On September 10, an alarm clock rang through London’s O2 Arena, and moments later, the one-and-only Hilary Duff appeared to the opening notes of “Wake Up.” It was a fitting entrance for a star on a worldwide comeback tour. “The Lucky Me Tour” may mark a new chapter for Duff, but there was no attempt to distance herself from the music that made an entire generation fall in love with her.
Instead, old and new existed comfortably alongside one another. “Play With Fire” and “Sparks” picked up the pace, before “Future Tripping” pulled us firmly back into the present.
On paper, two decades of music might feel disjointed; in this arena, you barely noticed.
During “With Love,” Duff invited fans onto the stage to perform the viral choreography with her, laughing as they danced their way through a now iconic dance routine. The arena was filled with fans dressed in glitter, butterfly clips and plenty of shimmer, including Duff herself, who wore crystal-embellished tops, silver dresses and metallic kitten-heel boots throughout the night.
At one point, Duff swapped sparkles for an oversized Paul McCartney t-shirt (because why not?) as she returned with an espresso martini in hand and a living-room set behind her. She settled in, took a sip, and for a moment, the O2 felt less like an arena and more like we had all somehow ended up at Duff’s house.
Then she played beloved throwback tracks like “Why Not” followed by newer ones like “Roommates.”
The music is decades apart yet the thread between them is unmistakable. Duff has always been refreshingly honest in her music, there’s just a little more life to write about now.
Last, but certainly never least, “This Is What Dreams Are Made Of” from Disney classic The Lizzie McGuire Movie began. Balloons fell from the ceiling, confetti shot into the air and the O2 sang it back word for word.
It would be easy to call it nostalgia, but that wouldn’t quite cover it. Some songs simply know how to have a second life.
It may be called “The Lucky Me Tour,” but on its opening night in London, it felt a lot more like lucky us.
photography. Isha Shah words. Sandy Aziz
Chris Olsen is a multimedia talent in the truest sense. He has made millions of followers laugh and cry on social media, taken to the stage as an opening act on Meghan Trainor’s Timeless Tour and now turned his life into a book.
In his memoir, ‘I Think My Therapist Hates Me’, the 28-year-old creator goes deeper, revisiting his childhood, coming out, addiction and treatment. Structured around recurring therapy sessions, the book makes space not only for its darkest chapters, but also for the humour, love and light woven throughout his story.
In conversation with Schön!, Olsen discusses meeting his younger self again, learning to let go of control and which musical he would choose if Broadway called tomorrow.
suit. Campillo shoes. Camper opposite shirt. Rag & Bone trousers. Kid Super
Thank you. I am excited that I can finally talk about it in this way. It feels like I finished it yesterday and years ago at the same time, and now it is finally here.
How did the idea for the book come about?
The idea for the book was very abstract initially. I remember thinking that I had been through quite a lot of things and would definitely write a book at some point, but I was not thinking I would be writing a memoir when I was 26.
I posted a video sharing a lot of the things I have been through in my life. It was kind of like a spoken-poem type of video, and the top comment was to write a book.
That was around the time I had been thinking about beginning something like that, and it was just the universe confirming that it was what I needed to do. From that moment to the book actually coming out, I could not have imagined getting here.
Most memoirs follow a clear beginning, middle and end, but you use therapy sessions as a way into your story. When did that structure take shape?
Those therapy-session interludes came as I was writing. Before I started, I did not have an idea of exactly how I was going to do it. I had never written a book before, and it was a very daunting, overwhelming thought and task. I was following my impulses on what would feel right to write about and how it would feel right to write it.
Because I knew I was going to be talking about so many therapy sessions, I thought that could be a cool vehicle to bring us back to the present, because we are talking about the past so much. It contextualises all the things I have gone through and how they still affect me today.
You had already shared parts of your past online and on podcasts. How did writing your life for a book feel different?
It was very different, and I was not prepared for that. I thought, ‘Well, I have told this story online, so writing it down for the book should be pretty easy.’ But a book involves so much more of the story than you realise you have been leaving out. You start thinking about your thoughts at the time and how you felt during each moment.
