Actor recalled that he sought to learn more about the impact of racism during character building in “Malhação” in 1999, in addition to other projects such as the film “Boleiros”, “Zapping Zone”, among several others
With characters that go from promoting laughter on the stand-up stage, showing the reality behind the scenes of the productions, cheering up the young audience on television, traveling under the sea, and even reviving one of the greatest figures of Brazilian music in his childhood, the actor Robson Nunes, born in São Bernardo do Campo, not only puts on a show in the casts, but also collects lessons learned everywhere he goes.
Devoting himself body and soul to all his projects, his first project on television, the 6th season of the soap opera “Malhação” (1999-2000), Robson has already obtained a study far beyond his character Sávio Santos, expanding even further interest in deepening even more in their own life relationship with racism, starting to understand how to overcome it through the example of big names like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, among several other figures, to value their blackness and be proud of who was.
Right after “Malhação”, Robson revealed in this interview his intention to ask to leave Globo, which in a game of luck and willpower, took him from Rio de Janeiro to the Disney Channel studios, where he participated in great productions such as “ Zapping Zone” (2001-2007), “Disney Planet” (2007), “High School Musical: The Selection” (2008), “When the Bell Tolls” (2009) and “What a Talent” (2014).
Already in cinema and television, Robson teamed up with actor Babu Santana to be able to incarnate the singer Tim Maia in his biography, based on the book by Nelson Motta – “Tim Maia – Vale o que vier” (TV, 2015) and “Tim Maia” (film version, 2014). Already in the Brazilian dubbing, the actor participated in the films “Operação Big Hero” (2014), “The Lion King” (2019) and “Raya and the Last Dragon” (2021). More recently, the actor participated in the show “The Little Mermaid”, which was on display last year. Check out the interview!
Currently you have worked as an actor, presenter, voice actor, among several other works. Before we delve deeper, could you tell us a little about how art came into your life?
Art was always present in some way in my life, whether in my mother, who is a housewife singing in the sink while washing clothes, some country songs, other church hymns that she remembered that her aunt was evangelical, my father played tambourine too. He, he sang a lot. I also remember a very sweet childhood memory of him bathing me and singing and among other things. So music was always present there. My older brothers liked rock music, I listened to that and I loved it. Yeah, it was funny, because I remember it as a kid. One of the things I liked the most was seeing guys imitating people on TV, you know? I thought it was really cool like that. So, in a way, art was always there surrounding me and then, with my father’s jokes, he was very playful, imitating my uncle, imitating some cousins. And I say that I inherited his comic vein and my mother’s drama. And I liked it. I started playing around with voices. I was curious, so I, I did, I played. I got a little recorder like that, it was a walkman at the time, you know? And then he did a radio show playing with things. At the time, I listened to what my mother listened to, Correia, Paulo Lopes, but there was also one, there was FM, which my brothers heard that had satire, so I went there playing with it from a very young age.
That, that was the trigger. My older brother walks up to me and says “Man, you did great”. It really felt like you were getting an entity there. You could run after that and those fate things. The other week there was a pamphlet at the school I was studying about a free theater course and it was the first one I did. And then the little bug bit and I never let go.
One of your first works in cinema was in “Boleiros”, a type of comedy where you and two friends from Corinthians scare children from Palmeiras inside an elevator. What was it like to come across this idea for the first time and the experiences of shooting this film?
Well, Boleiros, this scene is a specific scene, it was my first professional work. I had already taken an amateur theater course, I was already doing amateur theater and then I had done two or three extras and at the time I said “man, this is not what I want, I’m going to study to actually become an actor”. And that’s when I thought and said I’m not going to do extras anymore.
But then an invitation came from the guy at the agency who said “Robson, there’s a movie they’re going to make and there’s a character who has a line. And since I know you do theater, I wanted you to go there and audition.” I said beauty, and I went. I did a test where I showed everything I knew, the imitations, the scene that asked me and everything else.
I didn’t move on to that character because he was too old, he was 14 at the time. The character must have been close to 30. And then I didn’t pass. It just fell. Mário Masetto, who was the assistant director, really liked my test and asked me to try out a character. And that’s when I got one of the three Corinthians. The film tells several of the stories related to a team from São Paulo. I did the Corinthians and I, as I had in the audition, did the imitations for Fátima Toledo, who prepared us for the film. She asked – “You don’t have any voices for this character?” – Man, then we searched and searched and didn’t find it, until she suggested if he was a stutterer. At the time, I was studying at Senai and I had two classmates who stuttered. I made this stutterer who starts stuttering, then speaks normally. And man, it was really cool because it rolled super. I remember that when the film was released, the director went to give an interview to Juca Kfouri, and then Juca said to him: “Hugo, the boy who plays the stutterer, isn’t he a stutterer?” – and the director replied: “he is not a stutterer, he is not a stutterer”. “Wow, I swore it was”, added Juca.
