you don't see with the right color, but I don't, well, what do you see when you watch those first few episodes?

I like it. I'm very proud of it, it's uh, it's uh, it's a show that I think is very unique, a very original show, uh uh, for the reasons that I mentioned before and I like political things. I think it's very political. I mean, for me it was Personally, it was really interesting to understand more about a topic that is very important in my country where I come from. You know, drug trafficking is a big problem in reality. That's it and and and I always thought that drugs should be legalized and now I'm absolutely sure that it's a huge failure this War on Drugs is a failure it's absurd and it only works and it's crazy because this war is going on down there for poor young people in poor neighborhoods to be killed and no, I'm not saying drug abuse is no big deal, it's a big problem too, but it's a healthy problem, it's not a police problem, you know, like that which is uh um for me.

As a Latin American, it became stronger for me. The fact that it's wrong is that, according to the research, seeing it, you know, traveling promoting it, seeing how people reacted. I know it's just understanding how it started, you know, and, and, and the drug policy approach and it's complete, it's fighting the suppliers, the countries that export and produce drugs, it's absolutely unfair because, uh, uh, the whole world consumes. drugs, you know, here the states are a big consumer of drugs, so there is no use fighting the supplier when the consumer is big, you know when the people want it, so there is something that will never end, we are going to kill pablo scobar we are going to put El Chapo's money in jail and nothing is going to change nothing nothing is not going to make any difference of course criminal should go to jail but in terms of the big guys in the Overall, it wouldn't make any difference.

How has this changed your career in Brazil? They know I can speak Spanish now, which makes no difference. Actually, no, no, I don't think it changed. Anything in Brazil changed here because now in the United States and around the world people are a very, very popular program. We were all really surprised at how narcs became such a popular show, so it's cool, I mean, people now. seeing my work on a global scale, just as the last question is from Garrett Backstrom asking what advice I could give to aspiring actors facing constant rejection in this difficult industry.

A little difficult, it's about being rejected, it's about that and um, yeah, but be brave, be brave, be brave, if you like this, if this is your thing, if you really feel that this is your passion, that you love doing this, you're good at it, you know, do it, do it, well, thank you. a lot of Vagner Moa