Wagner Moura: “The Secret Agent was born from a spirit of resistance”

Meeting with the Brazilian actor, acting prize at Cannes for the poetic and political thriller by Kleber Mendonça Filho.

Wagner Moura, the actor known worldwide thanks to his interpretation of Pablo Escobar in the series Narcos, seen recently in Civil War by Alex Garland, won the Best Actor Prize at the last Cannes Film Festival for his role as a hunted man in The Secret Agentby Kleber Mendonça Filho. A captivating thriller set in Brazil in 1977, against a backdrop of political repression, cinematic fantasies and incomplete historical memory. The day after the presentation of the film, the actor explained to First how the film was partly born from his friendship with the filmmaker ofAquarius and of Bacurauand their common fight against Bolsonaro:

“Do you know where I met Kleber Mendonça Filho? Here, in Cannes, 20 years ago! In 2005, I presented a film, Bahia, lower townin the Un Certain Regard section. Kleber was still a film critic at the time, he interviewed me and we hit it off straight away. My wife even took a photo of him that day! We both come from the same region of Brazil, the Nordeste, that creates bonds. Then time passed, I saw his first short films, and then The Sounds of Recife (first feature length fiction by Kleber Mendonça Filho, in 2012), which is in my eyes one of the greatest Brazilian films of all time. That’s when I really started to want to work with him.”

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“But what really brought us together was not cinema, it was politics. Under Bolsonaro, journalists, professors, scientists, artists, intellectuals, were subjected to numerous attacks. We were very critical of the regime, and we paid the price. I made a film, Marighella (sur Carlos Marighella, communist opponent of the military dictatorship, assassinated in 1969), which was presented at the Berlin festival in 2019, but which we were only able to show in Brazil in 2021. Because those bastards censored it! Kleber also suffered a lot during this period. Our relationship is therefore largely based on the support we have given each other. Basically, it looks a bit like that which binds refugees from The Secret Agentwho come together to resist and help each other. The genesis of the film is to be found there: in a friendship nourished by a spirit of resistance.”

“The Brazil depicted The Secret Agentthis is the Brazil of my childhood. I was born in 1976, and the film takes place in 1977. The military dictatorship in Brazil (which lasted from 1964 to 1985 – editor’s note), it’s not that old, it’s a period that is still in the minds of many people. I have childhood memories of the adults in my family who, during the conversation, would suddenly start to lower their voices, to whisper, because they were afraid of being heard… There was a lot of paranoia, certain things were not said out loud. World history has always been written by the victors, and Brazil has been no exception to the rule, quite the contrary. At school, colonization was described to us as a positive thing. We weren’t talking about the coup d’état of 64, but of the “revolution” of 64… Bullshit! The trace of Marighella, for example, has been erased from official history. Kleber’s film is about that: about the way in which authoritarian regimes rewrite history, and how these manipulations end up leaving a fragmentary memory, full of holes, both from a collective and individual point of view.

“I have a degree in journalism, and I worked as a journalist for a while. But before that, I was already working as an actor. I have the impression that my training as a journalist helped me become a better actor. In any case, my love of political cinema comes from my training as a journalist, that’s for sure. I wanted to become a committed journalist, involved politically and socially. But I ended up realizing that comedy made me happier. And that I was a better actor than a journalist! But the two jobs are different. “come together, in a way, because they both involve being curious about what’s going on around you, empathizing with others, and open to the world.”

The Secret Agentby Kleber Mendonça Filho, with Wagner Moura, in cinemas on December 17, 2025.