by James Mottram
Awards seasons can be treacherous – just ask Karla Sofía Gascón, the beleaguered star of Emilia Pérez, whose Oscar campaign has erupted in scandal after racially insensitive tweets from her past were unearthed. But if there’s one actress who deserves celebration, then it surely is Fernanda Torres. The 59-year-old Brazilian is the surprise nominee this year, starring in Walter Salles’ poignant I’m Still Here. She’s already won the Golden Globe for Best Actress, beating out much more famous stars like Angelina Jolie (for Maria) and Nicole Kidman (Babygirl).
In early March, she will arrive at the Oscars – to compete against Gascón, Mikey Madison (Anora), Cynthia Erivo (Wicked) and Demi Moore (The Substance), who may be Torres’ biggest obstacle to winning. There’s no question, Torres’ performance is the most subtle of the five (the others are all ‘big’, over-the-top turns – coming in musicals, horror and, in the case of Anora, wild drama). Better yet, I’m Still Here has secured a crucial Best Picture nomination, meaning voters for the 97th Academy Awards are taking Salles’ drama seriously.
Adapted from the 2015 book Ainda Estou Aqui, I’m Still Here is primarily set in the early 1970s, when Brazil was under a military dictatorship. Based on real events, the story concerns the Paivas – a family Salles knew in his youth – and in particular the fearsome matriarch Eunice, played by Torres. She courageously goes searching for her husband, the political dissident Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), after he is ‘disappeared’ by the authorities.
When FilmInk meets with Torres, it’s at the Venice Film Festival – where the movie will be awarded Best Screenplay – before her performance will see her hit the awards trail. “I spent one year being Eunice, which is a very strange experience, because Eunice is very different from me,” she says. “She’s feminine, and this my first incarnation as a woman. She’s very elegant. And to spend one year under the skin of a character, it’s unbelievable. It was a hell of an experience.”
So much of what’s good about I’m Still Here comes from the way that Torres, Mello and the young actors, who play the Paivas’ five children, interact. “I didn’t feel like I was acting, because [it was] something really strange, like nobody was acting,” Torres says. “It was almost a documentary, and we did it, I think, because of Walter’s way of asking us to be small … to be honest.”
With much of the film set in the beachside property in Rio de Janeiro that the Paivas call home, the house itself became a character. Torres pays tribute to production designer Carlo Conti. “I mean, the house smelled! Every day, he was putting cigarettes in the ashtrays. The photographs were real. And then we also faked photographs. All of this prepared us to be like a family. A lot of things done to have this real family on screen.”
Little wonder that the atmosphere changed after Mello’s character is taken away. “I remember the day that they got him arrested, I felt I’m gonna miss Selton, I’m gonna miss his presence, because we’re friends, and he will go. So, what we experienced as actors is very similar to the characters.” After that, Eunice is arrested and tortured herself – what Torres calls “heavy, heavy, heavy scenes”, which took her three weeks to shoot.
The way she speaks, it’s as if she felt every ounce of the pain that Eunice experiences. “I remember the last day. I said, ‘It’s over!’ Dancing! But then it’s like a nightmare for a long time. First, Selton disappears. So, this was very moving. Then the house is closed. Then you get depressed, then you are taken from that house – that became my house – and you are taken to this prison, in an awful place; so that you could have the same feelings as the character.”
While the film is very much set in Brazil’s past, I’m Still Here chimes with its more recent history, with the rise to power of the nation’s former president, right-wing nationalist Jair Bolsonaro. “It’s not a movie about the past,” warns Torres. “It’s like when I watch a movie about the Nazi period… if you do a movie about the Nazis, just to say, ‘Oh, how bad it was at that time’. Why? You have to resonate [to] nowadays.”
An actress with a wealth of experience – including winning a share of the Best Actress prize in Cannes back in 1986 for Arnaldo Jabor’s Love Me Forever or Never – Torres [above with Torres] is already familiar with Salles. In 1995, she starred in his early work Foreign Land and reunited three years later on The First Day. At the same time, Torres’ actress mother Fernando Montenegro starred in Salles’ 1998 drama Central Station, a role that saw her become the first ever Brazilian to be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar.
Now, coming full circle, Torres becomes the second Brazilian to be nominated in that category. Moreover, in a moment that bonds them both, Montenegro plays the older Eunice in the film’s touching coda. “We have been doing this for a long time,” Torres says, alluding to 1998’s The House of Sand, when they co-starred. “We work as two actresses, past and future, daughter and mother. It’s an asset!” One critic was so fooled during I’m Still Here, she adds, that he believed Torres played the older Eunice too. “[They] said the makeup is amazing! It’s perfect!”
When Torres first saw I’m Still Here completed, she was taken aback. “I started to watch it, and first I said, ‘My God, it doesn’t look like me.’ What a strange feeling. Then I start to think, ‘we look real. We all look real’. You don’t feel any cliché, acting cliché. Everybody’s so real. And then in the middle, I started to sob. I was very moved.”
Judging by the response to her performance, and the film overall, she’s not the only one. This season’s dark horse just moved closer to the front of the pack.
I’m Still Here is in cinemas from 27 February 2025
