Diogo in Vogue Portugal: "Discreet Hero"

(Waterproof blazer, Diesel cotton shirt, Dolce & Gabbana

execution - Ana Campos)

Diogo is featured in the July 2013 issue of "Vogue Portugal."  The wonderful Liliana helped translate the interview, which can be found after the scans of the article.

(Denim shirt, Dolce & Gabanna for Fashion Clinic)

DISCREET HERO 
Everybody talks about Diogo Morgado. And even Oprah Winfrey couldn't resist talking to him on her show, after a unique interpretation of Jesus Christ in “The Bible." From the age of 15 he has been spreading charm and talent on our TV sets, the set of life at the theatre, and in the big dream of cinema, but we know less about him. We sat and talked about work and the simplicity of everything greater.
[Interview: Patrícia Barnabé. Photography: Rui Aguiar]

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

Diogo Morgado runs in a terrace above Bairro Alto, Lisbon. Jumps like an athlete and looks suspicious and charming to the camera of Rui Aguiar. There’s a drizzle and copious rain, like if it weren't even there, and a feminine voice sings Schubert’s Ave Maria, crossing the rooftops from the vicinity of the Conservatory. We smile.  These days everybody calls him “hot Jesus” since Mark Burnett and Roma Downey’s "The Bible" aired on The History Channel and on Portuguese TV. The actor won’t be the same anymore. And we won’t look at him the same way. 

He wears a shirt and loose jeans, and his true and available smile fills up a room. Discreet, almost silent, Diogo Morgado has gestures and traits of nobility, smoothed on a generous and unidentified simplicity.

"Are you sure you want to talk by the coffee?" he smiles. He is one of the well-known faces from TV, but his normalcy makes us forget his success.  We enter a studio lined with black carpet, lit by a window that projects on the ground a light and bright sky under which we sit. Diogo leans on a twilight wall. “Do you prefer a chair?” We love to stay on the ground, we answered. “Me too,” he smiles.

“I consider myself closer to the countryside rather than the city,” he tells us when we ask about his origins. Born is Lisbon, raised at Fogueteiro, he passed his holidays at Alentejo with his father’s family. “I lived for 4 months in Lisbon, at Largo do Rato, and I realized it is the most beautiful picture window I know. And as with all picture windows, it is beautiful seen from the outside. I like to live peacefully.”  He remembers waking up in Lisbon, with the feeling of always being late for everything, and decided to go back to the South Bank. And when he has to go to work in a city, he prefers to stay in the periphery. “I like the relativity of time that passes in a different way,” he explains.   “There’s a simplicity and a rudeness in people that is genuine, with no masks, no need to please anyone. There’s an exact notion of what we have. Because we need less than we think to live.” 

He studied the scientific areas – “Weird, right?” – started working at 15 and went back to study at 21 to finish high school. “I was for 6 years experimenting, getting to know if I brought something to these arts, if I felt good. I just thought about telling stories, whether they were written, performed or communicating with people. I had to apply, so it was not just an adventure, it became a job.” One of his childhood mates liked fashion and had the idea of taking some pictures for a competition. “We dressed in clothes his mom had and had never seen – cowboy vests, pants with bell bottoms. He also took some pics of me and sent them too."  That is how he started to work as a model, but his motivation was just to “get some money,” he confesses. “I never had a knack for it.” Ten months later, he did an audition to be a movie extra with a few lines in a series, and he was asked to do a reading for a character.  The result was "Terra Mãe" (1998), the first from Rui Vilhena and the debut of Diogo Morgado on TV. Then he did an audition for a play and debuted at Maria Matos Theatre.  He did "Diário de Maria" (1998), "A Lenda da Garça" (2000) and "A Febre do Ouro Negro" (2000), but it was with "Amo-te Teresa" (2000 tele-film) that he started to become known on the street. “Before I was just one of the characters I did, from there I became Diogo Morgado."  

Then he just jumped into space. Filmed "Star Crossed" with bilingual production, the movie was shown at a festival and an American agent contacted him. He has two productions to be released: "Red Butterfly," from Jon Alston, and "Born to Race – Fast Track," from Alex Ranarivelo. The first one, will be released now in the United States, was filmed right next to "Laços de Sangue" (which won the Emmy in 2011 for Best Novela) and in it, he gives life to a guitar player, surviving in Hell’s Kitchen, a multicultural New York symbol. “It's a very hard movie, about survival,” he describes. “The story of a frustrated guitar player waiting for the American dream to happen. He gets involved with drugs and all kind of vices.” In other words, everything Diogo Moragdo is not. “I felt a little out of place and the character too, and that was good. 'Born to Race' is a 'Top Gun with cars,' with the best drivers in the world," where he plays the “bad guy,” he says, with a sneer. 

The project that catapulted him was "The Bible." Praised by all, including Oprah Winfrey herself, who invited him to her show, Diogo Morgado climbed the scale of success. He grew up as an actor and as a person. “I didn't expect the impact, I moved forward with my version of what I believe to be the history of Jesus,” he explains.   Interpreting such a huge character is not for everyone. “I didn't see it as a character, but as someone pretty much alive, in people, daily.  All the interpretations I saw of Jesus Christ gave much importance to words, and I tried to show that the words were consequence, of what He was. Imagine a foreigner who gets to a city and smiles at people – it should be magnetizing! And what He said was even more. In a time there were many false prophets, crucifixions were recurrent, what did He do to last our days? I think it has to be with His relationship with children, the bearers of new hope.” He tells that in the episode in the Temple, when Jesus says it will be re-built in 3 days, the way he said that “sounded as a threat.” He asked to bring a child to the set, and he knelt to her saying the same text, as if he was telling an enchanted story. “It changed completely," he remembers.