Because I was writing chronologically, I became much more connected to my childhood self and then my teenage self. I began to understand so many of the things I had gone through differently.
It made me reprocess a lot of them for the first time because I had not realised how little I had explored what I went through and how I felt at the time. It was very cathartic, but also very vulnerable, even before the book came out.
I am so grateful I did it, but nothing could have prepared me for how emotionally difficult it would be.
top + shoes. Ralph Lauren shorts. Umbro opposite jacket. Sportmax shirt + trousers. Rag & Bone
Which version of your younger self was the hardest to meet again?
Writing about myself at 13 was harder emotionally than I expected. I had just come out and was trying to figure out who I was while my mom went to rehab and my parents got divorced.
At the time, I was happy to have a bit more independence because no one was home, but looking back, I realised how lonely and scary that must have been. I have so much more compassion for that version of me now.
Revisiting the period when I was in active addiction was not as difficult because I had already processed so much of it in treatment. What was scary was putting it on the page and knowing that I was sharing all the colours of who I have been. It does not feel good to be the villain of the story, but we cannot get to where I am now without talking about my villain arc.
Was it difficult to return to those darker periods when our memories can sometimes protect us from them?
I think that is something I have maybe always had a bit of an easier time with, in terms of connecting with or sharing those things. That was such a theme of the treatment centre I went to: owning the things you have gone through and owning the way you were so you never go back to those things.
But I frequently get caught in talking about the hard parts of my life that I wrote about. Then I remember that most of the book is fun, funny and light-hearted, because my life was not just a story of trauma.
There are so many different colours to the story that make the darker parts so much more vulnerable. You have just seen a kid who has been happy his whole life growing up turn into someone who is having these kinds of issues.
There is so much love woven throughout the book, and I think that brings me so much joy too. Yes, there are really dark parts to it, but the dark parts are there because we found so much light.
If it were all dark, this book would not even be here.
Did writing your book offer you an understanding that had not emerged in therapy?
I was 19 or 20 when I was in rehab and around 25 to 27 when I was writing the book. By then, my brain was completely different.
I could look back with so much more nuance and understanding of who I was and who I am. I had more compassion, but that also made it more painful because I was able to look at the story and feel for that version of myself for the first time.
When I was in treatment, it was all still too close. The person I had been before entering the centre was only months behind me, so I looked back and thought, ‘Yeah, I sucked.
That guy has got to grow up.’ Now I have years of hindsight and understand more about why I reacted or acted out in certain ways. I am also so grateful that I had the support system that allowed me to reach a completely new understanding of it at 28.
The treatment centre used methods rooted in shame. How did that experience shape your ability to trust therapy again?
What is really interesting is that my therapist now is the same therapist I worked with at the treatment centre, and that is also where the title comes from. The centre had a very different philosophy and way of treating people, so thinking my therapist hated me would have been much more understandable then.
Now the title is more of a nod to that time and to the fear any of us can have that someone hates us. I think the word ‘therapist’ could be substituted for anything.
We have worked together since the treatment centre, and now we are undoing some of the ways I was therapised there. It is a unique situation because she no longer fully agrees with the way that place approached therapy.
Being able to hear her validate that shame was not the right way to make me understand something has been so healing. She is reading the book now, which is interesting.
I am so grateful she has been in my life. She has been my therapist for about nine years.
Here is to nine more.
What is the biggest lesson you learned in therapy?
Releasing control. I really like being in control of my environment and the things around me, but that can be a cause of my anxiety. It also makes it hard to have a public-facing job because you are never in control of the internet or what people think about you. You can never make everyone like you at the same time.
A lot of the therapy we have been doing over the past few years has been about accepting that I do not have power there, and that is okay. What I can control is what I decide to look at and respond to.
There have been times when I responded to negativity online, and I use those moments as data: it did not feel great, it did not look great and I did not like any part of it. Not saying anything may not always feel as cathartic, but I will never really regret it.
I will be working on releasing control for the rest of my life.
What do you hope readers take away from your story?
I hope they take away whatever they need. There are so many different things I have been through that each person will find a different point they relate to or resonate with. That is what is so beautiful about a life story. Maybe you had a coming-out story similar to mine, struggled with addiction or experienced hate online.
