Latina actresses have never been hotter in Hollywood: Eva Mendes, Jennifer Lopez, Eva Longoria… and now Alice Braga
Martyn Palmer

The chances are you will know Alice Braga’s beautiful face even if, as yet, her name doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. In films such as City of God, I Am Legend and her latest, Blindness, with her raven-black hair, dark flashing eyes and flawless, honeyed complexion, she is compelling.

And she can act, too, often taking roles that others would be wary of. In Blindness she plays a call girl while another movie, Lower City, called for the kind of explicit sex scenes that would send most American actresses off to lie down in a darkened room before hitting the speed dial to their agent or therapist. Braga, on the other hand, relishes the challenge. “As a girl I’m shy, but once I’m in character, I don’t mind at all,” she says. “In Lower City I played a prostitute who falls in love with two best friends. She was a really powerful, strong character. I have to understand her, but I don’t have to judge her. As for nudity and myself, well, yes, I would be shy. I’m always covering myself up.”

At the moment, Alice (pronounced Ah-lee-say) Braga is able to flit between her native Brazil and California or even Cannes, where Blindness received its world premiere, with hardly anyone knowing who she is. “In Brazil, they’re far more interested in the guys from the soap operas,” she says in a voice that is low and husky, heavily accented and tinged, at times, with American inflections. “They go crazy for them. Absolutely nuts. But for me, I pretty much walk down the street and one or two people might say ‘hi’ but it’s not crazy.”

Not yet, maybe. But give it time. In Hollywood, where Latina actresses such as Eva Mendes (Miami Cuban), Jennifer Lopez (New York Puerto Rican) and Eva Longoria (Texas Mexican) have paved the way, Ms Braga is the new, very impressive kid on the block. She’s arrived with a flourish, and pretty soon can expect the kind of attention – and roles – that the aforementioned take for granted.

“I do think Hollywood has opened up not just for Latino actors but for foreign actors in general,” she says. “But the Latino community is very big there, and getting bigger. And it’s important for the Latino community to see an actor on screen that they identify with. There’s a connection and curiosity when you see people like yourself on screen. It was important for me, I know, to see actors that I identified with.”

Evidence of how rapidly Braga’s star is rising comes in odd and sometimes surreal ways. There was a prestigious invitation, accepted, to sit on the jury at this year’s Venice Film Festival. “Oh my God!” she says. “At first I was so nervous. I had butterflies in my stomach. But what an honour and I really enjoyed it. I mean, who wouldn’t? You go to a beautiful city, you stay in a luxurious hotel and you watch movies all day.”

At the other end of the cultural scale, there was a highly lucrative offer to shed her clothes for a Playboy photo shoot. “I was like, ‘Don’t tell me how much! Bye!’” she giggles. “I wouldn’t do it. The point is I’ll do a scene for a film because then I’m in character and it’s not me. If other people want to do it, fine, but that’s not for me. I really am too shy to do something like that.”

Shy is not a word I would use to describe Braga. After chatting to her, first in Cannes, and later on the phone from São Paulo where she is making her latest movie, other adjectives spring more readily to mind: vivacious, friendly, and bright. In the past 18 months she’s completed I Am Legend, a big budget blockbuster with Will Smith, appeared alongside our own Chiwetel Ejiofor in David Mamet’s Redbelt, starred with Jude Law and Forest Whitaker in the futuristic Repossession Mambo and played an illegal immigrant in Crossing Over, with Harrison Ford and Sean Penn.

The latter two films will be released here next year, but first comes Blindness, directed by her old friend Fernando Meirelles who put her on the road to stardom in the first place when he plucked her out of high school and cast her in the brilliant City of God, the story of a group of youngsters trying to survive in one of Rio de Janeiro’s most violent slums.

Braga and Meirelles – who also directed The Constant Gardener – are both natives of São Paulo and first met when she was a teenager taking breaks from school to make commercials for the likes of McDonald’s and C&A. “You know, they were fun to do. I just liked the environment – being on the set, hanging out with the crew, watching the way that they were put together. And I learnt a lot.”

Indeed, Braga, 25, has grown up on the fringes of film-making. Her father, Antonio, is a respected journalist who had his own show on national television, interviewing newsmakers “from politicians to writers and actors”, and now lectures at São Paulo university. And her mother, Ana, is a former actress who ended up directing commercials herself. Her aunt, Sonia Braga, is an acclaimed actress in her own right (and former romantic partner of Robert Redford) whose Hollywood calling card was Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985). Sonia has gone on to enjoy a successful American-based career with plenty of TV and film work.

The chances are, though, that her niece will eclipse that. Indeed, in some ways she already has. “Sonia moved from Brazil to New York the year I was born [1983] and once I started acting and doing my thing she wasn’t really close enough for me to talk to.

“Actually, my mother has been my biggest influence. She was a brilliant actress herself. My aunt is lovely and we’re all very proud of her, but my mother has been my mentor.”