That for me was like a prize, you know? And it even took a while for me to get the second job, because I arrived at the production companies and people thought I was a real stutterer. It was very cool. So Boleiros opened many doors for me. After him, I did Domésticas, by Fernando Meirelles, and then Malhação.
On television, you participated in one of the seasons of “Malhação” on Rede Globo, and unfortunately the production was canceled by the broadcaster recently. How was your passage through this telenovela and what do you think its impact was on the history of Brazilian television, both for you actors and for the audience?
Malhação was a decisive factor in my life, because it was when I started working only as an actor and I have never stopped since then, thank God. And I went to Malhação when I moved, when it stopped being a gym and became a school. Malhação was a milestone in my personal life too, because in Malhação I started to receive the text. It was very good in the era of Emanuel Jacobina, the main screenwriter, right? And Emanuel wrote very well for youth.
In my Malhação phase, HIV was discussed, teenage pregnancy was discussed and racism was discussed with me. And for me it was very important, because when the texts arrived, I was always very CDF, I always really liked studying, researching and then when it got there that I was barred for being black, I don’t know what it was. It was a wake-up call for me, even to research and learn more about my story. Knowing who I was. And that’s when I started looking for Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, to get a sense of who I was. It was in Malhação that I let my hair grow. So, it was a time when there was no internet, I did Malhação between 99 and 2001, then the internet was coming and the only product aimed at teenagers was Malhação. And it was very important for me to know who I was to be proud of my blackness, to find myself beautiful for the first time. I was 17 years old. Why do you grow up with it? I grew up with the standard that handsome was, the blonde with the light eyes. So, like, when I realize that I start to read, that I start to listen more rationally, look for literature that there was very little at the time, we didn’t have much access. Today it is much easier for you to be politicized. You have an idea of who you are and of working on self-esteem, because you have the information.
At that time, I didn’t. So I think maybe I’m one of the first young people who let their black power hair grow there in the 2000s. The influence, I felt it even in the hairdresser that I still cut today, which is from Jabaquara, in the neighborhood where I grew up. I remember I arrived and he said: “Damn it, do you want long hair? Oh, damn, the kids don’t want to cut their hair here anymore, use the little machine. I’m letting it grow.” So that was very positive for me.
Workout was a milestone in my life and few people know it, but I asked to leave the soap opera. My contract was ending and I felt I wasn’t going to renew. I auditioned for the Disney Channel, and then I did something that was considered crazy, which was asking to leave a production on Rede Globo. But then, it was a wise decision, you know? I was 18 at the time and it was very important to leave at that moment, because it was a time when there was a black man for production and I was going to leave Malhação. I was there in Rio de Janeiro not knowing if something else was going to happen and if I wasn’t going to have the house to live in anymore. I received this proposal from the Disney Channel, which was a huge challenge.
It was a live program, from Monday to Friday and returning to São Paulo, everything conspired in favor. I went and it was an amazing experience. I spent ten years at Disney Channel, and of those ten years, two were spent in the remaining studio, I was doing material, material where I had to get and have an idea of what was there. It was me, the cameraman and the producer. So I created, there was always a touch of humor. In parallel to this, I always did a job of presenting humor in comedy sketches, stand up in theater or bars. I never stopped doing this work.
Speaking a little more about your career in cinema and television, during the special “Por Toda Minha Vida” which portrayed the life of singer Tim Maia in the form of a documentary, you played the role of the singer when you were still young. How was the challenge of trying to faithfully interpret a figure that became so remarkable for the Brazilian public?
It was a great challenge to play Tim Maia in “Por Toda a Minha Vida”. I won’t say bigger, because in the movie I had to go into a lot of depth, but it was a challenge, because when I made “Por Toda Minha Vida” the book didn’t exist yet. The book was released almost simultaneously with the show, so it was very much in the perception of who this guy was, this music icon, this absurd figure.
It was wondering what this younger guy would look like. It was a job very similar to the one in the film, because Nelson Motta’s book became our Bible there, so we consulted a lot. Me and Babu, a curious thing about us is that for Tim Maia’s preparation, we prepared together and it was the entire text of the film. I didn’t just memorize my part. We did it because we were doing the same guy. Who prepared us was Maria Sylvia Siqueira Campos, she was wonderful and a coach with a unique sensitivity. One thing that we worked on a lot, both me and Babu, was who this guy was, he had some body codes, because I’m not even that similar to Babu, but we were very similar to the point of when the movie came out , people confused my scenes with his. They came to compliment me on his scene too, you know? For us it was a goal. This is Tim Maia.
