While we’ve seen an uptick in Hollywood representation for numerous groups in the past decade, those from Hispanic, Latin and South American countries continue to be the most underrepresented group to be seen in major roles these days. So it’s a huge deal to see Brazilian-American YouTuber Rudy Mancuso not only star in Música, but be the writer and director behind it too. When CinemaBlend spoke to the filmmaker, he shared why it was such a “dream come true” to “scratch the surface” with his autobiographical undertaking.
Not only did Música allow Rudy Mancuso to play Brazilian-American alongside Camila Mendes, who got to represent her own Brazilian roots for the first time in her career, the product is one of the best movies to watch on Amazon Prime right now with its near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score. Here’s what Mancuso shared with us:
In general, Brazilian culture is so massively underrepresented in mainstream TV and film. I mean, it’s a massive country with really passionate people who have such a specific, nuanced language, food and music. Why aren't we seeing more of that? I was so lucky I got the opportunity to just scratch the surface of what Brazilian culture [in a movie] could mean. It was really exciting to me. Brazilian-Portuguese is very musical in the way it's spoken, and I always talk about it and people don't really get it. So I was like, ‘This is an opportunity to show that.’
There’s reportedly about two million Brazilian Americans living in the United States, and yet the experience hasn’t really had the chance to be captured in a movie. Rudy Mancuso is a YouTube personality with over 2.6 million subscribers who decided to tell the story of his life through Música. The latest of the 2024 movies follows Rudy as he deals with the fallout of a breakup with a longtime girlfriend and performs puppet shows in the New Jersey subway in his spare time. But when Rudy starts to fall for a Brazilian woman (Mendes), his life starts to go into new directions.
While speaking about the making of Música, Mancuso spoke on how his own authentic experience was actually not believed by early viewers. In his words:
There was this scene in this film that seems so ridiculous and two-dimensional where I'm sitting with Haley's family at brunch and people are saying things that have a racist connotation. And, a lot of people in early screenings would be like ‘That scene was kind of a bit ridiculous and hyperbolic,’ and [I said] ] ‘Would you believe me if I told you I've had that conversation verbatim? Because, I have.’ So there were a few things in the test screenings I learned where people didn't quite buy where I was. It was hard for me to hear that because it's exactly what happened. Literally, that's exactly what they said, and that's what they did. So for you to tell me that it seems exaggerated to me, it's funny.
Along with Mancuso telling his own story with the Amazon film, he told CinemaBlend that he worked closely with Camila Mendes, who also served as a producer on it (after also producing Amazon rom-com Upgraded). Mendes was able to bring her own experiences to the movie and strengthened the movie even further. As Mancuso continued during our interview:
There's a bit of a misunderstanding about what Brazilian culture and the Brazilian-Portuguese language is and means, at least in my experience. And I think that is a product of and not being represented enough. So the fact that I got to play a Brazilian American, Camila got to play a Brazilian American, which we both are. My mom gets to play a Brazilian and she speaks Portuguese in it, which she is. And a lot of the rhythm performers are all Brazilian. The rhythm director is Brazilian. We shot on the Ironbound in Newark, where the film is set in, which is really full of Brazilians. It’s a dream come true. I think we need more of that.
In addition to Rudy Mancuso getting to represent his experience living as a Brazilian-American in New Jersey, he had plenty of people by his side to share the experience with him. He even included his own mother, Maria Mancuso, who plays his mom in the movie as well. Música is now streaming with an Amazon Prime subscription.
