Wagner Moura

Wagner Moura was born on June 27, 1976, in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. He studied journalism at the Federal University of Bahia before building a career in theater and screen acting. His early Brazilian film work included the prison drama Carandiru (2003), directed by Héctor Babenco, and the popular comedy The Man of the Year (2003). He became widely recognized in Brazil as Captain Roberto Nascimento in José Padilha’s Elite Squad (Tropa de Elite, 2007). The film follows a BOPE officer amid Rio de Janeiro’s violence, police corruption, and preparations for a papal visit. It won the Golden Bear at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival.

Moura returned as Nascimento in Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (2010), where the character confronts institutional corruption after leaving the special police unit. He also played Paulo in Karim Aïnouz’s Lower City (2005), opposite Lázaro Ramos and Alice Braga, and appeared in the Hollywood science-fiction film Elysium (2013), playing Spider, a resistance figure who helps Matt Damon’s character reach the orbiting habitat reserved for the wealthy.

Internationally, Moura is especially associated with Pablo Escobar, whom he portrayed in Netflix’s Narcos (2015–2016). The series dramatizes the rise and fall of the Medellín Cartel leader and the efforts of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents to stop him. Moura learned Spanish for the role and gained weight to embody Escobar. His performance brought him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Television Series Drama in 2016. He did not return for Narcos: Mexico, which shifted its principal story to another cartel.

As a filmmaker, Moura made his feature directorial debut with Marighella. The film stars Seu Jorge as Carlos Marighella, the Brazilian writer and communist politician who organized resistance to Brazil’s military dictatorship and was killed by police in 1969. Marighella premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2019; it later reached Brazilian cinemas in 2021. Moura co-wrote the film with Felipe Braga and produced it through his company, Zazen Produções.

Later screen roles include the Brazilian diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello in Netflix’s Sergio (2020), a drama about the United Nations official killed in Baghdad in 2003. In Apple TV+’s Shining Girls (2022), he played journalist Dan Velazquez, who assists Elisabeth Moss’s Kirby Mazrachi as she investigates a serial attacker. Moura also portrayed photojournalist Joel in Alex Garland’s Civil War (2024), traveling with colleagues through a fractured United States during a domestic conflict.