I am speaking about my human experience throughout the book. Even if someone cannot relate to the exact things I went through, they may know someone who can. I hope people feel seen and understood. I hope they know they are not alone and that if they have a bit of a villain arc or a dark moment in their life, there will always be another side to it.
On a lighter note, some people may not know that you also studied musical theatre. If Broadway called tomorrow, which show would you want to be in?
If I had to choose something that is currently playing in New York, I would go with Little Shop of Horrors. I love that show so much!
I have been a theatre kid my whole life. I just saw the Rocky Horror Show and thought, “Oh man, I will do anything.
Put me in.” Put me in a Sondheim show! Oklahoma by Rodgers and Hammerstein, but also something new and experimental.
Theatre is just so magical to me, and it always will be. But if I had to choose one, I would go with Little Shop.
You are only 28 and have already written a memoir. What might the next one be called in ten or twenty years?
Something that shows growth. Maybe I Know My Therapist Loves Me? Yes, I’ll go with that.
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photography. Diego Villagra Motta fashion. Heidi Cannon talent. Chris Olsen grooming. Zeik Stevens @ Exclusive Artists using Kiehl’s production. Cassidy Cocke editor. Kelsey Barnes interview. David Baczyk
top. Soraya Oronti jeans. The Attico @ Designer Exchange
Jessica Brown Findlay ‘s journey to Charlotte in ‘Silo’ feels almost serendipitous. Years before joining the show, she auditioned for its first season but didn’t get the role.
Then, after watching and falling in love with the series, she received an unexpected call from her agents: writer/creator Graham Yost wanted her to play Charlotte, the mysterious and confident Navy pilot at the center of the Season 3 flashback timeline. It was a second chance to enter the dystopian world she’d already admired and one she leapt at.
Brown Findlay connected with Charlotte almost immediately, finding something familiar beneath the character’s contradictions. Across the season, she brings an instinctive, quietly powerful presence to a woman grappling with memory, identity, loyalty and the meaning of truth.
When Schön! speaks with her, Brown Findlay is tucked into a cozy corner of a holiday rental, where she and her family are spending one of their increasingly precious weekends away from London. With work about to begin again, they’re making the most of these stolen stretches of time together, creating the kind of memories that, as it turns out, are particularly fitting for a conversation about ‘Silo’.
jacket. Gucci @ Designer Exchange opposite body. Eres
How did you find out about Silo, and what made you interested in joining the show?
Years ago, before Silo came out, I auditioned for a role in the first season and didn’t get it. If you have your self-protection switched on as an actor, when you don’t get something, you respectfully just let it go.
A few years later, I was watching a bunch of shows at the Edinburgh Fringe with a friend. I had these two little nights away, which, with kids, felt extraordinary—just two nights away with a mate, watching comedy.
Then I got a phone call from my agents: “Do you remember Silo?” I was like, [cheekily] “Yeah, I do.”
I’d watched the first season and absolutely adored it. I thought it was brilliant.
When you read something great, you have to take your ego out of it, and I really wanted to watch it. I loved watching Silo.
Then they said, “Well, Graham Yost, the creator, wants you to play Charlotte.” That blew my mind because it’s so rare. A very familiar phrase from actors from their agents is, “Well, you never know where it could lead.” Often, it doesn’t really lead anywhere.
This led somewhere.
I was offered the role of Charlotte from an audition I’d done years before. My life had changed astronomically between auditioning for that first role and getting this one.
I’m so glad the opportunity came back around because you play Charlotte beautifully. She’s such an interesting character. We get glimpses of her in the first couple of episodes, and as the season has progressed, she’s become even more fascinating. What drew you to Charlotte and made you want to play her?
I leapt at the role like… like a panther! I couldn’t believe what it felt like to then read this character. When you audition for things, you sometimes shoehorn yourself into thinking that you could be like the character you’re playing. More often than not, you’ve either deeply connected with the character or you haven’t.
Charlotte, as she was written in the scripts for season three, I just got. I got her immediately. It felt like the undercurrent of Charlotte was somehow like me in a way that I wouldn’t even have been able to express to someone else. She’s intrinsically different from me in so many ways, but there was something about her that I understood.
