Wagner Moura tells THR at the red carpet premiere that working on 'Civil War' inspired him to talk to people who don't share his political views. Plus, he shares his perspective on the timing of the release.
00:02What did you think when you first wrote the script?
00:04I thought that that was no ordinary project.
00:07I thought that that was, especially coming from Alex Garland,
00:10I thought that that was a very timely and well-written script.
00:15Yeah. And obviously you got a show off this two years ago,
00:18but you're releasing it six months before the election at this kind of crazy time.
00:22How does that timing kind of feel for you?
00:24You know, I think that any art form is an interaction between what an artist wanted to say with it,
00:33with the time and the audience, a particular audience that's receiving this.
00:38Let's think that if this film was released like 10 years ago, it would have a different reception.
00:44If it would release this film 10 years in the future, it would have another reception.
00:51So I always find that very fascinating, right?
00:55Like even like films that are re-evaluated like after 20 years, 30 years and people will look,
01:00Oh my God, look at what this film is trying to say.
01:03But of course it's going to be read in the middle of this polarization,
01:09which is why I think Alex wrote this, which is what this film is about.
01:15Some of the chatter on this has been like, is this going to incite real life violence?
01:19Any of that stuff? Are you worried about that? Or do you feel like that's a risk?
01:23I wish it doesn't happen because this is exactly what, what the film is not about.
01:28You know, the film doesn't have a political agenda.
01:31You can, you can really not say that this is a liberal film.
01:34It's a conservative film. It's a film that says that polarization can lead.
01:39I wouldn't say like it was going to lead to any civil war, but can lead to social conflict, you know, and it's, and it's a problem for democracies.
01:49So it's kind of the biggest thing you want people to take away from this.
01:53Yeah, like I said, I mean, people have different reads, right? Like you have, I know what I thought when I was doing.
02:01I know, I kind of know what Alex thought when he was doing.
02:03But the beauty of it all is that when you release it, it's going to have different reads, right?
02:08Some, some of the reads are like, are like a surprise in a good way.
02:12Some of the reads can be a surprise in a bad way, but I can tell you myself after I wrapped this film,
02:20I really started to reach out to people that think differently politically, you know, and listen to them, you know,
02:27because if, if, if, if you believe in democracy, if you're not like some crazy racist, I don't know, homophobic kind of crazy thing,
02:35I'm really listening, willing to listen to you. And I'm surprised to, I was very surprised to see that there are a lot of common grounds.
02:45Lots of common grounds. If, if, if our differences are only like how the state deals with things,
02:51we should definitely listen to each other and talk to each other and avoid this hate, this, you know, this polarization.
02:58And journalism plays a very important role in that.
03:02And one of the things that we're getting a lot of attention is like the California and Texas being on the same side.
03:07What did you kind of think about that decision?
03:09There was, I was, I saw a poster with that Godzilla and, and, and King Kong are on the same side, right?
03:15They're working together. But in, in this one, I think that if there is an autocrat government, you know,
03:25if there is a fascist government that's like destroying democracy, why wouldn't Texas and California get together to, to bring this guy down?
03:34Yeah.
03:35Yeah.
03:36Yeah.
03:37Yeah.
03:38Yeah.
03:51That sounds like a beautiful, very dear, very nice.
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