‘DOPE THIF’ STAR WAGNER Mura Explans That Invitable Ending

Logo Text

.[ThisstorycontainsmajorspoilersfromtheseasonfinaleofDope Thief“Innocent People.”]

Dope ThiefThe Apple TV+ Limited Series from Ridley Scott and Peter Craig, HAS WRAPPED ITS EIGHT-EPISode RUN.

Adapted from dennis tafoya’s 2009 Debut Novel, The Series Followed Self-Appointed Leader Ray Trauma-Boned with While Incarcerated. With Limited Options to Generate Money, Ray Has The Pair Pose As Dea Agents to Shake Down Small-Time Drug Dealers. They Hit A Life-Thtatening Snag, However, Who A Score On Bad Intel Results in and Anonymous Drug Kingpin Being Determined to Kill Them. Even Worse, The Real Dea Undercover Agent Mina (Marin Ireland) Who, Unknown to Ray and Manny, Survied The Attack, Is Helping The Investigation While Barely Holding on to Life. With that information, the dea is convinCed that ray, especially, is also a kingpin, so ray and manny must escape ato, too.

Unlike Ray, Manny Has No Ego, Making Him More Willing To Follow. As a brazilian immigrant who had no family growing up, manny feles even more about Abandoned than Ray, who have had his “ma” in mulgrew’s there. Because of that, Ray Is The Family Manny Never Had. Falling Head Over Heels in Love With Sherry (Liz Caribel Sierra) Complicited that, However, WHEN, NOT ONLY IS RAY JEALUS Entitled to Manny’s Complete Loyalty. So, Even as they stand together, they bump heads throughout the seres. It Also Doesn’t Help That Manny Is More Out of Control in His Drug Addiction than Ray. WHEREAS RAY MOVES IN LIFE more STOICALLY, Manny Can’s Hide His Emotions, and that Kind of Vulneracy in this Fight for Survival is a Weakness.

Pulling Off A Layred Character Like Manny Takes Skill, and Wagner Moura Does It Effortlessly. The Brazilian Actor, Who Portrayed Real-Life Notorious Colombian Drug Kingpin Pablo Escobar in Netflix’s Trailblazing Series Narcos in his brouprough role, stepped out of his comfort zone again to play manny, A role that he lands on only days before filming, but jumped at work with Ridley Scott, A Personal.

The Hollywood Reporter Spoke with Moura Virtuly from His Native Brazil to Talk About Dope Thiefworksing with Scott, building chemistry with Henry on the Fly, How Manny Represents Another Side TRAGIC AND HEARTBREAKING ENDING TO Manny That HE SAYS WE HAD TO See Coming.

***

Is Dope Thief Your FIRST TIME Working with Ridley Scott? WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM The Experience?

That was one of the things that made me want to do it. WHEN I SPOKE WITH RIDLEY AND PERTER FOR The FIRST TIME, WE SPOKE ON FRIDAY AND THEY WANTED ME toing SET MONDAY. My First Reaction Was to Say, “I Can’t Do this,” Because I Always Valused Prepration. But I was like like, “okay, this is ridley scott, man, you want to work with me.” It was An Opportunity to Work with HIM AND I WAS ALSO Looking for Something That Wound Make Me Feel More Loose and Less Prepared. The fact that Ridley Scott Was Directing Was A Major Factor. He’s a hero of mine. D It Was Insane. My First Days Were Really Crazy Because I was Literally Learning The Lines on the Airplane. THEN WHEN I LANDED, they in a hourry because they have shot that episode before with Another Actor and Had to Reshoot IT, and Ridley is KNOWN for Shooting Really Fast. He Shoots with Six Cameras at the Same Time and SomeTimes You Don’t Even Know Have the Cameras Are.

