Kleber Mendonça Filho’s political thriller, The Secret Agent, takes place in 1977, “uma época cheia de pirraça” (“a time full of mischief”). From the glint in Wagner Moura’s eye throughout our conversation, it was clear he knew a thing or two about mischief himself.
Moura accepted his Golden Globe Sunday night in a Maison Margiela look featuring a white double-breasted suit jacket paired with an Omega watch, a sleek ensemble put together by his stylist, Ilaria Urbinati. He said Urbinati has been teaching him how to dress for these kinds of events—opening him up to bolder colors and new ideas without breaching his stylistic boundaries. Clearly, the collaboration is working. Moura called his Globes look “very beautiful, very classy,” adding, “I’m very happy with it.”
When he’s not walking a red carpet, Moura dresses less showily: “Very simple, very discreet.” While he appreciates good clothes and the art of fashion, “it’s not something that I’m very into. I don’t know the brands nor the stylists nor the creators that well. But I think it’s a beautiful world of creativity, and I really respect it.”
As The Secret Agent’s Armando, Moura wears classic 1970s Brazilian fashion: light shirts with several rows of unbuttoned buttons, with a little chest peeking out. “A little chest peeking out,” he repeated back to me, laughing. “That’s exactly what it is.” Wearing those clothes dredged up his own memories: “They really remind me of the way my father used to dress up, with the chest peeking out. Back then, in the ’70s, at least in Brazil, I remember all the men—my uncles and all the adults—they would wear their shirts like that.” Armando’s style has started to bleed into Moura’s own off-camera life. “I have some buttoned shirts, and now I unbutton at least two buttons down to incorporate that chest-peeking-out vibe into my personal style,” he said.
He was a little less cheeky about what Sunday night meant to him. At the Globes, Moura became the first Brazilian actor to win best actor in a drama film; it seems likelier than ever that he will get an Oscar nomination for the role. The film’s success evokes the trajectory of the 2024 film I’m Still Here, which earned several Oscar nominations (and one win) after a solid showing at the 2025 Golden Globes.
“The most rewarding thing about this whole process is to see this Brazilian film receiving all the attention that it’s been receiving since Cannes in May,” Moura said. “The film is about memory—the lack of collective memory that Brazil has or had. I grew up watching American films and seeing the exportation of your culture. Culture is about values. So it’s super important—especially after the success of I’m Still Here, another Brazilian film about the dictatorship—to have not only Brazilians seeing their cultural products being recognized outside Brazil, but especially for us internally, in Brazil, we have to keep seeing ourselves. The self-esteem of a country comes with the understanding of who these people are. We have to see ourselves in our theater, in films, in visual arts.”
The Secret Agent is about a regular man who must do extraordinary things just to survive amidst the corruption and violence of Brazil’s dictatorship. “The character that I play in Secret Agent is like most of the people that are victims of a totalitarian regime—regular people just trying to live their lives,” Moura said. “What I find beautiful is that he is a man who is really sticking with the values that he has in situations like that. I think that’s a very noble and hard thing to do. It’s harder than we think in places where you don’t have the right to speak. It’s really hard to stick to your values when the values that are around you are the opposite of the values that you have.”
As Moura gets into the swing of awards season, his family is keeping him grounded—particularly his three sons. “I’ve been doing this for so long. I’ve been through so many ups and downs in my life,” he said. “I know what’s true and what’s not. This is a great moment of attention, but in two, three months, what will really matter is the way I’m going to pick up my kids at school.”
Don’t tell that to Brazil, though. Moura’s home country is known for its incredibly motivated fan base—people who especially love to see their countrymen win international awards, and who react harshly when their favorites experience any perceived disrespect. Moura noted how upset Brazilians got when his film received its Critics Choice Award on the red carpet, rather than during the ceremony: “They went to the internet, and they were very fucking pissed about it.” Was Moura upset as well? That’s unclear. But he was definitely amused by the reaction. Moura expected more esteem for the film at the Golden Globes. “There is an amount of Brazilian-ness in this thing,” he said. “I hadn’t done a film in Portuguese for 12 years, which is insane. It’s very special receiving all this attention and recognition for something that’s very Brazilian.”
More Great Stories From Vanity Fair
Cover Star Teyana Taylor on Her Breakout Year
Autopsy Report: Inside the Murdoch Dynasty’s Final Moments
The 11 Best-Dressed Stars at the 2026 Golden Globes
See All the Fashion From the 2026 Golden Globes Red Carpet
See the Full List of Winners From the 2026 Golden Globes
The MAGA Dive Bar That’s Also a Church
The Life—and Shocking Murder—of Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten
Belle Burden On Her Family’s “Legacy of Infidelity”
Susie Wiles, JD Vance, and the “Junkyard Dogs”: The White House Chief of Staff On Trump’s Second Term
From the Archive: Hitler’s Doomed Angel