To join Silo, something I’ve adored and admired, and then to play Charlotte—to explore a character all the way around the edge and eventually, in season four, get to the zest of her—is honestly mind-blowing. It’s just been amazing.
dress + shoes. Stella McCartney opposite dress. Lurline
You mentioned Charlotte is a character whose peripheries we get to see. You portray so much about her with so little—the way she’s dressed, the way she moves, her intuition, groundedness, confidence, and intelligence. So much comes through in your performance. Could you talk about how you embodied and presented Charlotte on screen?
I’ m so glad! She is such a bag of contradictions.
She is sort of unparented and yet, as a younger sibling, insists on parenting her older brother. She is institutionalized in such conformity and conservatism in her job, yet authority from a bad place riles her in a way that cannot be repressed.
She will wear the uniform and conform in every way that you can imagine, but I also imagine her on the first big float at Gay Pride. She’s sort of all those things at once.
There is something about her that I don’t just want to call a soul. It’s as deep as that.
There is also this thing within the silo that is perhaps misunderstood. The idea is that we can all have rules, and we’re all given the same prospect.
But if you order people, if you make some people live in the “down deep” and let some people live “up top,” there’s something so human about the curiosity of “other.” Of “What is that?” or “What is this?” She has that in spades, and she absolutely does not abide cruelty toward humans for the sake of ego. If something feels unjust, she’ll explode herself before a single person even stubs their toe.
It’s not a martyr space; she’s not aware of it. There is just something in her that is pesky and cheeky, and under pressure, she absolutely becomes like a force field.
I think for a lot of people, if they lost a lot of their memory and then were given a lot of it back, but the really painful stuff was held from them, there are a lot of us who would think, “Well, wouldn’t that be wonderful?” In a weird, very Black Mirror-esque way. Charlotte is someone who goes, “No, I need to understand all the darkness,” because that’s the only way for someone like her.
That makes her who she is, too.
It was so extraordinary exploring that as an actor, knowing all of that and then having to go to work. My first day was when I was in the wheelchair, looking at a fellow actor and going, “I don’t know who you are.” But I knew everything.
Having to not express any of it was really tough. It was also really exciting to play someone like that, who would choose to have all of it and not even delete one percent of the sadness in our lives.
I think most people would probably choose to exist in the light, and she’s like, “No, give me all of it.” It’s brave. It’s very faithful.
corset + skirt. Lurline opposite top. Wolford skirt. Zimmerman shoes. Kalda
There’s a resilience to Charlotte. Having her memory erased and then getting it back would be heavy for anyone. Could you talk about the memory-loss scenes and the dynamic between Daniel, Victor, and Helen during that time?
There’s a reason why Charlotte reached out to Helen. When we find out why Helen was blacklisted, I’m sure Charlotte had inside information about that.
For someone to be that morally profound would make Charlotte trust her intrinsically. For Daniel, he’s her only link.
He’s her entire family. He’s the only one.
It’s like when someone passes away: if you were the only person who knew them, all the stories die with you. That’s sort of how he feels about replacing or making sure that she has her memories.
He knows she would want to have them.
Do you know “the body keeps the score?” It’s a really interesting thing. You can know something in a narrative way that you can describe, but you can also know something in your body. It was a really extraordinary thing to explore with the other actors. They’re telling you a narrative, but there would be this other inexplicable thing.
With Ash, who played Charlotte’s brother, I had this moment of deciding that our joints look the same. There’s this moment where he holds my hands, and it’s almost like, if our joints were the same, maybe it would feel like holding my father’s hands in a way that I wouldn’t be able to express, but would feel deep in the body’s physical memory of holding my father’s hands.
That would make me trust Daniel in a way that almost couldn’t be disputed. If he’s telling me something and I can feel this person who feels physically linked to something I can’t explain, I will believe him.
More than if someone serving me coffee said, “Oh, you always used to get a blueberry muffin.” I’d be like, “Did I? I don’t feel like that’s true.”
There was something about that which was really, really interesting, especially if you’re playing someone who’s forgotten everything as an actor. I had this rule in my head that I really didn’t want to interfere with other people’s processes.
