The rating [of "Aquarius"] was eventually brought down to 16 after the third appeal. Everything blew up after the second appeal because the press picked it up and spurred suspicions of persecution.

I'm scared of rehearsals, I'm scared of doing all this because I don't feel like I'm an actress.

I think the film [Aquarius] comes from that original feeling I had 18 years ago, when I was in a São Paulo supermarket. I was in line to pay for something, and when I looked up, I saw the little windows of a projection booth. That's when I realized the supermarket used to be a movie theater. They didn't even bother to change the walls. Years ago, "The Sound of Music" could've been playing in that space.

The movie [Aquarius] is about love, ultimately, and it was made with love. There were a lot of parents in the crew, and they were the best crew I had ever worked with. Everybody knew the construction of each scene, and were completely invested in every shooting day.

I'm not saying that we need more stories about people of a certain age, we just need more great stories about people.

I grew up in a very open-minded family. My father died when I was very little, so my mother was really, really incredibly busy trying to provide for us.

Sônia Braga reacted in a beautiful way to the draft I sent her, so we just made the film ["Aquarius"] as I had written it. Emilie [Lesclaux], my wife and producer, told me, "This is not a two-hour film. This is going to be longer." And I said, "Well, let's try and make it work, whatever length it is."