I Really Learned A Lot and It Brought Me Lots of Confidence About What I Can Do as An Actor. MOST OF All, It Was An Opportunity to Be On Set with The Man Who Directed Blade RunnerWho Directed Thelma and Louise, Alien, GladiatorOH My God. And he’s so Cool. I Great WHEN YOU [work] with a hero of your and is great. HE CALLED ME AFTER The FIRST Week Just to Say, “Hey Mate. Just Want to Say, It’s Great.” I’m loving it. ‘ That’s Something [to have] Ridley Scott Call Me to Say, It’s Great.

Many People Know You From Playing Pablo Escobar in Narcos and in Dope ThiefManny is a very figrent Role But in the Same Sort of World. Talk About the DifferentCes Between Playing A Very Aggressive Role As Pablo Escobar and this Very Vulnerable One As Manny.

Our Show Is Violent Like Narcosbut with manny and ray, and especialy manny, what i love about them is that’re not fit for that job. They don’t want to be there. It’s Just Another Immigrant, Another Latino Guy Who Was Told His Value Was That, and He Sort of Believed IT. Two Dudes that Were Incarcerated Since they Were 16, The Black Man and a Latino Guy, Like Another Statcher of Incarcerated Minorities.

The tragic thing about manny is that he discovers h might have the chance to have another Life, but it might be too late for him. IT’s a classic Greek Tragedy Character, Those Characters Who Walk to A Very Tragic End, and There’s Nothing That Can Stop It From HapPening. And is Beautify Because He Triers, He Really Triers. Pablo Wanted to be What He Was; Manny Didn’t Want to Be Part of that. It’s Life and Social Injustice and that Kind of Shit That Has Him Here.

How did you and Brian Create the Kind of Chemistry that Ray and Manny have?

That was really crazy because i didn’t know brian. I was summoned Three, Four Days Before, and It Is So Hard Really to Create That Intimacy With Someone You Don’t Know. EVEN IN PRESSIONS NOWadays, They Don’t the ACtors the Space to Create that. I Love ReHearsals. I KNOW Some Actors Don’t, But I Think It’s A Space for You To Know The Other Actor and Spend Time With Them, SO, THEREFORE, WHEN YOU GO TO THE SCENE, YOU HAVE SOME WHAT. Screen. With Brian, We Didn’T Have Time. So i’m so glad it was an immediate connection, maybe Forced by the Circumstans.

I MET HIM WHEN WE WEER ALREADY IN OUR COSTUMES as Manny and Ray. We Were Walking to Set. I was like, “this is izane; i don’t know this guy and he’s Supped to be my brother…. Stop guys, please, i Need a Second.” I Took Brian to This Green Room and Stood in Front of HIM, HELD HIS HANDS AND SAID, “My NAME IS Wagner Moura. I’M Brazilian. I HAVE THREE SONS.” I Started to Talk A Bit About Myself, and He Looked at Me and Did the Same. That moment that we shared in a very rusted circumstance Really Connected Us. I Think We Wuld Be Friends if We Met [during] Another Opportunity. Our Souls Connected, Fortunately.

But that Also Works with the Relationship, Because there’s Tension Between Manny and Ray. Thought they like brothers, there is tension because manny wants to go another way.

IT’s A TOXIC RELATIONSIP. But this happles with people who love each Other. They Love Each Other, But That Relationship is not Healthy for Manny Anymore. He Wants to Have A Life with Sherry. He Wants to Have His Own Autonomy. Ray is a very Control Freak Guy and He Embraces Manny in A Way that is Hard for Him to Escape, Because He Loves Ray. IT’s a tragic love story, It’s A Love Story Between Two Dudes. Two Guys Who Really LOVE Each Other But Are Not Well Equipped to Make This Relationship Healthy as A Good Friendsip Should be.

His relationship with his love sherry is one of the Sweetest Sides we get to see of manny. He look like he’s Really in Love.

