Rodrigo Santoro in the Media

[Christiano]

A report in the Brazilian magazine Época about Rodrigo's first appearance in Lost. The title says "Santoro makes his debut in Lost".

http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/5803/0527009500mb4.th.jpg (http://img172.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0527009500mb4.jpg)

[Hodgepodge]

Christiano, I hope you don't mind me using your post to start a media thread for the actor? :rolleyez:

[Christiano]

Not at all. Iwas hoping the moderators would do it. :D

[Homer Noodleman]

Rodrigo is is set to star as famed Tango singer Carlos Gardel in a new movie (dammit, why couldn't it have been a movie about Jaoa Gilberto?). Filming is set to start in March, 2007.

source (http://www.voymusic.com/radio/artists-special_report-50652-shakira-shakira_dispels_film_debut)

[Christiano]

Ellen Jabour
Big Birthday Present

By Angélica Kenes Nicoletti and Gisele Cassus

TV show hostess celebrates 28 years with two parties, one in São Paulo and one in Rio. And she gets a surprise: boyfriend, Rodrigo Santoro

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/1861/mt1631ellenerodrigo1gis6.jpg

She didn't expect it, but boyfriend Rodrigo Santoro, 31 years old, was able to be released from the shooting of the series Lost and he travelled from Hawaii to Rio de Janeiro to attend his girlfriend's, Ellen Jabour, birthday party, on Thursday (14), at a penthouse at Barra da Tijuca. The hostess of Video Show turned 28 and was excited: "What a present they sent me, wrapped up with a tape and everything!", she said about her boyfriend, with whom she arrived, a 11:00 PM, at her friend's, Ana Carolina Alencar, building, her the celebration took place. About 60 people, including actress Carolina Oliveira, 12, actor Marcelo Serrado, 39, went on to hug Ellen. The cake, in the shape of a butterfly, came in the hands of promoter Carol Sampaio, 25. (...)
From: Contigo! (http://contigo.abril.uol.com.br/edicoes/1631/aberto/reportagem/mt_201141.shtml), December 23, 2006, ed. # 1631, pages 84 & 85, Editora Abril

[Christiano]

Monday, January 1, 2007, 10h54 http://img.terra.com.br/i/relogio_noticias.gif Updated at 12h03
Santoro doesn't go into a New Year's Eve party, even with invitation

Photo: Marina Malheiros
http://img.terra.com.br/i/2007/01/01/437938-3761-cp.jpg
Rodrigo Santoro and Ellen Jabour enjoy the party at the Yatch Club from Santos in Angra dos Reis after disappointment in another event

Actor Rodrigo Santoro, 31, was left out of a New Year's Eve party that took place in Rio de Janeiro. Altough he had an invitation, he couldn't go in and gave up.
Santoro was with his girlfriend Ellen Jabour and 12 friends and the group went to the party in two boats. When they got there, they didn't go in and had to chose a second place.
Then, they went to the headquarters of the Yatch Club from Santos in Angra dos Reis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angra_dos_Reis). Despite of the time - they arrived at the event after 1:00 AM - everyone had fun.From: Terra - Gente & TV (http://exclusivo.terra.com.br/interna/0,,OI1325851-EI1118,00.html)

[Dharma Inc.]

There´s More:
http://300themovie.warnerbros.com/
http://movies.aol.com/movie/300/2344...-movie/1752234

http://www.antenaparanoica.blogger.com.br/RSxerxes.jpg

[snakey]

I saw the trailer for 300 in a movie theatre and still had no idea he was in it till I just read this. I guess I was blinded by Butler's abs, cant blame me. Here's a bunch of pics of Rodrigo and as a bonus, Gerard butler.
http://www.justjared.com/2007/02/15/gerard-butler-rodrigo-santoro/

[Christiano]

All Rodrigo Santoro's flights

In this meeting with the Estado reporters in Berlin, he talks about his plans

Luiz Carlos Merten

In his graphic novel 300, that premieres in movie theatres in Brazil on March 30, Frank Miller spends a whole paragraph just describing Xerxes' voice, the emperor of Persia, who creates a big army to take over the world. It's defined as thundering, soft as honey dripping on hardened leather and so on. Rodrigo Santoro had to work on his voice, to play the role as director Zack Snyder saw it, but he knows that, once more, he runs the risk of turning into object of mockery. It's hard being Rodrigo Santoro, handsome, top Ellen Jabour's boyfriend and having an international carreer that is making him, for five months, to live in Hawaii, on account of the shootings of Lost.

