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Ugly side to heart-throb
Archived in April 05, 2007
Categories: Online Articles, 2007
Peta Hellard - April 05, 2007 12:00am
Article from: Herald-Sun
HIS good looks have helped make him a household name in his native Brazil and an up-and-coming Hollywood heart-throb, but Rodrigo Santoro has thrown away all vanity.
The handsome man who played the office hunk in Love Actually and Nicole Kidman's lover in Baz Luhrmann's pricey Chanel No.5 commercial is almost unrecognisable in Spartan battle epic 300, inspired by the graphic novel by Sin City creator Frank Miller.
The observation prompts a big smile and a heart-felt thank you from Santoro.
``It was about five hours in make-up every day,'' he says with a laugh.
``I was actually salivating when I saw the picture (of the character), when I saw the drawings, because I thought, this is amazing -- this is a great opportunity to play something completely different from everything I've done before.''
The film is about one of history's most famous conflicts: the 480BC Battle of Thermopylae in which 300 Spartan soldiers, led by the indomitable King Leonidas, defended Greece in a defiant last stand against the 250,000-strong invading armies of Persia.
Santoro, 31, plays the ego-maniac Persian dictator Xerxes.
Though much has been made of the intense training leading man Gerard Butler, who plays Leonidas, and the cast of fellow Spartan warriors underwent to produce awe-inspiring, super-buffed bodies, Santoro also faced a mammoth physical transformation before playing Xerxes.
``When I auditioned for this part I was shooting something in Brazil for which I had to lose 18kg, so I was really, really skinny,'' he says.
``I was going to play a giant figure so I had to put that weight on again, then bulk up to be this formidable, towering character. It took a lot of work to get there.''
Santoro had to make other sacrifices for the aesthetically challenging role.
``I had my whole body shaved,'' he says.
``We started waxing -- and I had a lot of respect for women after that because it just hurt so much that the next day I asked for a razor and shaved my whole body instead.''
Santoro says he is keen to work again with Moulin Rouge's Australian director Luhrmann, who handpicked him as the love interest in the Chanel No.5 advertisement.
``He was born to be an artist -- it is unbelievable, his talent,'' Santoro says.
``In the commercial you barely see the product, apart from the No.5 at the end in diamonds.
``Baz approached it exactly like a movie -- a love story with character development.''
The effects-heavy 300 has been a surprise monster hit, but Rodrigo also has several other balls in the air when it comes to making it in Hollywood.
A 14-EPISODE run as a new supporting character in Lost has boosted his profile in the US and around the world, where the series is a smash hit.
His character -- a mysterious Brazilian named Paolo -- featured prominently in the episode that screened last week in the US.
His backstory was finally explained before he met a shocking end in the closing moments.
Santoro says he has been kept in the dark about his character since being cast in the series, which is a huge hit in Brazil.
``You literally don't know what's going on, so there's no control,'' he says.
``Actually, it's hard to build a character like that. It basically puts an actor in a position of just having to live the moment once you get the script, which is not long before you start shooting.
``You have to just go from there and be in the moment.
``It is a kind of lost feeling, actually. You don't know what's going on, and I think that's the beauty of the experience.''
Herald Sun |
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