- Hi, I'm Krista Smith, and welcome to the Corner Booth,
and I am here with Argentina's finest, Juan Minujin.
(speaking in a foreign language)
(calm music)
You are in The Two Popes and you actually play
the younger Pope Francis when he was deciding to go
into the seminary and become a priest.
How important was this role for you?
- Oh, huge, very, very important.
To work with Fernando Meirelles is like a dream.
I've been admiring his work for a very long time
and being in the same film with Jonathan Pryce
and Anthony Hopkins, it's, of course, I mean,
fantastic actors and I think watching the movies
for I mean, my whole life, I would say, yeah.
So, it's really, really special for me.
- Did you and Jonathan speak at all?
I mean, did you mirror each other at all?
- Yeah, we met in London before we started shootings.
We made some readings and I did readings with the sort
of Argentinian accent because Jonathan has a lot
of English, but he wanted to have the Argentinian accent
so we read so many different parts of the film together
and for me, it's the first time I play a leading character,
so it was very interesting to do that because
it's also a very important character, no?
The Pope.
- And the responsibility.
I mean, so many people are gonna--
- It's gonna, yeah.
- It's gonna be judged on a higher or different plane
than playing other characters.
I mean, would you have ever imagined
that you would have played a young--
- No, never, never in my life because I don't think,
I'm a similar to Bergoglio, but also with Fernando Meirelles
I felt so confident that of course he's a master
and the way he wanted to portray these memories
that Jonathan, when he recalls things, so we worked
with a lot of freedom.
- [Krista] What did you learn from him, working with him?
- He has the ability to listen to the actors and to be able
to take things at that very moment, you know?
He's very, I don't know how to explain it in English,
but it's very playful when he is shooting.
He's like a student doing his first short film, you know?
He's such a passionate guy with that,
so that was really, really amazing.
(speaking in a foreign language)
- Was there any source material for you, for playing Jorge,
like the young?
- We investigated a lot.
We saw lots of footage and then just tried to imagine,
you know, I'm not a religion person, so I tried to,
I had to construct a lot of what's that sense, that,
you know, the--
- [Krista] The calling.
- The calling, yeah, that's a very, very hard thing
to understand for someone who's not religious.
So that was a very hard moment to try to understand,
try to look in my own experience to know what could be
similar, you know, to be able to act this.
(speaking in a foreign language)
- Did you used to go to cinema as a kid?
Like, how did you get into, your English is perfect,
by the way.
- Oh, thank you.
- It's a little English accent in there too, I like that.
Did you grow up watching movies or going to cinema?
- Yeah, yeah, very much.
I grew up in Mexico when I was, until I was eight years old.
I lived in London for a couple of years,
but like 30 years ago, but yeah, yeah, I loved films.
- Now you've done a lot of theater in your career, right?
Do you kind of feel more comfortable in one medium
over the other?
- Well in theater, you have the audience there,
so it's a very different feeling,
and you act for a very long period.
In cinema, you act perhaps 15 seconds and cut.
One minute, cut, and in theater, perhaps you know,
90 minutes.
- And what is it that you love about acting?
What made you decide like, this is a career?
'Cause it's not an easy career.
- Yeah, yeah, well that's something that you try to bring
life to a character.
You have to put your own experience there and it's very,
very personal, so you really have to put in that character,
and many times you play characters that have nothing to do
with you, and that's a very interesting thing to do.
And also you keep playing, you know, as a kid.
So that's a good thing, too.
- What do you hope that audiences take from this?
- I think it's gonna be an important movie.
I think people are going to like it because it shows
a very human part of him.
(speaking in a foreign language)
(dramatic music)
- I think that that's going to be very, very interesting.
At the beginning, you could say oh, the conversation
between two popes, what is that?
Perhaps, it's a little bit solemn or a little bit
too serious, but Fernando has a sense of humor,
delicious and of course Jonathan.
- St. Francis, intercede for us, as we seek to repair
the Church.
- So, I think it's gonna be very well received.
- Well, it's great to meet you.
- Oh, thank you, you too, yeah.
- It's great, and the movie's fantastic and beautiful
and funny, and everything.
- Oh, thank you so much.
- Yeah, great to meet you. - Thank you.
(gentle music)