Actor Wagner Moura has made history as the first Brazilian nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars this year for ‘The Secret Agent,’ and he has an unbreakable link to his home country.
The movie, Moura's latest project, is set in Brazil in 1977, at a time when that country was under the thumb of an oppressive political dictatorship, and it has resonated with viewers all over the world—particularly in the United States. Moura plays a research scientist who’s become a government target, a man on the run whose greatest wish is to settle down and live a quiet life with his young son. Directed by Moura’s friend Kleber Mendonça Filho, ‘The Secret Agent’ works as an artful, beguiling thriller, but it’s also a picture of a country whose citizens, in real life, had reason to live in fear. Moura, 49, was just a baby during this period, but as he got older, he saw how its effects lingered.
Moura has long been a movie star in Brazil. At home, he, his wife, and three sons speak only Portuguese, and he keeps a place in Salvador, in the state of Bahia, where he grew up. Moura is one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People of 2026. Read the full interview here: time.com/article/2026/04/15/wagner-moura-t...