Sônia Braga was born on June 8, 1950,[3] She is daughter of Afro Brazilian[4] Hélio Fernando Ferraz Braga and Maria Braga Jaci Campos, a costume designer from Maringá.[5] Sônia's siblings are Júlio, Ana, Hélio and Maria. Sônia is the aunt of Alice Braga, an actress. Her parents and her four siblings moved to Curitiba and then to Campinas, São Paulo. When Braga was 8 years old, her father died, and she attended a convent school in São Paulo.
Career
In her teens, she took a job as a receptionist and typist at Buffet Torres, a wedding reception and event catering company in São Paulo.[6]
Her brother Hélio presented the TV Tupi children's show, Jardim Encantado. At age 14, Braga was invited by director Vicente Sesso to play small roles in children's programs and teleteatros on TV Tupi, including Jardim Encantado.[7] Braga then joined a theater group in Santo André, in the ABC region.[8] At 17, she debuted in the play George Dandin in Santo André.
In 1968, she was cast in the first Brazilian production of the musical Hair.[9] Sônia was, at first, turned down by director Ademar Guerra [pt], but at the insistence of producer/actor Altair Lima [pt], she joined Antônio Fagundes, Ney Latorraca, and the rest of the cast. Despite Institutional Act No. 5 being enacted by the dictatorship in Brazil, the musical ran for 3 years.[10] In 1977, Caetano Veloso wrote the song Tigresa in tribute to her: “She tells me she was an actress and worked on Hair. With some men she was happy, with others she was a woman”...[10]
In 1968, Braga was in the film O Bandido da Luz Vermelha. In 1969, she was invited to perform in A Menina do Veleiro Azul, a soap opera produced by TV Excelsior, but the network closed before the soap opera aired. In 1970, Braga was invited to join the cast of Irmãos Coragem, a soap opera written by Janete Clair, which aired on Rede Globo. Also in the early '70s, she appeared in supporting roles in the films A Moreninha [pt] and Cléo e Daniel.[9] Despite the success on stage and acting in soap operas, it was in the children's television series, Vila Sésamo, broadcast in 1972, that Braga became a household name.[11]
In 1976, Braga participated in the cast of Saramandaia. The following year she starred in Espelho Mágico as Cynthia Levy. One of the highlights of the soundtrack of the soap opera is the cover version that Gal Costa recorded of Tigresa, music that Caetano Veloso composed in honor of Braga. In the late 1970s, Braga gave life to another renowned character in Brazilian television, Julia Matos in Dancin' Days (1978). In the storyline, Braga played an ex-convict who gets out of prison ready to win back the love of her daughter, played by Gloria Pires. In 1979, Braga performed in children's theater in the play No País dos Prequetés. The following year she returned to television in the telenovela Chega Mais alongside Tony Ramos.
Braga had a recurring role as Lorraine Correia in the sixth season of the series Royal Pains. Braga's scenes were filmed on location in Mexico and her episodes were aired in August 2014.[22] In 2016, she appeared in Netflix's Marvel show Luke Cage as Rosario Dawson's mother.[23]
Braga received positive reviews for her film Aquarius when it premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. Braga plays a widow and retired music writer who lives in the titular apartment complex and refuses to leave when developers offer her a buy-out. Though the film did not earn an Oscar nomination for Braga, it did contend for Best Foreign Film at France's Cesar Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards. She ranked in the top five in IndieWire's 2016 critics' poll for Academy Award for Best Actress.
In 2020, The New York Times ranked her #24 in its list of the 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century.[24]
Personal life
Braga is a naturalized American, living since 1990 in New York City,[25] while also having two homes in Brazil, an apartment in Rio de Janeiro and a beach house in Niterói.[26]
During the 1980s, Braga also had a relationship with actor Robert Redford,[29] She then had a relationship with Pat Metheny,[30] and with singer Caetano Veloso, who wrote the songs “Tigresa” and “Trem das Cores” based on her.[31]
In August 2016, Braga revealed in an interview with the Brazilian Elle that she never intended to have children due to professional ambitions. She went through four abortions, the first after her first sexual relationship at the age of 17, that led to a strong hemorrhage followed by an uterine infection that nearly killed her.[32]
^"Sonia Braga". Filmbug.com. 11 August 2002. Archived from the original on 26 August 2003. Retrieved 9 July 2021.
^"Ebony". Johnson Publishing Company. February 1991.