With remembering and forgetting, there’s a lot of crossover. If I encroach too much on someone else’s idea of what I was, then it would fill in blanks for me that, in fact, I needed to keep empty for longer.
As season four came on, there was so much more to grapple with. In season three, so much of it is instinct. In a funny way, I had to sit much further back from everyone else’s history because the more I knew, the more I’d be pretending to forget.
top + trousers. A.W.A.K.E Mode opposite jacket. Jacob Cielecki top + trousers. A.W.A.K.E Mode earrings. Maison Lumiere
Did you and Rebecca Ferguson talk about playing characters who had lost their memories, given that Juliet and Charlotte go through similar experiences?
What was really interesting about season three was that there was no crossover in filming between the timelines because we’re not in the same silo. The way that Graham plots things and the way it’s written in the script, there’s so much there. When I was reading the way that she would react to something, without delving into someone else’s process, I was just trying to listen to what was on the page.
I’m sure there’s a world in which I could have been on the phone going, “Tell me how you’re doing this because I want to do it like you.” I was too shy to call. There was also something about the way it was written that made it so clear to me.
I don’t think I should’ve known too much about the way she, for example, physically reacted to a memory. These experiences can be the result of the same change happening to their brains on paper, but in fact, they’ll be really different because we’re all so different.
The nuance of our performances being ever so slightly different might mean, in a weird way, that our differences are the thing that joins us more. If we’re almost exactly the same, sometimes it can have the opposite effect.
In a different show, in a different context, I might have wanted to dive into someone else’s process more. Trusting is the thing I love about my job.
I’m sometimes, to a fault, incredibly trusting as a person. When I read something, I just listen to what feels right for me and trust that, if it’s really not the right reaction, one of the directors will say, “It’s not quite right,” and direct me.
All the directors have their own episodes, but everyone knows what’s come before and what will go after. They would just say, “Go more this way, not that way.” When I didn’t hear any big pushes towards a different direction, I just kept exploring.
In episode eight, Charlotte realizes her team was essentially used as cannon fodder, which ties back to her understanding of good and bad authority. Why do you think she agreed to join Silo in the first place?
It’s an amazing question because I had to play that scene like I had no idea if I’d been manipulated. It was almost like I’d made all these lists about why that happened. Then I had to forget them and ask, “Why does she say yes?” There were two reasons. One is massive, and one is really superficial.
The first one is that there’s something in her that is intrigued, and she’d always rather know all the facts. She’d rather take all the consequences—the pushback, being sued for billions of dollars because she’s rebelled—than not know.
I think she wants to know the truth and understand. The idea of being shut out might mean that other people will suffer.
Unquestionably, she’d rather be killed than have anyone else suffer. Weirdly, in that moment, that’s what she’s going towards.
The other isn’t superficial, but it’s just a big part of being human. She has instantly found someone in Anna. Call it being a hopeless romantic, but there’s also that part of her that is an absolute softie and loves love. She’s thinking, “If this woman is getting on this plane, I’m getting on this plane.”
It’s the hugeness of everything about being human, and also the deep part of being human. When you feel something like that, you don’t run. You go towards it.
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Let’s get to the big reveal in the finale. We learn that Silo One is the command center running the operation. Why do they operate this way, with the cryo pods and memory wipes?
In Silo One, they’re having to function almost like robots, in the sense that they can’t have what came before. They’re using people who existed before all of this, but those people can’t have any of that history because loyalty, family, a sense of right and wrong, and the way society is structured in our world can’t serve the silo.
In the same way that the other silos have had rebellions over decades and generations, it’s part of the human condition to question your surroundings and want to evolve and grow. It’s irrepressible.
The only way for them to make people do things within the silo is to delete all their history. They listen to their instincts about who they are.
People are taken in there based on their skill sets and what they think they could achieve without their memories.
dress. Stella McCartney opposite corset + skirt. Lurline shoes. Ettore
We see Charlotte with David, which raises the question of why her and Daniel’s memories had to be manipulated so completely that they no longer recognize each other. How does that affect Charlotte, knowing that someone who loves her is still manipulating her?
