Diogo on "Entre Nós" -- Part Two

As promised, here is Part Two/the conclusion of Diogo's interview from the SIC Mulher show "Entre Nós" ("Between Us") that aired on Friday, November 30, 2012.  Thanks again to the incredible @MsLiliana for translating all of this for us, which can be found below the clip.  Enjoy.

(clip courtesy of Anamatos25/Diogo Morgado fãs/YouTube)

"Adelaide de Sousa/AS: Welcome back. We are with Diogo Morgado, one of the most successful Portuguese actors, who filmed recently in Los Angeles the sequel to “Born to Race.” But we will talk about that soon… I want to talk to you about theatre… You début in theatre with “Geração Out”…
DM: Yes, I débuted at Teatro Maria Matos, by the hand of Almeno Gonçalves. 
AS: That first impact with live theatre, I saw at the Biography Channel… it was agonizing for you….
DM: It was like… you’re at the back, just waiting to go on scene and you think, “I am not going to make it, it’s impossible for me to go in there…” There is nothing like that.  
AS: At Teatro Maria Matos, right?
DM: Maria Matos… a small theatre (sneering), and you just panic! Just a baby boy, 15 years old… not sure of anything… just jump there like a crazy, trust your instinct, and that’s how it was! Then… I did a piece of children's theater “A Canção dos Oceanos” in which I did a stuttering dolphin! And I can tell you that, doing that character for the first time I thought: “I want to be an actor”. It was like, “I think I am going to try this.” Because it had nothing to do with fame, I was doing a stuttering dolphin in auditoriums around the country, and in the end kids came to us and if I gave an autograph signed “Diogo” they said: “No… Dolphin! Who is Diogo?” and I said, “Ohh sorry…” and write Dolphin… That felt good, the kids laughing every time I s-s said a stutt- stuttered wo-word and I thought: man… I did this, I made this reaction…

(photo courtesy of www.cm-peniche.pt)

AS: It gave you that pleasure of creation, you did something and the reaction was right there. 

DM: An honest, sincere and genuine response, from the kids! 

AS: Ricardo Pereira was here last week and he said the same… play for kids is most challenging work.  Who makes a research about you does not find just good things… 

DM: I believe so.

(Click the "Read More" link below to read the rest....)

AS: In this interview you gave to “Focus” magazine, about the play “Opressão” (Oppression), a play you directed and wrote…

DM: A play that I did not direct, Manuel Coelho did, and that I wrote. 

AS: But this was a big mess, right?

DM: Yes. This is something I do not like to talk about…

AS: When you interviewed for Focus Magazine, you said that you had seen the movie… and the accusation of plagiarism came about the movie Breakfast Club, a movie that was a milestone for a generation…

DM: Not for me. I didn´t even see it. I never saw the whole movie…

AS: And after that, did you see it?

DM: After that I saw the movie. I wanted to see. The question here was, we all have our references, Breakfast Club is a common story, and that was what I did, reformulated old stories.  There were many involvements, many questions and situations, that I really don’t want to talk about. 

AS: A bad experience.

DM: No. It was a good experience, something that made me open my eyes. Made me understand that having good intentions is not enough, you have to know how to direct it, you have to know why and how you are doing things. And that was what hurt me more. My intention was to do things the right way, give voice to young guys’ ideas, like me at the time, and unconsciously I used my references…

AS: But didn´t battle against that accusation?

DM: No. For two reasons. First, I was just a kid, and that happened to a kid. A lonely boy that didn’t knew what to do. I even said things I shouldn’t have said, things I didn´t even feel. I just wanted things to stop. I should have been faithful to myself and what motivated me to do that play. Like that I would be a winner. I understood that even if you are full of good intentions, that is not enough. I am going to give you an example. One day I was doing the “TV Christmas” for TVI, and someone asked how was my Christmas, and I said: “well my Christmas is normal, but I take this occasion to send my wishes of a great Christmas to all the prisons and hospitals in Portugal, that they have strength and believe that tomorrow is a better day.  My Christmas is cool, but I don´t have to be here talking about it.” The next week, the first thing that appeared in magazines was, “The unbearded Diogo Morgado, is not mature enough to send emotional messages to people at home.” 

AS: Say what???

DM: This is true, Adelaide. This is pure truth. 

AS: And what did that do to you? 

DM: To me?? Well… Five years later, I was filming a series at Fonte da Telha, and there was this person, that looked at me in a very strange way… and I thought… “What is this?” - and I have people that can testify to this – I felt troubled by the way he was observing me but managed that. When we were done and coming out, the guy touches my back… “Look, remember like five years ago, in that Christmas special… I was in jail that time, and enjoyed very much what you said, and I never forgot you. Thank you so much, bro, it was so cool in that moment.” This for me… five years later… I thought, “No, it was worth it!”

AS: Even with the risk of being judged… 

DM: People always do. The best professionals in Portugal are judged all the time… and you say, “Damn, the guy is good, why are they saying this about him?” Man, women, presenters, authors… Look, Saramago is one of the biggest examples of that. He had his patriotic feelings, a relation of love/hate with his own country, but his heart was profoundly Portuguese!! He just had sorrow about the way Portuguese people look at some things. As for me, I have hope, and we cannot have same standard for everyone, ok? If I say something like I did, If I do things that may be considered plagiarism, but there is ONE PERSON, that in the end comes to me and says: “I remember what you said and that was important for me” For me that is just worth it! There’s when I grew up. 

AS: Great! After that you did, “A Selva” with Maitê Proença, “O Crime do Padre Amaro” “A Teia de Gelo” with Nicolau Breyner in 2011,  and you were in the USA with all the team to receive the Emmy award for Laços de Sangue”.

