Sonia Braga Quotations

The film [Aquarius" ] is very, very successful. We had the highest per-screen average of last week's releases.

In Brazil, there is a fear and a denial of our past. Downtown Rio used to display the history of colonialism in Brazil. They had beautiful buildings and theaters, and there was a bakery that was threatened to be demolished, but people insisted against it. They laid down in front of it and said, "You're going to have to go over my body to destroy it." It frustrates me when I see people on Facebook posing in front of old buildings while on vacation, because they could've posed in front of equally beautiful buildings at home in Rio.

You see all these old buildings [in Rio] going down or catching fire overnight, and it is so sad. I am very connected with these buildings because they are our history. It is the only one that we have.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.