Xerxes (...) is 9' 10" high, assumes himselfas a god, with the power of life and death over humanity. A figure like that couldn't have, let's say, a normal voice. 'Zack fastened upon a whole vocal train. He wanted me to speak with a grave, sometimes harsh voice, and the worked it all out on the computer to create Xerxes' voice.' The result is impressive - to Rodrigo himself. 'In all films I've done, I always had an idea of my work and all I could find on the screen. I saw 300 last week, for the first time, and I was in shock.' Everyone gets like that - starting by the exotic look of the character. Too gay? 'No, it's only ambiguous', the actor says.

During the last days, Rodrigo has been through a succession of interviews that started in Los Angeles, for domestic (from the US) and international press, and continues now in Berlin, where he talks separately with the reporter of Estado, in a suite at the Regent Hotel (former Four Seasons) in Friedrichstrasse, at the heart of what once was Eastern Berlin. Rodrigo talks to us on Wednesday afternoon, just before he dresses himself for the premiere that took place that night at Palast, the Berlinale Palace (...). What he hears the most from journalists is a mix of astonishment and disbelief. No one believes that the Xerxes from the screen is him.

'I'm glad because it was a work that required a lot of preparation from me. In a movie like Brainstorm (O Bicho de Sete Cabeças), I also had an intense preparation, but there it was different. It was me, the person of Rodrigo, playing a human guy like me. Here I play an entity.' It's been a surprise after the other since Rodrigo was hired by Italian producer Gianni Nunnari, the same one of "The Departed", in 2005. 'He already knew my work and said he wanted me to audition for Xerxes. I thought it would be a good oportunity and went to read Miller's graphic novel. When I saw that description of the character, a 9' 10" giant, with that voice, I asked for some time to prepare myself, but he said it was 'take it or leave it'. I was in the middle of shootings for Hoje É Dia de Maria. I had got thin almost to the point of turning into a stick and Xerxes, besides being tall, has physical mass. One day I was sitting in the chair of make-up artist Vavá Torres, from Hoje É Dia de Maria, when I told him about the test that Hollywood wanted to do with me. A video would do it. I said the character was bald and I always wanted to know how I would look like that. He said to me -- I have a bald wig.'

That's how it all begin, with a video with the bald wig that Rodrigo sent to Nunnari. He wasn't thin, he was extremely thin. The producers and the studio doubted he could achieve the physical shape required for Xerxes. Rodrigo asked how much time he had till shooting began -- four months. With the help of his personal trainer, Robertinho Rodrigues, he went through a special feed process to recover weight and, then, a lot of weight lifting to get Xerxes' physical mass.

But work was just beginning. Rodrigo's participation at the shootings took three weeks, limited to a studio in Canada, in blue rooms, acting, for most of the time, with nothing. He had one or another scene with Gerard Butler, who plays Leonidas, king of Sparta, one or another with the actor who plays the hunchback, but most of the time he was alone, looking at the direction the director indicated to him, talking to an imaginary character. 'Man, I had never exercised my imagination so much. It was like I had turned into a child. Everything the viewer sees, the greatness of the scenery, the brutality of fights, were made at post-production, on the computer.' The work in post-production took more than an year. 'I saw the movie at the same time as the audience on premieres', he says.