Daniel is Charlotte’s only family, and because of what he was able to rejoin in her memory, they knew they’d have to completely erase as much as humanly possible from both of them for them to function the way they wanted. What’s really amazing is that within season three, you see these two come back to themselves, giving little glimpses of who they really are.
Then you see a brother and sister who share so much, who went through so much trauma and understood each other so brilliantly, just walk past each other. It’s a really haunting image.
As a jumping-off point into season four, it gives you so much understanding about how the silos have survived. If you can’t remember the person you shared your whole life with, growing up together, what Thanksgiving was like, what food tasted like, or what your favourite foods were, then you become a functional person.
He’s there as someone who can make cutthroat decisions, and Charlotte is there as someone who can make those decisions physically happen. They can do what’s needed in an academic way.
Yet in that moment, you see the difference between them. You see that he’s gone all in, and she can’t.
There is something in her that can’t be deleted.
That’s such a huge question about humanity. Why do some people run away, and why do some people run towards the fire?
To go, “I don’t care about me. I care about someone else I’ve never even met.” That question burns through into season four, which is so extraordinary.
I found it really hard to shoot those scenes because, by that point, Ash and I were such good friends, and I adore that man so much. I found it really hard not to smile at him.
Then Maddie Craven, who plays Victor, the three of us were trying to keep straight faces in a scene. At one point they had to pause and go, “Guys, you’re at work.
Like, stop it.” So that was really, really funny.
Season four has already been shot and is slated for release next year. Can you tease anything before we wrap?
It’s freaking brilliant! It’s so good. As a fan of the show, I was really happy I got to read all the seasons. I closed the last page of the last script, and it’s really, really good.
photography. Rhys Frampton fashion. Celine Sheridan talent. Jessica Brown Findlay hair. Davide Barbieri @ A-Frame Agency make up. Victoria Bond using Clé de Peau Beauté production. Clara La Rosa editor. Kelsey Barnes photography assistants. Ethan Elliott + Rory Ronnie fashion assistant. Janine Daruwalla interview. Suhaila
For Alexandre Nero , acting has always had a soundtrack. Before he became one of Brazil’s most recognizable television actors, Nero spent years making music, touring Brazil and Europe, and absorbing the rhythms that would eventually become part of his approach to performance. Today, he builds characters not only through gesture, costume, and psychology, but through the musicality of a voice — its pitch, rhythm, pauses, and melody.
That instinct may help explain the extraordinary staying power of his characters. From the ruthless José Alfredo in ‘Império’ to the charismatic villains who have made him a fixture of Brazilian television, Nero has developed a particular talent for making complicated, sometimes deeply flawed men impossible to look away from.
His latest turn as Marco Aurélio in ‘Vale Tudo’ has only reinforced that reputation, earning him the affectionate title of “the audience’s favourite villain.” But Nero’s career has never belonged to one medium or one kind of character. He has moved between television, film, theatre, and music, portrayed real-life figures such as pianist João Carlos Martins and continued to pursue music alongside acting.
For him, creativity is less about innate genius than about the discipline to keep working, experimenting, and looking for something new.
Now, with new music, new projects for film and television, and a return to the theatre in development, Nero chats with Schön! about discovering what is coming next.
shirt + trousers. Louis Vuitton necklace + ring. Guerreiro
You started as a musician in 1990, decades before your first Globo telenovela. Looking back, how did those years playing in bands and touring Brazil and Europe shape the way you approach building a character today?
For many years, the two things were intertwined. I used to confuse the names Stanislavski and Stravinsky.
One is an icon of world theatre and acting technique, and the other is considered one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. Both are Russian, with names that sound extremely similar: Stanislavski and Stravinsky.
Early in my career, I was embarrassed about confusing the two. Today, I realize it was simply a Freudian slip and, in fact, I am very proud of it.
It means that the two things, my two professions and my two influences, were intertwined and remain intertwined to this day.
So, as an actor, I now pay close attention to the tone of voice, to the low and high notes and, especially, to the musicality of the text, its rhythms, and what kind of melody I am using to “sing” the text. This is very present in my characters. Each character has a musicality, a rhythm, and a tone of voice that are essential to how I build a new character.