Baptized and educated in a traditional Catholic family, Diogo knew some parts of the sacred text, but now he looked at it in detail. “There are many things in common in all religions. And the most important are the love messages, hope and compassion. I brought it to the surface… with clear certainty that we are in this world more for others than for ourselves.”  Do you have faith we asked. “I do, but I am not a follower,” he smiles. The crucifixion scene, that lasted 3 days to shoot, is one that people talk about and is a delicate matter. “It’s independent from what we believe, it’s a very powerful story, of absolute altruism. We should reflect on it," he gets moved.  

He gets enthusiastic when speaking about the process of a new character/job. When the script is given to the team, they all read it. “What fascinates me is that 20% that stays off the page, that, in a way, gives me space to make something new. Because what I do today is a little like recreating, I want it to be unique. I love that nervous vertigo of being able to do something unrepeatable.” And he confesses that, since he was a kid, he never goes relaxed to anything he has to do. “Because I want too much to make it feel like it was special.” When he started at the age of 15, the market was completely different. There was one novela a year at RTP, theatre, and very sporadically a series.  “I have been privileged, I never had a lapse. So, I never felt the need to do something outside Portugal… And I still feel like that.”  He has been asked if he thought about living in the United States and Diogo said he doesn't. He does it all through video castings and goes to a meeting when he is in a batch of three selected actors. And it has been like that for 3 years.  What keeps him here (in Portugal) are the things unimaginably simple.  He laughs talking about it, immune to the prejudice that believes  stardom comes with false modesty. “I am still crazy about a slice of Alentejano bread with butter,” he plays. “The whole world is looking for something and has the most amazing things every day… We always tend to want something else, or put our expectations, and happiness based on what other's have. And that is not the way. When you feel good in all of the things you are, the flaws and virtues, and learn how to accept them, you see things a different way. We think: ‘The day I accomplish that, that will be THE day!’ And then you realize that when you were down there everything was more fun. I am here now when it was the best moment to be in the US. We are more valid here than in a tank full of them, there you are a workman. In Portugal, I feel like I have a more active voice. There are many things done in a bad way, less done in a good way, and lots to do."  

That is also why, Diogo Morgado took himself on the road and made "Eu sou Portugal," a documentary about what it is to be a Portuguese. In his experience in the US, he saw himself surrounded with people that had no idea what Portugal is, “I caught myself looking another way,” he tells. So, associated with the initiative Portugal: The Best Destination, that invited people to take pictures of their regions, he decided to make a movie about it. He traveled through Portugal for a week talking to people. He realized that most of the time, people talked about what was wrong, but it was the rest that he really wanted to hear, and that is what he used. “I am proud of this work and I want to do more,” he warns.  He was surprised by the hospitality of people who without even knowing him (he was always with his cap and sunglasses on), offered him eggs and tomatoes, and milk to take home.  “People give what they have. Bigger the difficulties, bigger the altruism.” Are you a proud Portuguese?  “I am. For good and for bad. I like simplicity, which is cultural and not humble. As much as I think and live other things, it is in my Portuguese DNA. And we are an extremely work-hard nation.” He refers to Rita Blanco’s monologue in "La Cage Dorée" (from Ruben Alves, that airs in August), the character of the cleaning lady from a condominium who explains how to do her job. “She talks about cleaning as if it was a poem.”

We remember pretty well the role of Diogo Morgado as Salazar in "Salazar’s Private Life" (Jorge Queiroga’s miniseries, 2009) and in the movie "A Selva" (2002 from Leonel Vieira). He also played characters in Spanish movies "Dos Rivales Casi Iguales" (2007) and "Mami Blue" (2010) both from Miguel Ángel Calvo Buttini. It is inevitable to ask him which is his favorite to do, and he was expecting that. “There’s an instantaneous side of TV that really fascinates me, it is an amazing endurance. A game, a duel. Theatre takes the story exploitation to the last consequences, there are months, the words, the silences. But cinema is what brings you close to immortality."    

His next project is on TV, a series that will air in September.  Diogo Morgado doesn't stop. “I am not a fan of holidays. Anything more than a week and I get itchy!" he laughs. And when he is not working, he is reading plays and thinking if he can make them (he adapted with Rui Unas "Pedras nos Bolsos," an Irish play that he took to Malaposta Theatrer.)  “Sometimes I get amazed that they pay me!” Then in the small time left, he goes to the movies, sometimes he “hibernates” on his sofa watching movies or full series. “I like to work, because when I am not doing it I suck!” he laughs. “Ohh! And I also like to eat and cook and try new restaurants.” And going to the same places, where people already know him, and he can even park in the same spot. “That’s it, I can't leave these things and go out.  This is all I am and what makes me happy.”  

When he travels, he takes his family with him, “like a gypsy." When we ask him what is the big legacy he wants to leave his son Santiago, Diogo answers, without thinking too much: “To be honest. That´s the main thing. People need to practice honesty, it’s easy not to be honest and we even don’t notice it. First with ourselves and then with others. If it is a daily exercise, we foster it around us. Saying the truth is to like that person. Say what we feel. Even if it is not appreciated by the other person. You can take more time growing to whatever, but when you get there, you will be better.”

________

Obrigada Liliana as always, for another translation for us. So appreciated.

I have to say, I thought it was going to be hard for Diogo to top his excellent recent GQ Portugal interview, but once again, he exceeds my expectations and then some.

--Sara

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