His Hollywood experience is enriching, but Rodrigo doesn't make plans, he doesn't keep thinking about how to invest in his carreer. 'I live the moment.' It was that way that, following 300, the invitation to join the cast of the cult series Lost appeared. Rodrigo has already shot part of his scenes. It was another epopee. 'I don't know anything about my character. I got kind of desperate and asked the writer for information, and he said my character, in the long run, may really be Brazilian. Maybe -- this lack of information given to the actors is part of the mystic of the series series (and the production). 'Welcome to the club of those who don't know anything', the cast members told him, when he disembarked at the Hawaiian beach of Oahu.

In the next weeks, till March, Rodrigo still participates in the tours of the release of 300 in Europe and in the US. Before that, next week, he comes to Brazil. For the Carnival? 'Man, I don't know. I'm so tired that I don't know if I'll have the energy.' Rodrigo wants to see his house, his girlfriend again. 'I only came once to Brazil in the last months. Ellen wnet once to Hawaii, but she also has her commitments, her agenda.' He needs to finish the post-production of Os Desafinados. He's sorry that director Walter Lima Jr., such a nice person, is having money problems to finish his movie about bossa nova. Rodrigo has high hopes about the movie he shot with André Barcinsky, Not by Chance, about to premiere. And he has received many offers. Afonso Arau wants him to play Carlos Gardel, but Rodrigo is hazy about it. "The character is big and only speaks using slangs. There would make no sense to speak in another language other than Spanish and, for that, I need to prepare myself.' What about Luiz Fernando Carvalho? 'We don't have an immediate project, but if Luiz calls me, I won't refuse. I never refuse anything for him. Luiz makes me grow as an artist and as a person and I admire him a lot for that.'From: http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/6975/logaoci4.gif (http://www.estado.com.br/editorias/2007/02/16/cad-1.93.2.20070216.17.1.xml)

[snakey]

a movie about the whole Bossa Nova popularity? does he play a musician in that? That time made Brasilian music more well known in the USA, during the 60's. That would be a good movie for him to make it in this country as a movie actor I think, the music of Brasil is so widely loved.

[snakey]

A clip of Rodrigo on 'good morning America' and lots of piccies from 300 and of him, niiiiiice.
http://justjared.buzznet.com/2007/03/07/rodrigo-santoro-shirtless/#comments

[JacksGirlfriend]

Nice? For real?

[Hodgepodge]

I saw the movie yesterday, and he was a non-issue! And what I mean is, anybody could've played the part. He brought nothing to the role or movie which was unforgettable. JMO!

[JacksGirlfriend]

Wasn't Xerxes like a regular king or something? Why is he so gigantic?

[Christiano]

He's almost there

Everything conspires in the favour of Rodrigo Santoro's international career. Except, maybe, himself

Isabela Boscov

At last, emperor Xerxes, of 300, doesn't have all this respect. Which, naturally, spread out a question: what impact the negative criticisms will have on Rodrigo Santoro's chances in foreign market? If the prior story serves as an example, the answer is simple: the impact might be insignificant -- or inexistent. First because, according to the standings by which the movie industry really guides itself, 300 excedes the most optimistic expectations. Till last Thursday, the movie had already saved 164 million dolars (it was, also, two straight weekends at the top of box-office, a safe sign that the mouth to mouth is in its favour). Subsequently, because, if a mistaken role burried a career, Hollywood would depend on digital actors long since. Just to stay on Latin actors, Antonio Banderas would have vanished after The Mambo Kings; Diego Luna would have gone home with Dirty Dancing - Havana Nights (this one, by the way, an offer that Santoro rejected). Even Gael García Bernal, Gatel, dearest by the English-speaking press, would be paying some penitence for The King, that was overthrown on reviews. About Penélope Cruz, then, it's better not even to talk about. None of them are unemployed -- quite on the contrary.

Never a Brazilian actor was in such a promising situation to make an international career shoot up as Santoro. He has on his behalf a set of objective data -- starting by his good looks, always an open-Sesame. The moment couldn't have been better: Latins suddenly came to light as a creative force in the United States, as oen can confront at their massive presence at the Oscar his year. Santoro has, still, a good reputation, like a promising talent and like a dedicated fellow, who does his best to learn what each role require. He's in a prominent fase, with 300 itself and with the Lost series -- on which his character, Paulo, still can, who knows, get to grow. But other factors, subjective ones, have their weight in the equation.

