Rodrigo Santoro Talks Beast Race, Fernando Meirelles, and 300 [INTERVIEW]

Rodrigo Santoro has a storied career across films cultures. The Brazilian actor became a massive star around the globe, jumping from Brazilian TV to Hollywood blockbusters with Zach Snider’s 300. Santoro recently filmed Beast Race with a three-director team that included Fernando Meirelles’ return to Brazilian filmmaking. The actor sat down with FandomWire to discuss the dystopian film, what it was like to team up with Meirelles, the similarities to working on Westworld, and enduring legacy of Xerxes.

Interview with Rodrigo Santoro on Beast Race

FandomWire: Rodrigo, thank you so much for taking time to speak with us about Beast Race. I was very excited for the movie, especially once it got announced at SXSW. How did you first get involved with the film?

Rodrigo Santoro: I received the the the script and it was Fernando Morales. [He’s] a director that I’ve been flirting to work with for such a long time. So that was very important to me. I read the script, and I thought that was real smart the way to to do social criticism through an an allegory. You use Brazilian cultural elements to as metaphors to discuss things such as social inequalities. You know our dynamics, you know the culture of spectacle. It’s so contemporary.

I don’t know how dystopian this world really is. The climate crises, all of those things through a social thriller that has a lot of action, has drama, but knows you’re being entertained. It’s making you think too. So I love that.

FandomWire: You mentioned Fernando and there are two other directors on the film. How did that balance work out for you as an actor?

Rodrigo Santoro:Yeah, they worked separately. Fernando directed most of my scenes because I didn’t have stunts to do. There was a director, Pesavento, who was the director for the action. Ernesto, whi was also the writer, directed some of my scenes. There’s three guys, but they were together. I was curious to see how it was going to be in the final edit. But I think it was a good combination.

FandomWire: How did Westworld maybe prepare you for something like this? Because I imagine jumping between different directors between episodes gave you some insight.

Rodrigo Santoro: Yeah, on Westworld I did have the opportunity to work with different directors because every one or two episodes were directed by different directors. We were having directors coming in and out. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, especially because we had the showrunners. It’s not like it’s a different vision. It’s a different vision for that episode, or a particular vision for that episode.

I like that because I like to learn with different styles and different ways of thinking. That’s one of the reasons that I started working outside of Brazil, because I’m very curious with foreign cultures and learning how people see the world and ourselves. I think it expands the way I see things. I can expand as a human being, as an actor, and it’s a learning process. It’s great to work with different visions.

FandomWire: Now you play a bigwig in Beast Race. You have a lot of control over just the culture and the show within the movie. What were some of your inspirations for creating that character?

Rodrigo Santoro: I had one inspiration given to me by the writer Ernesto. The first day he said, “I wrote Abu. Abu is inspired in Fyodor Pavlovich, which is the father of the Karamazov brothers by Dostoevsky. He gave me a very classical reference and a real complex, amazing character. It’s a reference, of course, but it gave me something to play with: the ambiguity of being cruel but captivating. Completely immoral. Passionate and seducing.

My exercise as an actor, was to balance those colors and to be able to humanize the character. He doesn’t become this. I thought, “Wow, there’s a big trap here for this character to be stereotypical.” I need to anchor him and humanize him.” One of the figures from the contemporary world that I could use is a showrunner.

Abu’s the guy who likes to be in the center of it all. He loves to be adored. He loves media. He loves fame. He loves his image, and the themes that we discuss in the film are so contemporary. It’s everything that is going on right now, even climate crisis. You know, so there’s so many things to play with, and Abu is all about being validated by somebody else’s vision. He doesn’t know who he is.

FandomWire: You mentioned that Beast Race is very contemporary. Between this and then obviously you also worked on Brazil 70 earlier this year, how do those two projects intermingle with you as a performer?

Rodrigo Santoro: They’re very different, but they are two strong projects that are coming out of Brazil right now, which I think it’s very important. Especially with the moment that Brazilian cinema is going through right now. A very interesting moment where we have the international prestige. We have a creative plurality. We have a dialog with the audience. The audiences are coming back to the theaters. It’s a very beautiful moment and a strong moment.

As a performer, I play Juan Saudania in BR 70 and Abu in Beast Race. They are very different from each other, but they are equally strong characters. I think what they have in common: they’re both controlling. They both aim to control things, they both are verbal characters. But they have very different characteristics and personalities. They were both big challenges for me in different ways. But I felt challenged by them, and and I’m happy with the results.

FandomWire: One of your most famous characters that you’ve played so far is Xerxes in 300. Tell us how you differentiate a character like Abu from a character like Xerxes who already has so much cultural weight.

Rodrigo Santoro: It’s hard to compare anything with Xerxes because he’s so unique in so many ways. You know, at that time, we were creating something that nobody had done before. The whole visuals, the character. My God, that character coming out of a Frank Miller graphic novel, nine feet tall, hairless giant. It was an entity. It’s hard to compare.

The whole process of making that movie was on the green screen, where I acted against sticky tape. I acted by myself the whole time. It’s true. It got me completely off guard in the first day. I had to learn the process while I was working. I had to learn it, and it was a huge challenge for me to to do 300. I love the result. I love the character, but it wasn’t an easy task. That’s a very dear character and project for me.

Beast Race is currently available to stream on Prime Video.

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