The new Brazilian drama “The Secret Agent” takes place in 1977, a period the opening titles describe as a time of “great mischief.” That phrase is a loose English translation of pirraça, a Portuguese word that the film’s star, Wagner Moura, recently tried to define for me.
“It’s like when a kid does something that he knows his parents are not liking but does it anyway,” he said. As he described that tendency, Moura grinned.
“I have that,” he said.
For Moura, that mischievous streak has emerged whenever he sensed expectations about how a Latino actor should behave in Hollywood. After his breakout role as Pablo Escobar 10 years ago on Netflix’s “Narcos,” Moura frustrated his agents by turning down many of the high-profile, lucrative projects that came his way.
“They were like, ‘Oh, you are a Brazilian actor, you should be so happy with that offer,’” he recalled. “And there was a part of me that felt some sort of pleasure to say, I’m not going to do that.”
Ironically, by sticking to his convictions and picking idiosyncratic projects like “The Secret Agent,” Moura now appears poised for the biggest global moment of his career. The rambunctious political thriller has already earned him a Golden Globe nomination and lead-performer prizes from the Cannes Film Festival and New York Film Critics Circle. Though he is facing a competitive field of best-actor contenders that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Timothée Chalamet and Michael B. Jordan, many pundits believe Moura will score his first Oscar nomination for the film.
Forging a coherent acting career across two continents is no easy task, but the 49-year-old Moura has managed it, bringing warmth and intelligence to politically minded material like 2024’s “Civil War,” the Apple TV series “Dope Thief,” and an adaptation of the Ibsen play “An Enemy of the People” that he recently performed in his native city, Salvador. The director Kleber Mendonça Filho, who conceived “The Secret Agent” with Moura in mind, praised his progressive clarity as an artist.
“His star power comes from how constant he is,” Mendonça Filho said.
Moura credits that steadfastness to his late father, an Air Force sergeant. “He wasn’t politically active, but there was a matter of values, the way you should behave as a person,” he said. “I don’t want to sell myself as a moral compass, but I stick to who I am and the things that I believe are right.”
Playfully, he added, “That’s kind of a cocky thing to say, but I will say it anyway. I’m almost 50, so [expletive] it.”
Just before Christmas, I met Moura in Los Angeles, where he has lived for several years with his longtime partner, the photographer Sandra Delgado, and their three sons. In conversation, he was lively and opinionated with a cheeky sense of humor, his boyish face offset by graying hair and a voice so deep and resonant that it sounded like a special effect.
“This film doesn’t have to be in Dolby Atmos,” Mendonça Filho joked, “because Wagner’s voice has it.”
Even so, “The Secret Agent” uses that asset sparingly, drawing even greater power from Moura’s watchful, sympathetic eyes. He plays Armando, a widowed father on the run during Brazil’s military dictatorship. Pursued by hit men, Armando assumes a new identity and takes shelter with other political refugees while awaiting safe passage out of the country. Until then, he faces the near-impossible task of staying calm and inconspicuous in a place where violence can erupt without warning.
After the Brazilian drama “I’m Still Here” won last year’s international-film Oscar, many in Moura’s home country hope “The Secret Agent” will become another awards-season triumph. Still, he knows that not everyone in Brazil is cheering him on. Just a few years ago, when Jair Bolsonaro was president, he helped turn much of the population against Moura for openly criticizing the right-wing government.
“Politically, I’ve never shied away from saying what I thought was right, even if I had to pay the consequences of that,” Moura said.
In that way, he could empathize with Armando, who is not a guerrilla fighter but a former professor who will not bend to government-sanctioned corruption. Simply for holding firm to his values, this ordinary man is branded an enemy of the state.
“And I felt like that in Brazil many times,” Moura said.
DESPITE THOSE EXPERIENCES, Moura speaks about his home country with deep affection. Brazil made him famous twice over, first through soap operas, then as the star of a hugely successful crime drama, “Elite Squad,” which many Brazilians can still quote by heart.
The day I met Moura, he was preparing for a family holiday back in Salvador, which he described as one of the most diverse places on the globe. “The Brazilian passport is the most wanted passport on the black market because everyone can be Brazilian,” he said. “You don’t look at the passport and go, ‘I don’t think so.’ Everyone can be Brazilian — you, me, everybody.”
But for all he loves about Brazil — like the warmth of its people and cultural icons like the singers Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil — Moura will not hesitate to confront its problems or the politicians who exploit them.
“It’s beautiful, but also Brazil is violent, it’s elitist, it’s misogynist, it’s homophobic,” he said. “And Bolsonaro is a manifestation of all that.”
As artists like Moura and Mendonça Filho became more vocal about Brazil’s conservative turn, they also faced right-wing backlash from Bolsonaro’s government and on social media. “When they say that we artists are this intellectual elite that’s against the people, people buy that,” Moura said. “It’s like the old manual of fascism where they attack press, artists, universities, things like that. And he was very effective.”