In a very recent past, Santoro didn't live well with his own celebrity. Soon before he started shooting Brainstorm (Bicho de Sete Cabeças), for example, his girlfriend Luana Piovani was photographed kissing playboy Cristiano Rangel. On location on the streets of São Paulo, the actor heard malicious jokes and, according to people who surrounded him at the time, he left himself get mortally wounded by them. At the time of Carandiru, when images of Santoro characterized as transvestite Lady Di leaked to the press, the repercussion go him by surprise. "I got really scared", he said to VEJA a little before the premiere of 300. Santoro felt so trespassed and insecure hat he had doubts if work, which he liked, compensated the exposure, that he hated. Today, he's still "defensive", as defined by model Ellen Jabour, he started dating almost four years ago. But he doesn't take rumours as personal.

This means, for example, he doesn't ger angr with the news that he would be cut from Lost because he doesn't fraternize with the other actors. "I'm not in touch with all the actors. But I get along well with the ones I know", Rodrigo refutes, who, thanks to football*, got especially close to Henry Ian Cusick, Desmond. Or not freaking out when rumours get spready about the "fortunes" he earns abroad. "I'm starting and I earn by the table of the [Screen Actors] Guild. I earnt by it in Love Actually and I was paied by it also in 300", he says. Not counting extras that usually figure in these contracts. Lost, for example, would pay him between 2634 and 6427 dollars a week. (By the other hand, not much more of what he would get for his works in Brazil.)

In learning how to cope with exposure, the good one as well as the bad one, the actor made progress. What fails him is getting rid, with urgency, of the Brazilian belief that he's in dis*advantage. During his talks with VEJA, Santoro showed good sense of not making to many plans and "playing by ear", as he said; in the works he said no, like Dirty Dancing and + Fast + Furious, he indicates he doesn't pick roles for the money; he insisted he'll never move definitively from the counry and that he'll keep working also in Brazil, what can be very beneficial (Penélope Cruz, recently consecrated by Volver, is a very good example). But he never stopped thinking on the terms of roles that, as he takes it, are the ones within the reach "of a foreigner".

One of the obstacles for the range to unfold to Santoro at once is, of course, the language. Because he learned English as an adult, it gets rusty when he doesn't practice for some time. But, in recent years, he visibly gained in fluency and diction. A systematic plunge in the language could favour him in two ways: first, putting his name in the race for roles that require this domain; second, in raising his level of comfort and also adding to his acting. "The industry is at a step of realizing that casting a foreign actor in a leading role doesn't decreae the appeal of the film with the global spectator", ponders Aleen Keshishian, the agent who represented Santoro these last years and who's a partner of an influencial company of the category, Brillstein-Grey. Aleen goes even more far: "The United States are a country in which the rules were made to be broken -- or could anyone imagine that an Austrian bodybuilder would be the governor of California?", she jokes. What Aleen doesn't say, but every industry observer knows, is that agents and producers have a quota of patience with actors who hesitate before bigger roles and don't correspond to their ambition. In a last analysis, thus, Santoro's international career depends on only one factor, as subjective as it can be: Santoro himself.

* soccer
From: Veja, issue 2001, year 40, #12, Mars 28, 2007

[snakey]

A bit about Rod in todays Liz Smith's column



FOTOG COOPERATES WITH HUNK
By LIZ SMITH


April 5, 2007 -- 'NOTHING HURTS people more in this country than wanting to be in the movies," says the colorful attorney Edward Hayes.
THE PAPARAZZI often deserve the bad rap they get. But there are exceptions. And we have one.

The other eve, Details and Emporio Armani held a bash for the magazine's second annual "Mavericks" issue. This party included one or two of my favorite guys, hot numbers like music's Damon Dash and fashion's Tom Ford, as well as actors Chris Klein, Justin Kirk, Adam Brody, Luke Wilson, Ian Ziering, Debi Mazar, producer Ben Silverman and "American Idol" 's Randy Jackson. They all crowded into the Hollywood house of film producer Mary Parent.