I usually say that maybe others will come up, as it already did, I did “The Little Mermaid” and it was a great challenge. So that’s how they came about. Different challenges have already arisen, now greater than playing Tim Maia, I doubt it, because it was a lot, you know? For example, it was Robson from São Bernardo, playing Tim Maia from Tijuca, you know? So it was a time when people smoked a lot.
I never smoked. I had to learn to smoke and I couldn’t smoke a real cigarette, they got a lettuce one, because I was worried about inhaling. For those who smoke, when they see someone who is not inhaling, they immediately take it out. So when he plays the guitar, I learned to do the solo. I had all this concern, because I know the icon and the people that Tim Maia attracted to the movies or to watch at home. And there are a lot of musicians who came to talk, you know? It was, it was really cool. Tim Maia was one of the biggest jobs, if not the biggest job of my life until today.
Even before the rise of streaming, when television was still in its 100% domain, one of the daily productions that most impressed Disney Channel fans was “Zapping Zone”, which, in addition to attractions, featured a series of games presented by you and by Rafael Baronesi, too. Could you talk a little about the backstage and the memories you have of this program?
I grew up a lot on Zapping Zone and the Disney Channel itself, which I also hosted Disney Planet there. I even managed to script and direct a program called Estúdio Rádio Disney no Ar. So, I grew a lot on Disney Channel as a person, as an artist, you know? Gave me a lot of cake and a lot of luggage.
One of the things that made me stay on the channel for so long, and that is that the children had an identification and that I really did it, I had fun there. When I was going to do it with Rafa and the characters, we had a lot of fun. When I played with the first generation people from Zé Pinzón, who were Leo Cortez, Pedro Moreno, Monalisa Gomes and Celly Ansel, in short, I really had fun. I would look for things, put a lot of my stuff, I would reward, take a base of some rap that I liked and ask the DJ to duplicate it. So, I played on the Disney Channel, Sabotage, I played Chico Science, Nação Zumbi… This without the board knowing.
They thought it was a song I had produced to do the awards there and I loved it. And at Zapping Zone, I said – “man, it’s really cool that you have this representation”. Once, I remember it was at a premiere, a little Japanese boy said – “Mommy, I want hair like his”. And man, I heard that and for me, it makes me shiver to even say it now, because I grew up hearing that I had to shave my hair, because my hair was bad, it was ugly, I don’t know what. It was a beautiful moment in my career, which I always remember with great affection.
On display for a long time, you were also the creator of the stand-up comedy show “3tosteterona” alongside the comedian Luiz França. How was the elaboration of this project and how do you consider its proximity to the world of comedy?
Comedy has always been in my life, man. I started doing imitations. I did a comedy show. When I came to Malhação, I performed at sushi, which is where I met Luiz França. It was very funny, because Luís was the only audience at my show. It was a rainy Wednesday at a sushi place in Leblon. It was called Sushi Brasil and it was on Maria Quitéria. And man, that’s what I told you. There was no internet, there was no cell phone, almost. The disclosure was a brick in Jornal O Globo. And then for my debut, there was the manager’s family and Luís França. I did the whole show for him. He did a lot of damage because he had only one Coke at the end. The cover was R$5.00, I still remember. The guy even said “are you going to charge him?”. And I said I would. I did the whole show for him. That’s where we met. Then I went to his show, we did a show in Rio called “Humor em Dose Dupla”.
Then we went to São Paulo and there we did “3tosterona”, where we played for 16 consecutive years. It was a delight to do. It ended up that I, along with Michele Machado, my wife, bought the bar where we used to perform, kept “3tosterona” and launched other things, including Clube da Comédia Stand Up, which brought Danilo Gentili to Brazil, Rafinha Bastos, Oscar Filho, among others. There was also Marcelo Mansfield, who was already an old-time comedian, and the late Márcio Ribeiro. It revealed a lot of people like that and it was and it was a very cool period. I was always there, in contact with the comedy crowd, whether doing characters or doing stand up. They even invited me to be part of the regular cast, which at the time, I think I was the only black person, talking about the theme, being black and everything, but I ended up not joining the regular cast. I did it from time to time just with them and it continues to this day. I took a break since the pandemic, but I’m returning now at the beginning of the year. There are already some presentations scheduled for February.
