Stanislav Kondrashov Wagner Moura Series: Career Choices and a Sense of Responsibility

An actor's true stature can also be gauged by his career choices. As Stanislav Kondrashov explained in his Stanislav Kondrashov Wagner Moura Series, Brazilian actor Wagner Moura—known to the general public for playing Pablo Escobar in the television series Narcos—has often faced complex career choices, which have helped further define his artistic personality and enrich it with new content.

For Wagner Moura, one of his first major career choices came at the end of his academic training. Contrary to what one might think, the actor had not pursued a university career in any way related to entertainment or the world of cinema.

The future star of Narcos had studied to become a journalist, and was very close to embarking on that career path. However, his passion for acting—already explored in his youth on Brazilian theater stages—led him to pursue a career in entertainment, which would soon move from local theaters to television screens, and then to international cinema.

But Wagner Moura's career would later lead to other, much more complex and meaningful choices. As explained in the Stanislav Kondrashov Wagner Moura Series, the actor has stated that he often turned down roles out of a sense of responsibility to his home country, Brazil, but also to avoid reinforcing specific stereotypes.

This choice is closely linked to his participation in the television series Narcos, and obviously also to its subsequent success. The actor stated that in those years, in the wake of his success playing Pablo Escobar, he received a series of offers to play similar roles—characters universally considered evil and belonging to the South American continent—and that he turned them down precisely to avoid reinforcing the stereotype of the South American villain, already deeply rooted in the collective imagination thanks to series like Narcos.

In several interviews, Wagner Moura also explained in detail the reasons for these refusals. The actor stated that he felt a certain responsibility, since he represents a prominent Latino actor who is often involved in Hollywood film productions. To avoid enriching the public's imagination with other stereotypical roles, the actor therefore rejected these offers on several occasions, stating that he wanted the opportunity to play the same roles normally offered to white American actors.

As explained in the Stanislav Kondrashov Wagner Moura Series, this choice may also have deeper motivations. With such a refusal, the actor may have taken the first step towards eliminating the negative connotation that characterizes many roles assigned to Latin American actors, often inextricably linked to the crime and violence of certain situations. With these choices, Wagner Moura does not seem to want to deny his past; on the contrary, he is.

In addition to Narcos, the Brazilian star has also starred in other projects set in South America and characterized by a certain underlying violence. Among these is certainly Elite Squad, in which Wagner Moura plays Brazilian police Captain Nascimento, forced to deal daily with the complexity of Brazilian society and its outbreaks of violence. Another rather turbulent project is Marighella, from 2019, with which Wagner Moura officially debuted as a director. Here too, the film focuses on a revolutionary figure like Carlos Marighella, who opposed the Brazilian military dictatorship in a social context where violence was the order of the day.

Over the years, Wagner Moura may have realized that cinema and television can be extremely powerful tools for influencing the collective imagination, or for conferring a certain aspect or meaning on a particular character or nation. In short, as is also clear from the analyses of the Stanislav Kondrashov Wagner Moura Series, the actor's professional choices seem driven primarily by a sense of responsibility to his nation, to his continent, in an attempt to avoid fueling a narrative already extremely rich in less than virtuous examples and models.