The Framing That Compromised my Entire Actor Career

In a single scene, I missed the opportunity to become a successful actor.

I am a lucky man. When I decided to become an actor, I already knew several authors of soap operas, the peak of an actor’s career here in Brazil. As I was having a lot of fun in the theater and considering that it was a good profession’s choice, where I would grow as a human being and have a life full of news and achievements, having the right friends in the right places was another indication that I was making the right choice.

Whenever I had a play to perform at drama school, I invited my soap opera friends to watch me. In my naive mind, I thought that just the fact that they were my friends was enough. I never considered that they were very busy people and that they would never have time to watch drama school plays.

They didn’t.

Even inviting them to all of my plays — there were six — none of them ever came.

After I graduated and was doing my second professional play, one of the authors went to watch me. The play in question was “Blindness” by José Saramago. We had made a visceral, heavy montage… The author couldn’t resist. She left before the end because we had managed to punch her guts.

However, she sent me a message: she said she liked my performance a lot and wanted me to be part of her next miniseries on the most prominent Brazilian television network, Globo TV. It would tell the story of the Farrapos War, which took place in the 18th century. I would make an Italian warrior, brought from abroad to fight alongside Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italy’s famous revolutionary.

In practice, I was part of a choir that accompanied Garibaldi during the war.

That means that I didn’t have many lines; my character didn’t have a story of his own. My biggest job was to be part of a group and do beautiful fencing choreographies.

I didn’t realize it, but my friend was testing me. She wanted to see how I looked on the screen to give me better roles in the future.

And she liked what she saw!

In the following year, I was invited to make a new miniseries, “One Heart.” In it, I would be a painter, but with a — little — story of my own. I would be a cousin to one of the main actresses in the plot, and I would fall in love with another of the main actresses, the lover of my cousin’s husband.

This time I had an excellent opportunity to show my skills!

When reading the scripts, a specific scene worried me: I would marry that girl, and we would go on our honeymoon on São Paulo’s coast. However, on the way, we would be intercepted by my wife’s lover, who would take her from me.

I would be abandoned on the way to my honeymoon!

In the script, it was described that I would look terrible. That I should cry a lot and feel torn… And I thought: this is the most challenging scene I’m going to do on television! I need to be prepared, otherwise…

For two weeks, I studied. I tried all the possible techniques, tried variations of the actions I would take, and ended up finding an exciting way: besides the pain, I would feel angry. That made it possible for me to channel my emotions, and in my rehearsals, everything worked very well.

Until the day of the taping came.

The crew rented this Ford Model T for the descent to the coast. On the way, my beautiful wife and I would meet the actor who played her lover. She got out of the car asking me for forgiveness, and I would be there, alone, crying.

We taped all of the dialogues first, and the director left to tape my reaction separately at the end.

When my turn came, part of the team was already leaving. The actors were waiting for me in the dressing-room-bus. And I stood there alone in the back seat of the car, looking at nothing and pretending to be watching my wife — something ubiquitous on television — and having to express extreme emotions.

I concentrated… The director shouted “Action!”… And I started to cry. I was angry and nodding. The more I let go of my emotion, the more I got furious. At one point, I started punching the car’s front seat. I was in this performance for almost a minute, until the director said “Cut!”.

Happy with my performance, I was about to get out of the car when the director intervened: “Juliano, let’s do another shot. You need to stay still; I have the camera’s frame closed on your face; you escaped the frame!”

Damn, how to get back to that emotion like that in an instant? I barely started thinking about what to do, and I already heard “Action!” And then… I ended up just nodding, full of anger, unable to cry.

The scene that aired was this. And I thought it was crap.

Worse, the author, who had been believing in me so far, also thought it was crap.

She said to me, “You should have cried in that scene!”. And I didn’t want to blame the director. After all, he was doing his job; I should be able to cry the same way right away.

Maybe I wasn’t that good of an actor…

But I think that, if I had had another good opportunity, I would not have disappointed.

I still did dozens of roles after that. But I never played a big one again.

If only the director had told me that I couldn’t move much during that scene…