Mônica Bergamo: ‘I am a feminist, but not possessed’, says Vera Fischer

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Vera Fischer is in love. The chosen one is Yuki, a kitten found in the trash can that has been with her for a year and three months. “I love that cat.”

About dating human beings, the actress says she is not in the mood. “But I’m not dead. I flirt a lot,” she says. In addition to Yuki, she says that her commitment is now to work: she is performing at the Teatro Raul Cortez, in São Paulo, with the play “Quando Eu for Mãe Quero Amar esse Jeito”.

And he says he has many other projects. One of them is the Netflix movie “A Christmas Full of Grace”, which premieres at the end of the year. In the story, she plays the mother of Sérgio Malheiros, the “heart of the production”. “I wear a short wig, because I didn’t want to be me, I wanted to be different. And then I take a tumble right at the beginning of the movie, and the whole plot is with a bandage in the middle of my face. Just looking at it is already funny”, reveals.

A fall in real life she says she took when she presented the play currently in SP in a small theater, during the production tour of other cities in the country. The dress wrapped around the stage curtain, and Vera fell to the floor. Actor Mouhamed Harfouch, who plays his son in the production, improvised: “Mummy, you fell.” She followed the lead: “I’m old, old man falls”, she says, laughing.

Miss Brazil in 1969 and considered a sex symbol all her life, Vera says she sees aging as a liberating process. “I have a child’s soul,” she explains. She also claims not to apply botox or fill in her face. “I don’t want to be flat, I want to stay the way I am”.

Despite a little problem in the hip and another in the knees, he insists on showing the spine that he remains flexible and with plenty of vitality. “I did classical ballet as a child. I do some things. I’ll do it for you”, he says. Afterwards, she sits on the floor, in the audience of Teatro Raul Cortez, and spreads her legs like a split. “It’s very easy to do these things for me,” she adds.

During the 40 minutes of the interview, Vera Fischer speaks quickly and changes one subject to another. She calls herself a feminist, but without being a pamphleteer. She reports that she stopped using drugs when she wanted to and that she suffered a lot of harassment from TV and film directors, but she always managed to “get away”. “I never had to give to anyone [para conseguir papéis]”, it says.

You only dodge when the question is about politics. “I’m not the pamphleteer type,” he repeats.

Read the main excerpts from the conversation below.

BOTOX

I will be 71 years old in two months [Vera faz aniversário em 27 de novembro]. I’ve never had a problem getting old, because I have a child’s soul. I have a childlike spirit.

People say: ‘Vera did face filler, for sure.’ If I had fillers, my face would look huge, because I already have a big face. I will not do that. And botox I don’t like because I’m an actress. I want to have my expressions. I don’t want to be smooth. I want to stay the way I am.

The only thing I don’t like for myself—maybe one day I’ll do it, but not now—is turning my hair white. Because I’m very white. Fafá de Belém, who is very dark-skinned, gets a lot of sun and has white hair. Then I think it’s beautiful.

AGING

Has a liberating side [em envelhecer]. I had a therapist who said: ‘Vera, you always have to look beautiful, with makeup. You can’t even go to the bakery without makeup.’

And I followed because she was my therapist. After the pandemic, my employees disappeared, I sent everyone away. I have a secretary that stays at her house. I do everything. I go to the bakery, the hortifruti, the supermarket. I tie my hair up and put on my sunglasses or prescription glasses, and I go without any makeup.

I go as I am. That’s liberating. I travel by plane, I go to places, I go to dinner, with no makeup on. This I learned in the pandemic: why have to show off something for others? I have to be happy with myself.

Of course I have consideration for the public. But if I had to play a character without any makeup, I would too. When I give an interview, I try to put on a little lipstick, a “little blush”, and that’s it. But I’m not that person who wears false eyelashes. I can not stand.

GLOBE EXIT

Today I’m much freer too, and I’ll tell you why: this thing of being hired from the age of 26 until the pandemic at Globo… I was forced to do what they offered. Now, I am no more.

I was sent away in March 2020. I had a scare. I got home, cried a little bit and said, ‘You know what? I’ll have wine’. I drank my wine, calmed down and thought: there’s no turning back. Then I started to get really happy.

Novel is something that no longer attracts me. But if a good character comes along… Because now I can choose. I’m not crazy about it, because I already lost the contract. It is necessary to adapt to a new reality in every way.

No more superfluous. I’m trying to move house, because I live alone in a penthouse with a pool. You have to climb stairs, water the plant. I do not want this anymore. I want a place there in Leblon, but smaller, without stairs or swimming pool. I don’t need it anymore.