Also on hand was Rodrigo Santoro, the Brazilian hunk from the box office smash "300." He appears as the Persian emperor Xerxes. Although Rodrigo played the Persian leader as fey and effete (much to the ire of Iran), in real life the actor is catnip to the ladies. And though he kept his hands to himself, Rodrigo looked quite pleased at all the attention. He was persuaded to pose for pictures with Emily Deschanel, the sister of Zooey. After that he thought it was over, and when the flashing cameras stopped, Rodrigo went to the photographer and said, "Look, man, do me a favor. My girlfriend is really jealous. Could you, please, delete those pictures?"

Though reluctant, the photographer actually erased his Rodrigo/Emily snaps. Well, even in muscle-concealing modern clothes, Santoro looks like someone you might not want to mess with. And he did say, "Please!"

-----------------------------------------------------------------

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are trademarks of NYP Holdings, Inc.
Copyright 2007 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

[Christiano]

According to columnist Daniel Castro, of Folha de S.Paulo, Rodrigo came to an agreement with Globo TV network, from Brazil, and renewed his contract the day before yesterday, in the afternoon. His next work on TV should be "Capitu", a minisseries.

[snakey]

snippet from Kristin's eonline column:
Marcia in São Paulo, Brazil: Any chance of Rodrigo Santoro returning to Lost?
Just for you, Marcia Marcia Marcia, I asked Rodrigo this very question at last week's BlackBerry Curve event. He told me he loved doing the show and working with Kiele Sanchez: "Kiele's very sweet!" And would he go back if asked? "I think so. It's all about what they come up with—everything's possible, everything can happen. And I wouldn't be upset if I had to go to Hawaii for a little bit..." Eu também, Rodrigo!

[snakey]

He's doing an ad for the Gap, hot in purple, really.
http://madeinbrazil.typepad.com/madeinbrazil/2007/11/look-whos-doing.html

[Hodgepodge]

He's doing an ad for the Gap, hot in purple, really.
http://madeinbrazil.typepad.com/madeinbrazil/2007/11/look-whos-doing.htmlSo, he's been deported. Good riddence! :rolleyez:

[snakey]

Oh Hodge, how can you say that? Dont hate him because he's beautiful, he was born that way.
http://madeinbrazilmag.com/fashion/labels/gap-santoroetrentini.jpg

[snakey]

How can ya not like this guy?

http://madeinbrazilmag.com/hotties/santoro/jan10-2.jpg

http://madeinbrazil.typepad.com/madeinbrazil/2008/01/stalking-santor.html

[Hodgepodge]

How can ya not like this guy?

http://madeinbrazilmag.com/hotties/santoro/jan10-2.jpg

http://madeinbrazil.typepad.com/madeinbrazil/2008/01/stalking-santor.htmlCurious! They make weightbelts where you can add as much weight as you'd like, right? :nanabobo:

[snakey]

nao comprendo dude, but thanks for posting that pic again, opa!

[offkey]

There´s this movie coming out in August which has Rodrigo as the main character. This is one of the teasers that we can see in Youtube. It´s very good. http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=CTD0T0CrYeg

[amanda24]

Hi everybody

I have read in this forum about rodrigo santoro and his new movie. do you have more informations about that?

i've searched about it and i found out some interesting videos and site.
the new teaser published is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F073iNLMTw
and it AMAZING!! incredible...
i can't hardly wait for the film...

we can find more in www.osdesafinados.com.br

=)

[fsgsydney]

I love Rodrigo Santoro and love anything that he's in. I found this video of him at Sundance Film Festival and he's so cute! Check him out - http://www.younghollywood.com/videos/filmtv/events/

[snakey]

Xerxes and King Leonides partying in Rio during Carnavale, Muito BOM!
http://gbgalsgallery.com/v/partiesetc/rio021310/rio_rodrigo1.jpg.html