‘Vale Tudo’ made Marco Aurélio one of the most talked-about villains in Brazil this year and gave you the nickname “the audience’s favourite villain.” What do you think it is about him — or about how you played him — that made audiences root for a bad guy?
First, because I don’t think he was that bad. That was a choice made by the writer: to give him complexity and humanity. He was a man who acknowledged his guilt and responsibility, a man who deeply loved his son and an orphaned child. He had empathy, even if it was biased. He was a man who wasn’t entirely bad, and people gradually picked up on that.
Of course, I took advantage of that and added charisma and humour as well. There was humour in the text. Bad temper can also be funny when it is directed that way. I took advantage of that situation to ride along with the writer’s idea and make people laugh and have fun. I think that was it. It was an interesting marriage between what the writer wanted and what I planted there alongside it.
opposite shirt + trousers. Louis Vuitton necklace + ring. Guerreiro
José Alfredo in ‘Império’ is often cited as a landmark role for you. Ten years on, how do you see that character differently now than you did while you were playing him?
He is, without a doubt, the most memorable one. To this day, he is the character I am most remembered for.
Of course, many people mention other characters, but there is no doubt that he is the most memorable, which makes me very proud. It means that 12 or 13 years later, he left a mark on Brazilian television drama.
I do see him differently, yes. Today, I think he is much more of a “villain” than I thought he was at the time.
Of course, back then, I defended the character. When you are playing a character, you try to find a great deal of truth in him; you try to defend him and understand him.
It is like trying to enter the mind of a murderer, right? Not defending him in the sense of condoning a murderer, but understanding him.
That is the best way for you to defend a character.
Although he had a lot of charisma, which I also brought to the character precisely because he was the protagonist, I think he was quite a bad person. It is very important for a character, whether he is a villain, a good person, or anything else, to have at least some charisma.
Because a telenovela lasts eight or nine months, and people watch it every day. It is different from a film or a series, which people watch for a shorter period of time.
You can reject that character; you can hate him with all your might for two hours and never want to see that person, that character, again.
That is not the case with a telenovela. You have to want to see that character every day for nine months.
You have to keep that audience loyal, so there has to be at least some desire to watch him. No matter how cruel that character may be, you still have to keep people interested in seeing him.
He needs to have some charisma, even if it comes through his cruelty, wickedness, or villainy. People still have to be interested in watching him.
You cannot create such a strong sense of rejection that the audience no longer wants to see you. I think that is what I try to do with my characters: always give them at least some magnetism.
I think that was the case with Zé Alfredo. I think he is a villain in reverse.
You’ve played villains across very different eras and worlds — Romero Rômulo, Tonico Rocha, Marco Aurélio. Is there a common thread in how you build a villain, or does each one require you to throw out your previous approach entirely?
It is very difficult to create new characters when, in theory, you are always being placed within the same recurring profiles. Whenever I am given a villain, I always try to take a different path: in the way he behaves, the way he dresses, and the way he walks.
I think the main thing — and I mentioned this in the previous answer — is to maintain at least some charisma and appeal, especially when we are talking about a telenovela. You have to make sure that people can watch the character every day without creating a sense of rejection in the audience because a telenovela is a marathon, not a hundred-meter sprint.
You have to make the audience want to watch you for nine months.
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Portraying João Carlos Martins in ‘O Maestro’ meant embodying a real, living musician with an extraordinary personal story. As a musician yourself, did that role feel different from your other work — did it carry a different kind of responsibility?
Yes, it did. So much so that my first conversation with Mauro, the director of the film, was precisely about that.
I said, “Well, if we are going to make a film about a musician, one mistake that happens very often in films related to music is in the editing.” It seriously compromises the music. As a viewer, I notice it, and I don’t like it.
I think it is very bad and compromises the film. I believe that the editing of the audio and video is extremely important.
Finding out that Mauro was also a musician made it much easier for us to understand each other. I took piano lessons.
I don’t play the piano. Obviously, even if I did, I would never play like João Carlos Martins.
No one does; that is why he is João Carlos Martins.But I learned the choreography of playing, which is very important: the position of the notes and their timing. I understood it choreographically.
