Coming from the group ‘Nós do Morro’, Babu Santana worked with director Lúcia Murat in ‘Quase dois irmãos’ (2004), as Pingão, leader of the common prisoners in the Ilha Grande penitentiary, in their conflict against the political prisoners. Appearing in various new Brazilian films over the past few years, his part in ‘Uma onda no ar” (2001/Helvecio Ratton), brought him the best supporting actor award. His most recent films are ‘Estômago’ (2007/Marcos Jorge), a Brazilian/Italian co-production, filmed in Curitiba, and ‘Tarrafal’, an episode of ‘O estado do mundo’ (2007/Pedro Costa), an international co-production shown in the last week of the Cannes Film Festival. Babu also acted recently in ‘Batismo de sangue’ (2006/Helvecio Ratton), ‘Achados e Pedidos’ (2005/José Joffily) and ‘Redentor’ (2004/Cláudio Torres), among others. In ‘Another love story’, Babu is Dudu, Jonatha’s brother and leader of the drug traffic in the favela.

INTERVIEW

How did you manage a drug trafficker who cries?

I’m an adopted brother, who tends to violence and is the drug boss. When Lucia called me, I thought it would be just another drug dealer for my cinema history. But afterwards I became enchanted with this sort of drama. I had to humanize the character. A drug dealer with a complex human dimension. The work with Lucia and Cristian Duuvoort was very important. To give the character this duplicity, I couldn’t exaggerate the interpretation. A man firing a gun is already a delinquent. There was no need to expand on this.

How was it to work with young beginners in the cinema? Did it remind you of your past in “Nós do Morro”?

Yes, very much. The youngsters were full of energy. Vinícius (D’Black) was very nervous. It was a lot of responsibility for him to take a major part in a film, a musical, something we’re not strong on in Brazil, and he had never acted in his life. He wanted to get it right and had to get over his anxiety. But he’s very smart. All that energy was contagious. It was funny because I’ve been through this many times, this thing of being the youngest on the set. In “Maré” I was the experienced one, I was giving advice. I’m a fan of Lucia also. In many scenes she would ask our opinion, and we would come up with suggestions for interpretation. It was a very enriching experience.