Best known internationally for his Golden Globe-nominated role as Pablo Escobar in the Netflix series Narcos, actor-turned-director Wagner Moura is also recognized in his native Brazil as, in his words, "a progressive, left-wing artist."
Moura’s directorial debut Marighella, about a 1960s revolutionary who fought against the Brazilian military dictatorship of the era, won’t do much to change that reputation. The film is premiering at the Berlin film festival out of competition.
Fresh off Sergio, the Netflix film he produced and starred in as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights killed by terrorists in Baghdad in 2003, Moura flies to Cuba directly after Berlin to shoot Olivier Assayas’ Wasp Network, the 1990s-era story of five Cuban spies controversially tried and imprisoned in the US.
The candid first-time director talked with The Hollywood Reporter about why his film, which elicited threats during the shoot and as yet has no release date back home, is especially relevant today in Brazil, but wasn’t intended as a response to the country’s new conservative government.