I knew exactly where the notes were and their exact timing. I was dancing with my fingers.
I didn’t play, but I danced with my fingers, which made the synchronization in the editing process much easier.
Your new album ‘Quarto, suítes, alguns cômodos e outros nem tanto’ features Elza Soares and Milton Nascimento, as well as a collaboration with Aldir Blanc. What did working with artists of that stature bring out in you creatively that you hadn’t tapped into before?
What working with them awakened in me came precisely from the experience of working with them. Meeting them and seeing their humanity made me understand that what exists there is work — a great deal of obsession with perfection and with what one wants to create. It is not a divine gift that simply arrives, as though God had sent something. There is a great deal of work involved.
It brought me to a place I had already been exploring for a long time: I don’t believe purely in talent. I believe in aptitude and, today more than ever, I believe in working tirelessly and obsessively on the things you love and believe in.
Milton, Elza and, especially, Aldir Blanc made me believe in that even more. It takes a great deal of work.
Creativity and aptitude can help, but they are not everything.
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You’ve moved between theatre, television, film, and music for over three decades now. Is there a discipline among those four that still challenges or scares you the most?
I think all of them are challenging. We are always looking for challenges, for things we have never done before or that encourage us to seek out new experiences.
As for being scared, none of them really scares me. It is like riding a bicycle: you don’t really forget how to do it.
But some muscles are used less often and, because of that, they can stiffen or hurt a little more here and there.
Music, which was absolutely my main profession for 20 years, holds me back a little today because it has been a long time since I devoted time to that particular craft. The same is true of theatre.
It has been a long time since I stepped onto a stage to practice the craft of a theatre actor. The languages of television, film and theatre come from the same raw material, but each has its own particularities.
Muscles atrophy when they are not used often. Artistic performance does too.
Performing Gonzaguinha’s songs with an all-women orchestra is a striking image. What drew you to that specific project, and what has it revealed to you about his music that you hadn’t noticed before?
What drew my attention to this project, beyond the fact that they are all women, is that they are young women between the ages of 13 and 19 who play brilliantly. So, I didn’t do it purely out of charity or altruism. I did it because I felt that it was an exceptionally well-run and remarkably accomplished project, thanks to its administrators, its conductor and, especially, the girls. That captivated me.
As for Gonzaguinha, I think everyone knows — and I knew it too — but it is always impactful to remember and revisit Gonzaguinha. Because he is a composer who is less remembered than he should be within our popular songbook.
Gonzaguinha is among the three or four greatest lyricists in Brazilian popular music. It is always good to revisit his work because it makes you think, “How did this man write this?” It is truly striking to realize what an exceptional lyricist he was.
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Brazilian telenovelas have such a devoted, vocal audience. How has the public’s relationship to your characters — the love, the hate, the memes — changed over the course of your career, from A Favorita to now?
It has changed completely. I was a man who was unknown to the wider public, and I became someone who is recognized everywhere I go.
I don’t notice the hate. I have never noticed hatred toward my characters.
Of course, people come up to me and point out the villainy of a certain character, but there has never been any hatred directed at me personally. It has always been expressed in a playful way in relation to the characters, and I have always been very well received by the public.
I always find the memes funny. Any meme about a character, whether it is mine or someone else’s, is always funny to me.
I love memes. Brazilians are, by far, the best meme creators in the world.
They are incredibly creative.
With this much range already behind you — leading man, comic relief, villain, real-life biopic subject, touring musician — is there a role or a kind of story you still haven’t told that you’re chasing?
There will always be new stories to tell and fascinating characters to investigate, and I am always attentive and open to those possibilities. But I also pursue more personal projects, because I believe it is only through them that an artist can give an exact voice to what they want to say.
At the moment, I have been developing some ideas and scripts for films and series, and I have also been working on a monologue for the theatre. That is what I am looking for now: stories and thoughts that I want to share.
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art direction + photography. Sher Santos fashion. Ju Sans talent. Alexandre Nero hair + make up. Débora Riete photography assistant. Bianca Passos location. Largo das Artes , Rio de Janeiro