You have participated in several Portuguese films, with these new filmmakers that do a kind of auteur cinema; do you notice that there is a bias towards domestic production?
TM: Maybe, I think so. I'm not a filmmaker, but I see that there are many more people with courage. In the past there were also, every filmmaker is different from the others, each had their ideas, but now there are more, and much younger. According to the rules to make a movie the more you expose your personal ideas, the more interesting the film is. Many have been doing that, and not just a film that is almost ad, so called commercial cinema.
Which of the characters you created in a film was a major challenge? Which required the most of you? Or at least left a mark, a memory?
TM: It's hard to say. Usually I'm inclined to defend all the characters. There can be movies that I liked more, or others that I liked less.
So what were the ones you liked to do the most?
TM: The White City and the Taboo. Not to say that there is no other. I feel I have to defend my character, whatever it is. The challenge is to achieve that, or not. I think the movies marked me more than the characters.
Do you prepare the characters differently for the cinema? Compared to for example, the theater or even to soaps?
TM: I always have the same working method, and it is a matter of timing. Accelerate or decelerate. In the soaps, for example, I have to be super fast, the way I work. I like to record the text and hear it often, even without the worry of memorizing it, that I do later. I like to have the notion of the scenes, not only of what I say, but what everyone says. I am more interested all the text than just mine, of what happens. But that I do for movies in the theater and in novels. There are things I do in the same way at all, and then there is the matter of detail. There are many more rehearsals in theater. In this film, Taboo, there were many rehearsals what is unusual. In soaps there are no rehearsals at all.
Then the construction of the character comes to be from what others say, or how they interact with it?
TM: Yes, that's how I usually see the character. It's not just what I say. Of course, what others say is very important and also the way I respond to what others tell me. Never see only my lines, words. (Laughs)
From all these areas in artistic terms, what is your favorite?
TM: Film is what gives me more pleasure to do.
Why?
TM: I do not know, went to the conservatory because of cinema, not theater, because I had never seen a play.
So what is the film of your life?
TM: There are a lot. At the time when I was a kid there were a lot of musicals on television, which unluckily I could never sing. (Laughs)
So what attracts you to the cinema?
TM: There were very different things in cinema. It was more what I saw on television at the time and has been for many years. After I began watching movies, I was interested by Jean-Luc Godard, or Renoir. Over time there have been many other films that were surprised me again and again. To say what marked me most is very difficult I think. (Laughs).
