Zé Celso: sponsored by the director, Gianecchini refused to be naked in an orgy scene, in 1999

At the very beginning of his career, Reynaldo Gianecchini felt firsthand the Zé Celso Martinez Corrêa way of doing theatre. And he backed off. There was an orgy halfway through, and the actor refused to do it. That was in 1999, in “Cacilda!”, a piece that celebrates Cacilda Becker.

At the beginning of the second act, with Cacilda among the actors in an avant-garde show in New York, everyone starts masturbating. Gianecchini asked not to do it. He didn’t feel prepared, he would be embarrassed when his family came to see him on stage.

Ze Celso understood. He agreed to redo the scene and, while the cast was all naked, Giane followed the orgy and collective masturbation wearing an elegant tuxedo, in a scene inspired by “With Eyes Wide Shut”, Stanley Kubrick’s film of that same year.

More than 20 years have passed and, in 2021, Gianecchini and Zé Celso met again in “Fedro”, directed by Marcelo Sebá. The film, a long pillow talk washed down with red wine and joints, proposes a dialogue (most of the time with the two in bed, lying down) between the director and the actor. Subjects in question: liberation, desire, lust for the theater.

The actor is embarrassed when Zé Celso suggests that he take off his clothes. He is reluctant, but finally accepts. “Okay, I’m going to take my clothes off here under the covers, okay?”, he asks shyly.

Only outlines appear, and the conversation between the two continues like this, with Giane under the duvet, while the playwright, who died on Thursday morning (6), walks back and forth naked, at ease. “Working with him again was very challenging”, said the actor, in an interview, at the time of the release of “Fedro”.