Moura felt that hostility most acutely after making his directorial debut with “Marighella,” a political biopic that was also set during Brazil’s military dictatorship. Though the movie premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in early 2019, Bolsonaro’s government effectively blocked its release in Brazil until the end of 2021. By then, Moura had been painted in such a controversial light by the right wing that some theaters installed metal detectors when he attended screenings.
“What the far right is afraid of is not what we say, it’s what we do,” Moura noted. “If I had social media, I could have spent every day saying he was a fascist, but that wouldn’t bother him as much as the film I did.”
National attitudes began to shift after Bolsonaro lost the presidential election four years ago and was convicted of planning a coup to stay in power. Still, Mendonça Filho believes that even today, if Brazilians were polled on the street, about a quarter would continue to view him and Moura negatively.
“One segment of Brazilian society looks at us as if we were communists,” he said.
That feeling of political persecution informed “The Secret Agent,” set during the late period of Brazil’s violent military dictatorship, which began with a 1964 coup and persisted for 21 years. “This is a film about a country that has a problem with memory,” Moura said, pointing out that when the military regime ended, an amnesty law let perpetrators off the hook.
“Bolsonaro would never have been possible without that law,” he said.
More recently, however, Moura has sensed signs of reconciliation. In November, when “The Secret Agent” was released in Brazil, it was met with major fanfare. “We sold a million tickets for it, it’s a big success,” Moura said. “And I love the fact that this film is being released in Brazil in a moment where we are finally getting sort of even with our memory.”
Moura pointed out that, like President Trump, Bolsonaro claimed the election was stolen from him and encouraged his supporters to storm the capital. The crucial difference came afterward, when the Supreme Court responded by sentencing Bolsonaro to house arrest and blocking him from pursuing political office until 2060.
“It was fascinating how Brazil was super fast in sending people to jail, finding the financiers, and taking away Bolsonaro’s political rights,” Moura said. “Are the institutions in Brazil stronger than the U.S.? I don’t think so. But in my opinion, that happened because Brazilians know what a dictatorship is.”
And if there are people who don’t remember the lessons learned in the wake of Brazil’s military regime, Moura hopes films like “The Secret Agent” and “I’m Still Here” will stand as a reminder. It’s harder to bury history when filmmakers are determined to bring it to vivid life, he argued, adding that the shelf life of a country’s politicians can pale in comparison to that of its artists.
“They all go away, it’s just a wave,” he said. “Bolsonaro is now in jail, so in the history books, he’s going to be this fascist elected by Brazilians that tried a coup d’état. Whereas Caetano Veloso will always be Caetano Veloso.”
WHEN MOURA FIRST began working in Hollywood, an agent told him to be less selective, arguing that every job is meant to lead to the next. But even then, Moura had a healthy skepticism about playing the Hollywood game.
“Maybe it’s some sort of anti-colonialism thing,” he joked. “I’ve never done anything for money or because it’s a big Hollywood thing that everybody’s going to see. And especially after ‘Narcos,’ I don’t want to do anything that would stereotype Latinos.”
Perhaps because of his willingness to say no, Moura never became Hollywood’s No. 1 Latino draft pick. But he wasn’t exactly angling for that, either.
“I want to go for the same characters that white American actors my age are going for,” he said. “I want to play characters named Michael who speak the way I speak.”
And if Hollywood can’t provide that, he’ll make it happen himself. Later this year, Moura will direct his first English-language film, “Last Night at the Lobster,” about the final shift at a soon-to-close chain restaurant. “It’s a very political film,” Moura said, noting that he will star opposite Brian Tyree Henry and Elisabeth Moss. “It’s an anticapitalism Christmas movie.”
In the meantime, there are awards shows to attend. “This campaigning thing, it’s intense, isn’t it?” he said.
Though Moura was previously nominated for a Golden Globe for “Narcos,” this time feels different, he said. Maybe it’s because he’s getting older, and these things matter in a new way. Or maybe it’s because “The Secret Agent” is such a personal, distinctly Brazilian project, and all this global attention feels like an unexpected but lovely affirmation.
Still, he doesn’t want to lose himself to a season where egos often become supersized. When the awards campaign began this fall, Moura was tied up with his monthslong commitment to the Ibsen play in Salvador, limiting his availability for press. “Everybody was like, ‘You have to get rid of the play and go campaign. Do you understand how important this moment is for you?’” he recalled.
As you might imagine, that pressure only stoked Moura’s defiant sense of pirraça, and he remained with the play. “This is something I’m proud of,” he said. “I don’t compromise.”
If “The Secret Agent” does lead to new Hollywood opportunities, he hopes that those projects will want him for that steadfast character, not because there’s an expectation he’ll assimilate. So far, staying true to himself seems to have served him well.
“Someone said to me once that success is when you do what you always did, but people suddenly start to pay attention,” he said.
Kyle Buchanan is a pop culture reporter and also serves as The Projectionist, the awards season columnist for The Times.
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