“Like Magellan, I never give up”

He has been Xerxes in the movie ‘300’ and Jesus Christ in the ‘remake’ of ‘Ben-Hur’. He now plays Ferdinand Magellan in the miniseries ‘Without Limits’. But although he is accustomed to playing characters of great historical importance, Rodrigo Santoro au naturel is anything but pompous and solemn. This friendly and approachable Brazilian who, as Gisele Bünchen said of herself, ‘fala pelos cotovelos’ (he talks his head off), is a tireless and entertaining conversationalist. “I also love listening”, he specifies in a telephone conversation prior to his trip to Spain to promote the new Prime Video series in which copper is beaten with Álvaro Morte, his antagonist as Juan Sebastián Elcano and his “great accomplice” in the filming set.

«I have been confined with my family and with Magallanes. Well, with his ghost », jokes Santoro. Because the project, an ambitious blockbuster, came to him just before the pandemic began. “And shooting it has been quite an adventure.” Santoro soon discovered that what was coming at him was a character of gigantic proportions. After thoroughly investigating him, he discovered that the Portuguese Magellan, in addition to being brave and a good navigator, “was a man full of conflicts, very lonely, obsessive, extremist, very strategic… But above all he had a mission to fulfill. For him, more than the profits, the important thing was to prove himself and others, especially the King of Portugal, who had humiliated him, that he could get there, that he was not wrong. He was a being with a very wounded pride ».

I ask Santoro if he, out of wounded pride, would be able to go around the world in a 16th century ship… «I can only tell you that I never give up. I recognize myself in that,” he admits. But it is that life is too short not to be wonderful, not to be great. And you can’t give up.” Almost 20 years ago, the actor began an international career that has taken him to work in the United States, South America, Europe… “So adventure is my nickname,” he quips. “Opening my horizons and broadening my culture has been the most beautiful gift of this profession.” But the adventurous Santoro always returns home because, as he says, “at some point you have to drop the anchor and reconnect with the root.” He lives with his wife, the Brazilian actress Melanie Fronckowiak, and his five-year-old daughter in Rio de Janeiro, a contradictory city that he considers dangerous but also idyllic. «Right now I am contemplating a forest, a beautiful forest, it is raining a little, a wonderful thing, a poem… –he says–, although the deepest problem in my country is social inequality». His parents, his cousins, his lifelong friends and his dog also live in Rio. And he is never separated for more than a month from his wife and his daughter. “They are a fundamental food for me.”

Born 46 years ago into a middle-class family in mountainous Petrópolis, an hour from Rio, his best childhood memory is the summers he spent on his maternal grandfather’s small farm riding horses. “I’m looking forward to being offered a jockey role.” He was not a particularly rebellious young man, although as a teenager he left his hair down to his waist, “he looked like a rocker or a surfer.” He also played the guitar, “although only to look good with the girls.” And he began to study Journalism, a career that he loved, until he signed up for a theater workshop and discovered his vocation as an actor.

Today Santoro is convinced that his job requires a lot of psychological work. “We play with our emotions. This profession deals directly with the ego. And be careful with that… To manage it I practice meditation and yoga since I was 20 years old». In fact, his most special trip was the one that took him to meet the Dalai Lama. «Ten years ago, what is now my wife and I decided to say goodbye to our bachelorhood with an adventure and we went to Thailand, India, Maldives, with a backpack on our backs. From India we approached the Himalayas and there we had the privilege of listening to the Dalai Lama. It was a ritual of love and compassion. You have to exercise your spirituality, just as you go to the gym to exercise your muscles », he advises.

A risk-taker by nature, one of this actor’s favorite pranks is treating specialists like royalty… “Sit down, because you’re not going to work today. Do you want me to bring you a coffee? », He usually says to his double. «I don’t use doubles, I do everything myself. Well –he clarifies–, except in ‘Charlie’s Angels’, which didn’t let me jump from a motorcycle».