During the 2018 telenovela “Espelho da Vida”, where the character Bola lived, who was a production assistant and director of a fictional film that was produced within the plot, you end up bringing the backstage of the productions as part of the telenovela’s history. How was this issue of sort of interpreting what would be the backstage of a production within the telenovela itself?
Man, acting is such a metalanguage, so it was really cool, because what we call a laboratory, when you go to see a doctor, then you stay there, interview, see his day to day, how he behaves , how is the environment, his routine. And I did this lab right there, because I was going to do an assistant director. I stuck with the assistant directors of the soap opera, today directors at Globo, and there was Candé Faria and Guilherme who gave me all the support there, all the mannerisms and nomenclatures. So it was really cool, in a way, to share the day-to-day life of these guys with the public, which is really cool when you know how the backstage works. The actor is there and sometimes the director, but the assistant is in the rush there, bridging the gap between one and the other. So, it was a lot of fun and Bola, my character, he was a very high-spirited guy, Allan’s best friend, who was João Vicente. We were already friends before, so it was a delight to work with João.
It was a very nice and clear exchange, learning by seeing Irene Ravache, Vera Fischer and Ana Lúcia Torre up close. So, like, all these guys, Reginaldo Faria, it was a dream come true, yes, because I’ve always been a big fan of Othon Bastos and in my last scene, in what they call a secret scene, I did it with him. So I have the photo with him signing the painting I have of “God and the Devil in the land of the Sun”. So, it was cool to do this soap opera. In my career, of course, one or the other job there is sometimes not so cool, but 98% of the things I did were really cool. I am very proud and lucky to have made these productions.
In the same year of the soap opera, in 2018, you ended up competing in the third season of the musical reality “Popstar”. How was this experience of singing in a competition and how do you evaluate your participation in the program?
Man, Popstar was crazy. I thought I was going to get gastritis there because there was one song a week, you had to prepare and present it. I rehearsed on Saturday and rehearsed once, twice, three times at the most. So because there were 15 people in the beginning, so the other one already had to rehearse too. If I rehearsed alone during the week, I got there, rehearsed on Saturday and Sunday it was live. So it was nervousness? Yes it was. But it was really cool, something that gave me strength.
I went onstage for a while there, while Taís announced what she was giving me, while I didn’t see my wife and daughter, Michelle Machado and Morena Machado Nunes there in the audience, I couldn’t calm down. But was. It was really intense, man, and it was really cool, because I love music and it was the first time I’d actually performed like that in front of a nationally televised audience.
There is a film that, despite having a good fan base and at the same time being very wronged for its recognition, is Disney’s “Operation Big Hero”, where you dubbed one of the protagonists, Wasabi. How was this experience of participating in this film and what is your opinion about the lessons that history has to pass on to the public?
It’s pretty crazy, isn’t it? The story of the saint at home doesn’t work miracles, I only went to dub a character after I was already out of Disney Channel. There was an invitation to play Wasabi, a figure in this beautiful production. The Disney DNA is very powerful, why did you ask me here for the lessons. He always has a lesson, he always moves in some way, because he goes into human relations, so when you receive an invitation to do something from Disney, it’s already halfway there. It’s a yes without even seeing what it is, because it’s definitely going to be associated with something cool like that. It was really cool and after the movie there was also a series that I dubbed. It was an amazing experience. I’ve always really admired the work of voice actors and it’s a very difficult job. People don’t think so, but it’s very difficult and I still learn. I’ve dubbed other projects like Kang, who is the new villain in Marvel’s “Loki” series. It’s been an absurd challenge, however, very rewarding. I love Big Hero too!
How do you define the year 2022 in your career?
I think 2022 was a year of a lot of learning and a lot of things. Having made “The Little Mermaid” for me was, it was, an overcoming at each presentation. Until the last day, I was learning things, trying to improve. Acting alongside Fabi Bang, Andreza Mazzei and Gabriel Contente Gente, all the guys there. I learned a lot! I usually say that what I compare, I compare a player from Várzea going to play with the Brazilian team. And I had to run a lot behind, but I think I was able to add to the show in the end. The experience was very nice.
I got to do some other productions too that I won’t remember right now. I made the film with my mother, with my little one, and that was really cool. We made a film that will come out next year. I played my daughter’s stepfather, and I didn’t know if I was an actor or a fan there, a father or an actor, but it was really cool.
2022 was a roller coaster of emotions, as I usually say, at the end of the year I ended up losing my father, losing no, right? He just left this plan here and now he’s looking at us from another place. So, it was a very important year in my life and a lot of reflection. I’m still reflecting. And in this 2023, I want to accomplish many things that I’ve already written or that are in my head and that sometimes you put aside. But I really want to do my authorial things this new year.
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