You might have seen him as Pablo Escobar in Narcos or Captain Nascimento in Elite Squad. But in Apple TV+’s new show Dope Thief, Wagner Moura plays Manny, a grifter who poses as a DEA agent to rob drug dealers of their money and drugs. Wagner says the difference between Manny and the other two characters is in their intention.
“Manny doesn’t want to be there. He doesn’t want to be part of that. He sees another future for himself. He understands that he can do something else with his life,” Wagner tells ABC Audio. “But then, as many other Latinos and Black and poor people in the world, they get caught in that cycle and they can’t escape. And that’s very tragic, right? So in a sense, it’s about the same subject, but the character’s very different.”
In Dope Thief, Manny teams with best friend Ray (Brian Tyree Henry) for the scams, which are intended to be harmless ways to make a living. When they rob the wrong house and it turns into a life-or-death situation, Manny and Ray proceed to hold each other down on their quest to survive. Wagner says the bond seen between him and Brian formed quickly, as they are both “very spiritual people.”
“There was a connection immediately. But … can you imagine if, I mean, if there wasn’t?” Wagner asks. “You have to, like, be playing best friends in the van pretending that we like each [other].”
He adds that Brian took his “role really seriously” and took care of him “since day one till today.”
“I feel like if I need some s***, I would call this [man],” Wagner says. “And that means a lot.”
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