DM: Yes I did, in New York.

(photo courtesy of www.ipl.pt)

AS: But you had been to the USA, before…

DM: I did a movie there.

AS: As you said on Bio, the first contact was almost incidental…

DM: It was.  Due to a movie I did in Porto, called “Star Crossed”, a Romeo and Juliet story adapted to football, a bilingual movie, the director was English, one of the producers was American, co-produced in Portugal. That American producer took the movie to the States, and it was seen by an agent, that thought, “Hey this guy talks English… I like him!” I played a bad boy, that's what stood out, and I liked a lot, I felt good doing it! And it started like that! 

(photo courtesy of SAPO)

DM: Auditions, castings, videos… and things started happening. Then I was selected to do a movie with Al Pacino, the “Mary Mother of Christ”, that didn´t happen… But I am still on the IMDb page so… If the movie goes forward I will be there. There have been many changes in that project, aging issues, they have their own interpretation…
AS: The producer has a different way of seeing this “story”… Do you still have the will to do it? 
DM: Yes I had guts to do it, mainly because Al Pacino was there. Without Pacino, the project lost some interest. Recently I did a biblical project “The Bible” that was the hardest thing I ever did… I played Jesus. It was the most rewarding thing, touched me in a special way…
AS: You said there were things that happened to you while shooting this, that made you see some new things. You always said you had faith… You have faith in what?
DM: I have faith in good things, good people, positive energies, an abstract faith, my own faith.  This project changed the way I faced my own faith. I had to stop and put things straight. Questioned myself about things, what I didn’t want to do yet, because there are some spiritual things that you have to be mature to question about. I wondered about some things… some injustices, why do kids have cancer… I was not able to see that. I had no answers that fulfilled me. Things got clearer to me then. What happened with Jesus, showed the best there is in people, what distinguishes us from the animals. Common moments become special, unique, magical moments. The story of the world still makes people shiver and get motivated. Bad things happen just to make people move forward, friends and family get closer. We start valuing the little things. There is a bigger plan, and today I am more calm. Yes… there is someone superior to us, good, intelligent, that orchestrates people’s lives and I want to be a part of it! 
AS: We see the tragic things, and not so bad consequences, right? Sometimes the best in people comes out in those situations.
DM: Exactly.
AS: Let´s mess this whole thing up!
DM: C’mon… what?
AS: Let’s bring to this conversation a friend of yours… I have no fault about this, he did it…
DM: What?
AS: You know who he is?
DM: Have no idea!
AS: A man that could spoil a full video? 
DM: Ohhh I know! Nooooo!!! You got that guy… noooo!
(video)
Rui Unas: Hello Adelaide! Hi delicious, how are you? Everything’s fine? Keep calm Diogo, I will not explain why we call ourselves like this, ok? Well…. Diogo Morgado… Not easy to talk about our friends, I bet you are worried right now, “what is this crazy guy going to say about me”… 

(photo courtesy of Rui Unas' Facebook)

   

Rui: I say that Diogo’s most notable characteristic is straightforwardness, he is very straight, sometimes friends do not say the kindest words, but that’s how friends are… And I thank him for that! Another characteristic about Diogo is that he is honest. He is very honest with himself and demands that of his friends. He is a sensitive guy, a quality common in actors, and he has no problem showing his emotions. I do not know many people who work with his passion, when he accepts a challenge he goes deep in it, he always searches the truth in what he does, and I think that’s one of the secrets to his success, that search for perfection, he exceeds himself!!

(photo courtesy of Google Images Search)

Rui: I would say that he has as another characteristic his ambition, a good one… it fits you Diogo… you are really ambitious, and we know it, right?! But it is that ambition that makes you unstoppable, you are a dissatisfied person.  You could stay with your success here in Portugal, but no, you searched other challenges outside. And if I am an actor now, I owe it to you, your words, your example and incitement. Thank you so much, Diogo.  I like you a lot! I said this on TV! Like you so much Diogo… if I were a gal, I would say to you what would happen… 

DM: Holy Crap… 

AS: Good thing Unas is not a gal, or he would be an ugly one!

DM: The ugliest on the Planet, no doubt of that!

AS: You became great friends doing “Mami Blue”…

DM: Yes “Mami Blue” is an example of one of the great moments that we lived together. We worked together at “Podia Acabar o Mundo” and I realized that as an actor he is very shy, someone that does not always believe. He always tried many things as a presenter, communicator, it’s hard for him to focus in one character without thinking about what's going on around him… and I say, “Man, stop it!” I realized that, and invented a tragic/comic play for us to do, “Pedras nos Bolsos” and I thought… What a perfect play for me to learn from him and for him to learn from me. I consider him one of the most intelligent people in the humor he does. He is not the crazy person think he is. He is very focused, very assertive about what surrounds him, and very altruistic, and those are qualities he never uses in his work. We so learned from each other! So we have worked together at that play and then I presented him to Buttini and he called him for Mami Blue. And we will not stop there, more is to come!

AS: You filmed Born to Race 2 recently, in LA, even posted pictures at your Facebook page… when did you finish?

DM: 3 or 4 weeks ago. 

AS: When will you go back there?

DM: “The Bible” airs in March, before that in February another movie I made called “Red Butterfly” that I made in New York, in April I think “Born to Race 2” will come out too.

AS: You will have 3 movies out at the same time!! You are letting God’s plan take care of it, right?

DM: That´s it. I hope everything goes well.

AS: Thank you Diogo!

DM: It was a pleasure, thank you!

End!

________

OBRIGADA Liliana!

If you missed it, you can see Part one of Diogo on "Entre Nós" here.  Thanks, and have a great weekend! 

--Sara

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