^Singal, Ruvin (27 July 2010). "Sônia Braga". Celebridades : Onde Anda Você?. DestaqueSP. Archived from the original on 27 December 2011. Retrieved 9 July 2021. She started her career in children's theater. And at just 15 years old, she was hired by the extinct TV Tupi to present the children's program "Jardim Encantado". At 18, she participated in the play "Hair", a landmark on the Brazilian stage...Then, she was hired by TV Globo to be part of the cast of the soap opera "Irmãos Coragem". One of her most outstanding works on television was the children's educational program "Vila Sésamo", in 1972, where she played the teacher Ana Maria. She did this work at the invitation of her friend, also actor Armando Bógus.
^Eliane Trinidade (11 July 2010). "Sônia se despe do glamour de Hollywood". Folha de S.Paulo. Archived from the original on 15 June 2018. Retrieved 20 May 2014. "Sonia was a thin child and had huge eyes", says her brother Hélio Braga, artist and actor, who took her to the world of arts. He played a prince and she, one of the princesses, in the program "Jardim Encantado" on TV Tupi... She lost her father at age eight. Widowed and with seven children, her mother became a cashier at a gas station.... "I would wake up at 5 am, go to school, leave my two little brothers at the nursery, clean the house and then do my homework."...She decided to go to work, as her older brothers already did. A cousin found her a job at the traditional Buffet Torres in São Paulo, where she was a receptionist and typed budgets...At one of the buffet fashion shows, she met a makeup artist who took her to a model audition... Ronnie Von, the prince of the young guard, stopped to watch the rehearsal of that interesting girl with dark circles under her eyes...The photo of the two came out in a magazine...She was working hard as a secretary in a law firm, when director and translator José Rubens Siqueira called her to make the short film "Attention, Danger" in 1967...As Sonia lived far away, in Butantã, she lived in her friend's apartment in the Copan building, in downtown São Paulo. "I remember her posing nude for me in the kitchen, while my wife was making cassava soup," says the director...Back in 1967, Sonia was part of the director Heleny Guariba's troupe and went to play engaged theater at ABC. The director is part of the list of political disappeared from the military dictatorship... José Rubens encouraged her to audition for the musical "Hair". She wasn't chosen right away. Ademar Guerra, the director, was adamant about the 18-year-old aspiring who danced well but didn't sing...The director of the Brazilian production of the controversial show was persuaded to cast it...As soon as the musical arrived in Rio, she was asked by Daniel Filho for a role in "Irmãos Coragem", on Globo...With Arduino Colassanti, the leading man of the new cinema, she escaped to live an idyllic passion at the taste of the waves, when she starts the Rio chapter of her biography...Soon after, she was called to play the character of Jorge Amado on TV. "Gabriela" (1975) is the expression of a sensuality sung in prose and verse.
^"Sônia Braga". Memória (in Brazilian Portuguese). Globo Comunicações e Participações S.A. Archived from the original on 17 May 2022. Retrieved 9 July 2021. Com um ano de idade, mudou-se para Curitiba com os pais e os sete irmãos. Em seguida, a família foi para Campinas e, depois, para São Paulo. Aos 14 anos, começou a fazer pequenos papéis em programas e teleteatros infanto-juvenis na TV Tupi. Um desses programas era o Jardim Encantado, apresentado por seu irmão Hélio. Em seguida, integrou um grupo teatral que se apresentava na região do ABC e ficou um ano em Santo André.
^"Sônia Braga". Memoria Globo. 2013. Archived from the original on 3 July 2017. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
^ abJoão Rocha. "Sônia Braga". Sônia Braga Online. Archived from the original on 6 June 2014. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
^ abSantos, Esmeralda (8 June 2020). ""Vim ao mundo para apimentar histórias": Sônia Braga completa 70 anos". CLAUDIA (in Brazilian Portuguese). Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 9 July 2021. Completando seus 70 anos hoje, dia 8 de junho, a multitalentosa nasceu em Maringá, mas seus pais Hélio e Maria Braga e os quatro irmãos mudaram-se para Curitiba e depois Campinas, em São Paulo. Foi no programa juvenil Jardim Encantado com apenas 14 anos que Sônia Braga começou seus trabalhos dentro da televisão. A arte a chamou com muito mais força e depois da sua passagem nos programas da TV Tupi, Sônia ingressou no grupo teatral que realizava apresentações na região do ABC, Santo André, em São Paulo. Um de seus mais brilhantes e barulhentos papeis ainda no teatro, foi com o musical da Broadway "Hair – The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical Smash", que levava para os palcos questões raciais, a nudez, liberdade sexual e a guerra às drogas. No brasil iniciava um dos mais sombrios e complexos momentos – em 1968 foi decretado o Ato Institucional nº 5, comumente conhecido como AI-5, um marco que inaugurava a transição que instaurou a ditadura no país.