César Mourão is an actor who takes on various skins, but it's the comedy that feels more at ease. He consideres himself a kind of artist without a net, or the kind of comedy that he exercises in terms of the course of his career.
You started with Herman José and now you have a film and do you think that this is the career that you intended?
César Mourão: It's all right, but seven years before Herman José I had my career. I did not start with him, far from it, it was an important part of my career obviously, so I'm a huge fan and always have been. Nowadays, I do not think much along the way, like to do things that feel good, above all theater, then film and television at the end, but that are completely different jobs and shapes.
You have considered a comedian?
CM: No, I consider myself an actor. A comedian or comic does not have to be an actor, my work and training in the art of representation and if I have to make a movie with a dramatic character I can do it. The humor appeared inadvertently is a beach where I feel very good and gives me much joy, I do it more today.
You think that because you have been so successful in this comic area that you stay cataloged in this aspect and they offer you only comic work?
CM: Yes, in this movie "Song of Lisbon" my character has a lot of humor, he has a dramatic arc that also happens and is not just a mood log, there is a serious side and I still sing and that's fun. In the "Song Coutryard" on the contrary there was not a lot of humor, maybe it was the character with less favor between all the cast it was there. So I am very proud to be cataloged as a comedian and I like to be a humorist, just I am also an actor and with this I can do other things than these.
Then you consider like many artists do stress that humor is much more demanding to the actor, because it's harder to make people laugh?
CM: I do not know if it's more difficult than I think it is that depends on how each one faces it. When making a scene with dramatic air if people are silent in a room we interpret as are really enjoying because you do not hear a peep, if we go to the cinema and see a dramatic film people are also quiet, we deduce that are really enjoying. In comedy is immediate, people laugh at you and you think they like it, if they do not laugh they did not like it, it is easier to assess whether or not it works out. I, for one, am a comedy viewer that never laughs, I'm not a person that goes out of a show and laugh and sometimes I think it was spectacular and even say it's the best things I have ever seen and there are many people that they are like that. Now, if we have many people like that in a comedy show, at least two hundred people, I know it's horrible. It has not to do with the fact that people like it or not, but with the fact that we admired it and not we could laugh about it, comedy is more immediate one liked, or not and the drama is silent we infer they enjoyed the dramatic scene but it may not be what happens.
So, now you enter the are of stand-up?
CM: I do not enter. Let me correct, I do not do stand-up and never did. This form of comedy is a text that is written at home with already prepared jokes and one goes up to a stage with all that stuff on certain subjects. What I do is improvisation, I come, I have nothing absolutely prepared, make a improvisation or another, call a person to do a song about your life and none of it is prepared, it is improve comedy, theatrical improvisation, not in absolute term because it is not a show, but it is not stand-up, I do not do it and do not even have the talent for it.
Because it is a show witout a net, what happened when people do not like it?
CM: Never happened to me, fortunately. The challenge is that when we go to a circus we give more value to a trapeze artist, and we do not know why, that do their number without a net and not as much when an artist has a net below. Both have value, because the maneuvers are also dificult, only one has the net and the other is without any security and there is no difference. What I do is no different than my colleagues do, it is a complicated work, is another type, because in theirs there is a text and are off the hook because they know what they will talk about, I just do not, are the same maneuvers but without the net.
And you never have blanks?
CM: It's impossible to have a blank when I have nothing to say. Therefore, I cannot forget what I have not to remember. As I have nothing to memorize, there is not a blank, there may be only silence, but these exist, because the art in comedy is timing and not the joke that is been writing there. If I give a text to a security of a shoppping and give it to Raúl Solnado, the same words with the same commas will not be so funny in thesecurity voice, at the outset, on the other hand, they will have immense humor with the comedian. It is not what is written is the timing that is done, the dexterity with which we foward the public and not what the public think you're going for.
In all these areas where you move the theater is your favorite room?
CM: Yes, my favorite area is the theater. It's amazing to have that ability to take the audience to laughter as I want and where I want and not what they think will laugh and that's amazing. The magic of television and film are incredible, I prefer the latter, is more magical and a maneuver.
Let's talk about "Song of Lisbon", what were the challenges of such an iconic character, perpetuated by Vasco Santana?
CM: Actually the challenge was not very great, because it is not an imitation of Vasco Santana, I have no weight and the actor had a lot. I have only pride and respect because he played it. Now, the film is not an imitation, wants to be something else and has the capacity to be another movie, but has the same premise, that is, a person who studies medicine and does not study anything, aunts judge he is a doctor and he is not. The challenge is the same, but it is done differently, is the same thing If I asked you to draw a sunflower and a girl from Bangladesh, will be two different flowers.
Yes, but like all Portuguese of several generations, surely you saw this movie more than once, you end up always have in it in the back of your head the character that is unforgettable.
CM: Yes and is unforgettable and there are some parts of the movie that I "word for word" on purpose, the part of the exam is transcribed exactly from the film is a tribute and I am calm by not having to imitate.
