Rodrigo Santoro walks into a cafe on New York’s West Side at 9 o’clock on a Sunday morning, wearing dark denim jeans, a NASA bomber jacket, sunglasses and bedhead. Seeing as it’s an obscenely early hour by Manhattan standards — the city that never sleeps is definitely still slumbering and the normally bustling Meatpacking District streets might as well have tumbleweeds blowing down them. And Santoro seems to be a bit groggy, too: “I would love a coffee, a strong one,” he says, taking off his shades.
It’s not that he was out clubbing the night before — it’s that the 44-year-old Brazilian actor, perhaps best known as Laura Linney’s heartbreakingly sweet love interest, Karl, in the beloved holiday favorite “Love, Actually,” has been working nonstop, simultaneously filming roles on both HBO’s “Westworld,” which shot its upcoming season in Los Angeles and Spain, and Hulu’s new, highly anticipated revenge tale “Reprisal,” which films in Wilmington, NC.
The morning before our meeting, Santoro flew from Wilmington to NYC and then spent a marathon day promoting “Reprisal” and posing for selfies with fans at New York Comic Con.
Not that he’s complaining. “I’m having the time of my life,” he says. “It’s been challenging, because the roles are so different. I’ll have to go to LA for a week, and then fly back down and jump right back into ‘Reprisal.’ But both productions have been cool about working with each other.”
On “Westworld,” about a futuristic theme park where guests are guided by robotic “hosts” (Season 3 premieres in 2020), Santoro plays Hector, an artificial being. In the hyper-noir “Reprisal” — which premiered last week and is described by Santoro as “Quentin Tarantino and David Lynch get into a car wreck” — he plays Joel, the tough-guy leader of a gang called the Banished Brothers.
“It’s tricky because Hector is not human, and Joel is as human as it gets. He’s all about his past, his 7-year-old daughter and his flaws. He’s 180 degrees from who I am, so that really intrigued me. I’m always looking to do things that are completely different than anything I’ve done before.”
“Reprisal” also marks the first time Santoro has played a character with substantial facial hair: specifically, the hipster-bartender beard he’s constantly pulling and smoothing over with his hand as he talks.
“The beard in the heat is … sweaty,” he says, tugging on the look, which took him three months to grow. “It’s very humid in North Carolina, and we shot all summer — my God. Joel is sweaty — it became part of the character. When you watch, know that that is real sweat. The other thing about the long beard is that you’ll find a piece of something in it and be like, ‘What is this?’” Since his “Westworld” alter ego, Hector, has a tight beard and mustache, it begs the question: How do they manage flipping between the two looks?
“They make movie magic,” he says with a laugh. “I can’t talk about ‘Westworld’ or I will get” — he pantomimes slitting his throat. “But I will say they make it work perfectly.”
Rodrigo, who lives in São Paolo, Brazil, when he’s not ping-ponging from city to city, is a massive star in his home country. (He’s even been nicknamed “The Brad Pitt of Brazil.”) No one in his family is an actor — dad’s an engineer, mom’s a painter, and sister’s an architect — but Santoro was always drawn to street theater, which he performed until he started acting professionally at the age of 18.
When one of his first films, “Behind the Sun,” won an award at the Venice Film Festival and then premiered in Los Angeles in 2001, Hollywood agents came calling. “I had no plans of working in [the States],” he recalls. “My life in Brazil was perfect. My career was great. I barely spoke English. I could not even put a couple of words together. Then I got approached by agents and I thought, ‘Like, in the movies? Like, Hollywood? Are you kidding me?’”
To learn English, Santoro, who has surfed his whole life, moved to San Diego for a month, hit the waves every day and took classes. His first Hollywood role, as “Young Man,” was alongside Helen Mirren in 2003’s “The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.”
“Here I am, this dude from Brazil, having tea with Helen Mirren.”
“On the first day on set in Rome, I went to the makeup trailer at 5 a.m., and Helen Mirren was having her tea,” he recalls. “I was like, ‘Oh! I’m so sorry to bother you.’ And she was like, ‘Oh, no, please, come here. Would you like a cup of tea?’ I was shy, and my English was still very poor, and I was like, ‘No, thank you.’ She said, ‘Are you sure? This is very good tea.’ So here I am, this dude from Brazil, having tea with Helen Mirren. She didn’t need to do that. She’s the real deal. A true artist. She was a partner in bringing me in.”
Later that same year, he appeared as Karl in “Love, Actually,” and again, was anointed by Hollywood royalty who went out of their way to make the new kid feel at ease. “We did a big table read, and it was Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Rowan Atkinson, Liam Neeson — and I was looking around, thinking, ‘What am I doing here?’ I was literally shaking. Laura grabbed my hand and said, ‘Hi, very nice to meet you. We’re gonna have a lot of fun together.’ She’s the sweetest person on the planet. She calmed me down.”
But his days of feeling like a newbie are long gone. Santoro hit the big time in 2006 as Xerxes in “300,” and cemented his star status by appearing in the megahit plane-crash drama “Lost” for seven episodes, as doomed con-man Paulo.
Next up? A film for Netflix, alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Jamie Foxx — although it’s another project about which Santoro has been sworn to secrecy. “I can say that that set was a blast,” he says. “The directors [Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman] are young, creative and super fun.”
When filming wraps on “Reprisal,” he’ll head back to Brazil with his wife, the Brazilian actress/singer/model/fashion blogger Melanie “Mel” Fronckowiak and their 2½-year-old daughter, Nina. They’ve never officially moved to America or Europe and still have a house in the mountains. His parents stay with them and care for their golden retriever when Fronckowiak and Santoro are away.
Santoro will also get to finally shave the beard (“I’m looking forward to that”) and go back to his usual off-duty style of trunks, flip-flops and a T-shirt. “Rio is very laid back,” he says. “I like fashion, and I’ll jump into a suit for a premiere or whatever. I’ve worked with so many great designers — a lot of Dolce [& Gabbana], Armani, Valentino, Hugo Boss, Zegna. But when I’m just being Rodrigo, I’m like, ‘What’s comfortable?’”
With some time off, and roots down in one place for a minute, he’s also looking forward to spending more quality time with his toddler daughter. “She’s my biggest teacher. I like to observe her and let her be, more than playing with her and directing her. She not into toys. She’s into nature and playing hide-and-seek. She was born dancing. We listen to music and dance every day.
“What I do for a living is based on observation with no judgment,” he continues. “I’m able to witness her ego being formed. She’s taught me a lot about the human condition.”
Fashion Editor: Serena French; Stylist: Emma Pritchard; Groomer: Jodie Boland at The Wall Group