Sonia Braga: The movie [Aquarius] is about love, ultimately, and it wa...

Sex appeal is in your heart and head. I'll be sexy no matter how old or how my body changes.

Sonia Braga

sexy age heart

The only thing I know is that we came from the stars, and that we have the same material as the stars. That's all that I know. Everything else I don't know.

Sonia Braga

materials stars knows

Sônia Braga reacted in a beautiful way to the draft I sent her, so we just made the film ["Aquarius"] as I had written it. Emilie [Lesclaux], my wife and producer, told me, "This is not a two-hour film. This is going to be longer." And I said, "Well, let's try and make it work, whatever length it is."

Sonia Braga

aquarius beautiful two

When was it that people decided as a society that your body is in one place and your sexuality in another place, something like a hat, or a coat, that when you leave home you hang it and when you come back home you say, "Ah! Let's wear my sexuality! I might wear it tonight"? It is something that belongs to your body.

Sonia Braga

tonight home people

We can bring to characters dark and bright sides that nobody even dreams about.

Sonia Braga

dark dream character

I grew up in a very open-minded family. My father died when I was very little, so my mother was really, really incredibly busy trying to provide for us.

Sonia Braga

mother trying father

And getting older, what's happening is, I play only mothers.

Sonia Braga

getting-older mother play

When I saw that scene [in ocean from the Aquarius] for the first time, it blew me away. It caused me to reflect on my age, my history and all that I've been through in Brazil. Having been away from Brazil for so long, while not speaking in my own tongue, when I saw that image, I felt like I was taking my first deep breath after nearly suffocating to death. It was like the plastic had been removed from my head. Even if this breath turned out to be my last, at least I got to have this one moment of release. At least I got this one chance.

Sonia Braga

aquarius ocean long

If you take away money, if you take away the houses and things, who are we really? What is love really about? What is it to love each other? Why do we stay together, and why do all the kids split? All these questions I have really deep inside of me.

Sonia Braga

what-is-love house kids

You can keep yourself alive. That's the magic of being an actor.

Sonia Braga

magic alive actors

Everybody else is going to react differently to the film [Aquarius], but what I love about it is that both men and women are going to react to it because they will find themselves represented.

Sonia Braga

aquarius film men

I'm not saying that we need more stories about people of a certain age, we just need more great stories about people.

Sonia Braga

age people needs

I just realized the other day that Clara [in Aquarius] and I are now going to be apart year by year. She's still 65, and I'm 66 now. When you make a movie, it preserves you at a certain age, and it's so wonderful that Clara has preserved me at 65. People are talking about her age in a way that is positive and respectful, which is so wonderful.

Sonia Braga

aquarius talking years

It makes sense that somebody told you that you made the film from your perspective as a father.

Sonia Braga

perspective film father

I keep boxes filled with recuerdos - little memories that are in the form of pictures and events that I've written down. It's funny that I chose to write them in Spanish rather than English or Portuguese.

Sonia Braga

events writing memories

I think the relationship [in Aquarius] with her nephew shows that she's not nostalgic. She just wants to preserve what is important to her - her records, her books, even some furniture. She doesn't want to leave that house because it is her home. That is where her kids were born. After moving so much in my life, I was touched by Clara's need to stay in that apartment. I love her life, and that may be why I connected to her so strongly. We are the most alike when we are fighting for our rights.

Sonia Braga

kids book moving

It's a great role for any age. Any actress wishes they would find a screenplay that means as much to them as "Aquarius" meant to me, as a person and a citizen.

Sonia Braga

aquarius wish mean

I live in New York, and Clara lives in Recife. The character is Brazilian, and as I read the script, I felt like Kleber [Mendonca] had been spying on me in order to create this role [in Aquarius]. Clara and I have different backgrounds. I come from an intuitive world, and she's an academic, but when we got together, we really became one. There are many times when I'm watching the film where Clara will say something, and I will find myself agreeing with her. It was the first time that I had this weird sensation that the character I played is so me, but yet it's so her.

Sonia Braga

aquarius new-york character

It always surprises me when I see the director's versions of films released separately, long after the film's theatrical run.

Sonia Braga

running long directors

To be naked or even making love in a scene to me is very important if this is a movie about a couple or sensuality. It's a sort of moralism to think that this shouldn't be seen in the film.

Sonia Braga

making-love couple thinking

The movie [Aquarius] is about love, ultimately, and it was made with love. There were a lot of parents in the crew, and they were the best crew I had ever worked with. Everybody knew the construction of each scene, and were completely invested in every shooting day.