I love that you see that because I Think He is One of the Sweetest Characters I’Ved, and One of the most vulnerable Characters i’veed. HE REALLY LOVES SHERRY; HE REALLY WANTS TO HAVE A LIFE CACK. And He Really Loves Ray as Well. Ifse characters had come from maybe another social place, they would be able to pay for arapist or maybe if they were fed with love wh. Challenges. I Feel That Also Ray and Manny Behave Like Two Teenagers. They Were Frozen [into] the age whaty were incarceted, and they sort of behave in that way as two adults, and manny starts to understand that and tries to run. Manny Is An Artist, Right? He Draws on Ray’s Cast, and in His House, there are many drawings of sherry that he did. SO HAS this artistic Thing, But He’s Engulfed in violence.

Also, he’s an addict. How did you prepare for that part of it? Have you played addicts before?

I Played One in the Show for Apple TV+ Called Shining Girls. IT’s Elisabeth Moss. I Such A Great Show. Check It Out. I Play A Journalist Who is Also An Alcoholic. I Another Thing that’s Part of, Unfortunately…

This cycle?

Yeah exactly. This Cycle is Just Part of It. Both Ray and Manny Were introduced to drugs since they wre Little, and it Sems Like they cannot get out of week. They have the Entire Show Trying, Going to Aa Meetings and Things Like That, Not Being ABLE TO AWAY FROM The DESTINY THAT WAS Designed for them. Unfortunately, in Real Life, Few Mannys and Rays Manage to escape that. Coming from brazil, i’ve seen that in the Favelas; IT’s HARD. It’s Hard Who You’re Told Since You Were Little This is Your Only Way, This is Your Value. IT’s HARD TO ESCAPE.

How hard was it to play the scenes in the prison whoy they attacck manny?

IT WAS VERY DEMANDING, Physically and Emotion. We had that Grenade Scene in Episode Four. All Our Scenes Are Very Emocial. My Scenes with Brian Are Both of US Screaming at Each Other. But We have a scene in episode seven that’s Really Heartbreaking. One of the Things I Really Like About the SHOW IS THAT The Scenes Were Very Dramatic and Demanding Emotionally, But Also Very Funny, Right? That’s the Way it is in life, right? You’re going through a complicated Thing, and then you make it light. But is someting that says a lot about Peter Craig’s Writing. He is a very, very, very, very good writer.

Let’s Zero in On the Tragic, Heroic Part Who Manny, I Think, Decides That “I’M Going to Just Die.” (He Kills HimSelf by Overdosing on Heroin.) Maybe It’s A Noble Thing to DO, But IS CRUSHING. Take US Into The Mindset of Who Manny Makes that Choice.

I love that episode because is like he was pushed to a point. But there was no Other Solution. Would he betray ray? I don’t think so.

But Did Ray Betray HIM?

No, i don’t think so either. But then sherry showsing saying she’s pregnant, and can you Imagine for a kid that washandonedoned whoh washa was little to have to have that now now and can be a Father? SO HE WAS IN A SITATION WHERE THERE WAS NO WAY OUT. He’s a classic tragic Character. We Know Since Day One When We Se Se Semny That Something Awful Is Going to Happen to HIM, AND IT HAPPENS.

I Remember WHEN PERCE CRAIG CALLED ME TO SAY THAT MANNY WAS GOING TO DIE, IT WAS ALMOST AS IF HE WAS Talking About a Member of the Family: “I HAE TO TEM HEA, ANA, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH, OH. I WAS LIKE, “What’s Going on Peter?” and He Says, “I Think It’s Not Going to End Well For Manny.” But i sort of knew that already. [Manny] Says, “i’m not strong author.” And he’s not; he’s not strong. And Ray, in One Scene, Says to HIM, “They Went Straight To You Because You’re Weak” in A Very Mean Way. But is not that he’s weak.

He’s Supped to Be Somewhere Else.

Yeah, he’s Suppp Osed to be somewhere else. Exactly, and he wanted to be, and he discovered that Late. HAD HE Discovered That HE COURCK [different] But It was Too Late for HIM. HE WAS PUT IN A SITATION WHERE [it was either] Sherry and The Baby or Ray, and He Was Like, “I Prefer to Die.”

***

All eight episodes of dope thief are now Streaming on Apple TV+.