He is now known
as Pablo Escobar and often addressed as him. So immersed was Wagner Moura,
Brazillian journalist and film maker with the character of the Columbian drug
lord, that he finds it difficult to get out of that skin. But he tries. Café attended a
riveting conversation between him and TV host and anchor Rajeev Masand at IFFI
As he walked
ramrod straight onto the stage,
with not an ounce of fat in his belly or anywhere else, clean shaven, trimmed
hair with a white formal shirt tucked into trousers he could wear to Wall
Street, one couldn’t be a tad disappointed. Where was “Pablo Escobar?”
Momentarily though.
After receiving his memento, Wagner Moura first spoke. His first Thank you
delivered in the slow baritone half drawl was enough for fans of the Netflix
series Narcos and Pablo Escobar, the late Columbian drug lord whose portrait is
still hung in ‘Bairo Escobar’ in Medellin, next to Jesus Christ, to drool. The
star struck audience ( a phrase Wagner didn’t quite get when asked a question
later by TV host and anchor Rajeev Masand), almost heard him say “Life is full
of surprises, some good, not so good”, one of Escobar’s famous lines
His 90 min
conversation with Rajeev Masand at the Macquinez Palace in Panjim, was one such
good surprise. To have Moura, the Brazillian, who now lives in Los Angeles and
learnt Spanish for his role as Pablo Escobar, was a roller coaster, While it
was difficult for him, Masand and the audience to break out of his reel life
Escobar mode, the real life of Moura, the angry left wing film maker, the
common man in protest against the fascist right wing dictatorship in Brazil and
then of course his next giant leap- directing the next season of Narcos, all
came to the fore.
The Brazilian actor,
is here for IFFI presented his directorial debut Marighella in the debut
competition category. The film chronicles the life of Carlos Marighella, a
Brazillian politician, writer, and leftist guerrilla fighter of, accused of
engaging in “terrorist acts” against the Brazilian military dictatorship.
He said “I’m a
product of my own culture. Make movies about yourself and it will be
universal”. So in a sense Marighella, could be a story of people all over the
world fighting right wing fascist regimes actually elected to power. Moura
speaks about his own Latin America in the same breath. Though Brazil is the
only country which does not speak Spanish and has Bolivia Columbia, Argentina,
Uruguay as panish speaking nations, “they are brothers” and have all
experienced how socialist left wing regimes were decimated and replaced by dictatorial
right wing ones.
In a sense, as the
conversation moved back to Narcos and Escobar he was asked, whether he, who
lived and breathed as Escobar for a long length of time, started empathizing
with one of the most notorious drug lords and who ever lived on this planet who
had a notion of invincibility (“Sometimes I feel like God…when I order someone
killed – they die the same day.”―
Pablo Escobar). Moura replied “I see characters as people. We all have our dark
spaces. Pablo was a criminal no doubt but he was also a very charismatic guy
and he was surely the most interesting of all the drug lords ( in South
America).
In an answer to a
question posed by Herald Café, on whether he started thinking and feeling like
Escobar he said “Well, I lived with across who played my mother and my wife and
son and daughter. The children were like my children and I started feeling that
way. And one aspect of Pablo’s character was his love for his family (“I can
replace things, but I could never replace my wife and kids” ― Pablo Escobar)
But what was perhaps
most striking visually was that the Wagner Moura of today does not look like
Pablo Escobar of Narcos. It’s literally chalk and cheese. Speaking about his
body transformation Moura said that he had to put on a lot of weight and walked
and talked like Escobar with a drawl in his voice and with shoulders that
dropped. It was good for my character but not for my body”, he quipped. In fact
he had to turn down an offer to act in the remake of Magnificent Seven with
Denzil Washington between season 1 and 2 of Narcos because he would have to
lose a lot of weight for Magnificent Seven and put it back all again for Season
2 of Narcos.
But he is happy to be
fit, as he moves from country to country, from festival to festival and not
just showing his films or being on the jury as he was in Lisbon last week, but
speaking his mind on issues of freedom of speech, of independent media (he is a
journalist himself) and giving voice to the voiceless.
But Pablo Escobar is
a character he will always be identified with as he reminiscences scenes from
the series especially the last scene where Pabdo was killed, it was exactly on
the rooftop where the real Escobar was killed. Wagner Moura still lives that
character so much so, that when he was made an offer he couldn’t refuse, to
direct the next season of Narcos, he said yes, even though Escobar is dead.
Narcos though is still about the drug trade and not one central character.
As the session ended
and he left to attend the screening of his film, he left not as an actor but a
change agent, an advocate of humanity, not afraid to speak his mind.
As
Escobar said, “Everyone has a price, the important thing is to find out what it
is.” For Moura, the price is to be able to say what he wants and be ok with the
consequences.
