Inside Brazil’s most eligible bachelor

If you are a female moviegoer who saw Warner Bros.’ stunning film 300, you did not probably put much attention to the actor who portrays the villainous Persian king, Xerxes, who is bejeweled and covered in heavy make-up, wears a skull cap, towers at seven feet and moves like a sexless god.

But what if after watching the relentless scenes of blood and epic battles, you decide to drop by your favorite video shop and rent your favorite movie, the 2003 hit British comedy Love Actually? What if you come across a bespectacled guy, a handsome boy-next-door type hopelessly in love with the character portrayed by Laura Linney?

What if that guy is the same actor you just saw as the charming yet cunning conqueror, King Xerxes?

When this writer was invited to cover the LA junket of 300 recently, only the lead actor, Gerard Butler, had a familiar name, and Rodrigo Santoro was just another name. I was wrong.

Rodrigo Santoro is not just another name. That I learned on the day of the interview.

I was talking to my friend, Ana, who lives in New York, and was telling her I was going to interview Gerard Butler. My friend is a huge Broadway fan and I thought she would be excited to know I was going to meet the actor who portrayed the masked Phantom in the film adaptation of the hit musical. She feigned some interest and asked me who else was in the schedule. I told him of a certain Brazilian actor named Rodrigo Santoro.

"Rodrigo Santoro! Oh, I love him!" She surprisingly exclaimed and babbled on forever about how much she loved the actor.

Apparently, the 6’2" actor has that effect on women.

Aside from being Brazil’s most eligible bachelor and that country’s biggest superstar, Santoro was listed 12th on People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive of 2006. In 2004, he was also on the 50 Most Beautiful People list on the same magazine.

In 300, he marks his first foray into major Hollywood filmmaking. In the film, he portrays the nefarious Persian ruler, King Xerxes, bent on conquering the world.

"I feel great. I feel honored to be part of something that is original and so unique," he says of his character. "To have had an opportunity to portray a character like that is rare. It is difficult to find something so interesting, so exotic."

He was originally considered for a part as one of the Spartan army but after the director saw his taped audition, Santoro was offered the role of the self-proclaimed god, who in the graphic novel appears completely hairless. "It was very weird. First I have to shave all my body hair, from head to toe," he shares. "I started by waxing — and I have a lot of respect for women, now — and my God, I know how it feels! I was like, ‘Stop, can you give a razor `coz I just want to shave it!’ I had to shave everyday to keep the continuity. It felt weird with no hair, like this alien sort of amphibious being."

The actor, who is of Italian, Brazilian and Portuguese descent, discovered acting while studying to become a journalist. "I wanted to be a doctor because I thought it was a beautiful profession, but it wasn’t in me," he said. "I found out by the time I was supposed to sign into the university that I wanted to be a journalist. I did that for two years and while I was doing that I joined this little theater company in the university and I started to do stage plays."

"My ambition is just to be a part of interesting projects. Just to have good opportunities, good characters and try not to do superficial stereotypes which I don’t think adds much to an actor."

In 1996, after he got cast in a hit soap opera, he quit college and embraced acting full time. "After a little while I booked a job in a TV series and here and there and then I started to make my living and decided to make it my profession since I love it so much," he reveals.

This door would further open up for him an enormous world of opportunities. In 2003, he booked his breakthrough role as the homeless man trying to seduce Helen Mirren in the Showtime production of The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.

"It was my first work out of Brazil," he recalls. "Not a lot of people know because it was an artsy film but it was the most amazing experience because we shot in Rome and Helen Mirren is just an inspiration herself. I see her at five in the morning, having a cup of tea and ready to rock. It was memorable."

He quickly followed it up with a brief but memorable part in Love Actually before he landed the biggest break of his career, the one that put him on the map in Hollywood: the Chanel No. 5 commercial with Nicole Kidman. He has appeared on the sequel of Charlie’s Angels and is currently one of the stars of the hit American TV series Lost.

He admits starting over in Hollywood, after achieving superstardom in his home country is just the sort of thing he needed. "Coming here and being not known helps to keep me grounded. I get the chance to get back on with myself and to actually put things in perspective" Santoro says.

"The feeling of being very much known is an intense experience because you have to be always very aware of everything around you. You have to ground yourself all the time, because even the most grounded person, with so much around them, sometimes gets confused and gets mixed up. If you don’t know what’s going on you can lose it," mused the actor.

300 is now showing in theaters.