Her first professional appearance came at the age of 8, in a yoghurt commercial directed by a friend of her mother. There were school plays and then, at 13, she returned to making ads. “I talk a lot. I do. Everyone says I talk a lot. Ask Jude Law. He said to me, ‘I’ve never met anyone who talks so much!’ And because I talk a lot, my mum’s friend, who was doing some commercials, said, ‘Come to the auditions.’ And I got them.”

She did numerous commercials over the next couple of years, including two for Meirelles who was, at that time, yet to make his first film. When he was casting City of God, back in 2001, he remembered Braga.

City of God blazed on to the screen, winning awards and critical acclaim across the world, and set both Meirelles and Braga on the road to Hollywood. “I have only great memories of that time,” she says. “It was my first film and as soon as I arrived on set I could feel the energy from those boys. Fernando and all of the actors, they were just so inspired, they were desperate to tell that story. It was my first contact with trying to make a piece of art.”

When Braga heard that Meirelles was casting Blindness, a screen adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning author José Saramago’s novel, she called him up. “I wanted to tell him about this documentary that I’d seen at one of the [film] festivals called Black Sun that’s about being blind. I said, ‘You must watch it and by the way I would love to be in your movie!’” she laughs. “He’s a very sweet, gentle man and never bossy or nervous. And as a director, he’s great because he opens so many doors for you as an actor: he allows you to create something and he’s a collaborator.”

She plays the Woman with the Dark Glasses, an upmarket call girl who catches a virus called “white blindness” which strikes suddenly and leaves most of the population in an un-named, big bustling city without sight. As the world moves into panic mode, the government quarantines the victims in a former mental asylum. A doctor – played by Mark Ruffalo – and his wife (Julianne Moore) who can, unknown to the others, still see, try to organise their ward into a community where everyone is cared for: food is shared and tasks are delegated. But the self-styled King of Ward 3 – played by Gael García Bernal – leads a renegade band that uses violence and intimidation to control the food supplies and brutally oppress the others.

Braga and her fellow cast members embarked on an intense period of research before the cameras started rolling, including sessions at “blind school” where they would be blindfolded for hours at a time in an attempt to get a feel for what it would be like to lose their sight. It was extreme but worthwhile, she says.

“Once you spend about six hours blindfolded you do get really, really tired, because your whole body gets so tense,” she recalls. “We did that as part of the preparation and it was very interesting.”

There is one scene in particular that is gruelling to watch, in which the men from Ward 3 rape the women, including Braga’s character. It must have been daunting and upsetting to film, I suggest. It’s the only time during our conversation when she loses her naturally bubbly demeanour.

“It was difficult. I tried not to over-think it. I just tried to be in the moment and react naturally. Fernando likes you to be real. But of course it’s something that affects you personally because you have to do it. And after it’s done you breathe in and breathe out and life goes on.”

Blindness was the opening film at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, a prestigious accolade, and for Braga, a vivid experience. “Going up the steps on the red carpet at Cannes was funny. Actually it’s interesting, I felt like a bride. You go there all dressed up and the music is playing and everyone is looking at you. It’s pretty wild.”

When we meet in Cannes, Braga is clearly enjoying all the hoopla. She’s wearing a chic, black Prada dress and seems just a little starstruck by the endless parade of movie stars trooping in and out of the hotel where she’s staying. She must be getting used to it by now though – after all she’s played opposite some of the most famous leading men on the planet. “Yes, but you still wonder what they will be like, especially when you’ve grown up watching them on screen. Fortunately, they’ve been lovely.

“Sean [Penn] is so sweet! I just want to hug him. He’s adorable. He scares people because of the way he is, but he is generous and kind and he will talk to you about anything: if you want to talk about politics, he will talk about politics, or whether you should have a ham sandwich for lunch.”

At the moment she’s back in Brazil, filming a thriller, Cabeça a Prêmio, in which she plays a “spoilt princess”, the daughter of a wealthy landowner who, it turns out, is also a drug dealer. “And my mother is playing my mother on screen. How amazing is that? The director had seen her when she was on stage maybe 20 years ago. It’s been very special for me to work with her.”

She’s making the most of being back in Brazil. Home will always be the teeming city of São Paulo even though, these days, she finds herself travelling from one film location to the next. “I do get homesick a lot. I’m really connected to my mum and dad and my older sister and I miss them and my friends. I miss the parties and the family dinners and all of that. But on the other hand, I’m getting the chance to do what I love. It’s just a balance,” she says.

“And you know, I’m young, I’m a single girl, so this is the moment. It’s exciting to go from one place to another and meet new people.”

It is indeed. Alice Braga has arrived on centre stage, and we can expect her to be around for some considerable time. You’ve seen the pretty face. Now it has a name.

Blindness is released in UK cinemas on November 28

Source: TimesOnline.co.uk