FEMINISM AND DATING

I’m a feminist, but I’m not possessed. You know that thing that has to make speeches here and there? I hate that pamphleteer type, whatever it is. I consider myself a feminist, but feminine too. [risos]. Not forgetting tenderness.

I’m not dating, but I’m not dead. I flirt a lot. Not over the internet, live. Sometimes on the plane, in the restaurant, on the street.

After my two marriages, all the boyfriends went to their house, and I to mine. But now I don’t want commitment. I wouldn’t even have time. And we have to be in the “vibe” of it. I’m in a work vibe and being in love with my cat.

ETERNAL CHILD

I have a very childish thing. Sometimes the adult annoys me. I like to be with the children and with people who are more open-minded, freer. I was always free. I never had ties to anything. I’ve never married [no papel]. I’m single.

And I don’t think about the elaborations that adults make with money and the things they think are important. I value what I value. I like, for example, people, but real people.

People say, ‘Oh, you should have a posture’. Folks, I’m not a grand lady, I’m not a goddess, I’m nothing. But if you factor it all in, I’m all that too.

middle people [artístico] have a prejudice because they think they are more [que os outros]. I don’t think anymore [que ninguém]. I prefer to be like this in this natural way with everyone.

‘BRUXONE’

[Na juventude] I didn’t want to be an actress, I didn’t want to be anything. I just wanted to work and support myself. I thought like this: if I go to miss, win Blumenau, Santa Catarina, Brazil, my father will let me out of the house and that’s it. I envisioned it. And I’m a bit of a witch at this point, when I think about it, it works.

I don’t have that whim. When I was 20 years old, I was asked to make my first film, which was “The Super Female”. The director told me: ‘But you have to be naked’. And I said: ‘No problem’. Because it doesn’t. Nudity is one thing, sex is another. Brazilians have a habit of associating nudity with sex. I do not. I grew up thinking that nudity is nudity, and sex is something else.

ACTRESS

Until I was 25, I used to say: ‘I’m working, but I’m not an actress’. Although she had already done movies and everything, but she hadn’t done a soap opera yet.

At 25, me and Perry [o ator e diretor Perry Salles]my first husband, we produced a movie, “Intimacy” [1975]. After that movie, I said: ‘Now I’m an actress’. Do you know these clarity you have?

MALE AND HARASSMENT

I suffered prejudice and machismo on television and in the movies. But I’ve always been very curious and very funny. Can I tell you something? I don’t know if it’s good to post this [ela silencia por alguns segundos]

I won’t tell. But it’s something the director wants [a coluna a questiona se era uma situação de assédio, e ela confirma].

I gave an answer the guy couldn’t imagine. I talked about menstruation, stuff like that. The person was getting disgusted, disgusted, disgusted, disgusted. He never said anything again.

I always got away with not getting me out of work and at the same time being able to cut guys’ high. I never had to give it to anyone. I would leave the novel [se precisasse transar com o diretor]if that were the case.

Other people had depression or could stay [no trabalho]. That kind of game, I’ve never played. I am free.

I think people should talk, yes, about harassment [como é falado hoje em dia]. But talking 20 years after it happened? Ah, sorry… Why didn’t you defend yourself? [antes]? Don’t have nails and teeth? Women have this serious flaw of not talking or not defending themselves. I do not know what is. Why do you have to expect help from Me Too?

But I’m different too. Each person is as he is. I think everybody has to do what they think they have to do. I respect each one.

PRESS AND MEMES

Until we had the internet and social networks, what did we have? We had the press, right? And the press says what it wants. Always spoke. From me then!

I think it’s funny because someone else talks like this [se refere à atriz Christiane Torloni]: ‘Today is rock day, baby’. Then it becomes a meme. But my memes are funnier. [Ela cita, rindo, manchetes de revistas antigas que viralizaram nas redes sociais nos últimos anos, como uma da revista “Quem” que traz a seguinte frase polêmica de Vera na capa: “Tem dois anos que não faço sexo”].

[Apesar de se divertir com os memes, ela afirma que se incomodava com a imprensa na época]. Because they bravely interfered, they stayed at the door of my house. And me fighting for my personal life.

Today, I have my profile on the social network, which has my name on it. What I write there, I am the one writing. If people want to believe what others say, that’s their problem. I’m saying mine there, for my crowd.

DRUGS

How many millions haven’t taken drugs and are in a bad way these days, they’ve aged, they’re bad in the head? I do not.

When I told myself I will stop [de usar drogas], stopped. When I give myself an order, it’s stronger, it’s safer. I think I trust myself more.

POLICY

I don’t like to talk about it [política]. But I want to vote. I’m that kind of political person. The pamphleteer, I am not.

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