Success in ‘Família É Tudo’, Gabriel Godoy says he is ready to play a good guy in a soap opera

“I’m having to go through this embarrassment”, jokes Gabriel Godoy, 40, from Corinthians about Chicão, his character in “Família É Tudo” (Globo). The actor says that his friends, of course, didn’t miss the opportunity to make fun of him, but he says he’s been taking it in stride.

“I feel like I’m a professional football player, who changes clubs easily”, he compares. “I’ve always been a Corinthian fan, because my whole family is a Corinthian fan, my late grandfather took me to Corinthians games in the 1990s and, suddenly… ‘Do you want to be a Palmeiras fan in the soap opera?'”

Gabriel accepted and has attracted attention as the master builder who lives an on-and-off relationship with preppy girl Andrômeda Mancini (Ramille). The couple’s chemistry is one of the highlights of the 7pm plot, written by Daniel Ortiz.

“As an actor, the game only happens if you have good partners. I’ve seen myself in work with wonderful scenes, but where the game didn’t happen, and Ramille is an excellent scene partner”, he praises, who also highlights her scenic availability by colleague Daniel Rangel, who plays the clumsy Guto, Chicão’s brother. “He’s a fantastic actor, and that makes it a lot easier for those who also like to play,” he says.

But, in addition to his partners, Gabriel has also given a lot of himself to the recordings. In the conversation, you realized that he is far from the bronco type he plays on screen. “The character requires the vocal fit of a prosody, of saying ‘what’s up bro’, and also physical, because it’s a body that also moves a lot, so I leave very tired [das gravações]”, he admits.

Easiness with comic types, he says, came from birth. “My family on my father’s side is Argentine, my father is Argentine, and they were always very funny. I grew up with laughter,” he says. “I think laughter is a breather for any moment in this crazy life that we have , even more so in current times.”

Perhaps for this reason, the actor ended up being more in demand for the 7pm slot, which tends to have lighter and more comical soap operas. In this vein, “Família É Tudo” is the fourth he has done on this track. “I’m a defender of seven o’clock soap operas, which are often not very respected in the audiovisual market,” he says. “I find making a popular product very challenging.”

But if the laughs that Chicão provokes were already expected, the same cannot be said about people’s reactions to the scenes of him shirtless in the soap opera, which generated furious comments on social media. “When did Gabriel Godoy become so hot, my father?”, joked the Dan Pimpão profile on X (the old Twitter).

“I’m 40 years old, so I’m from a generation that still has to adapt to social media,” he says. “But my girlfriend, Raíssa Xavier, is younger than me. She’s also an actress and has internet skills, and she shows me. I’m having fun with her, I think it’s really cool. I think this beauty culture is part of entertainment Also, there’s no way around it, it’s a reality.”

The actor compares the plot with “Uga Uga”, a soap opera by Carlos Lombardi shown between 2000 and 2001 and perhaps the height of the shirtless culture and male bodies on display in the slot. “I watched a lot, I caught these soap operas a lot,” he says.

He says he notices a lot of the mix of comedy and sensuality that he saw in the core of “Família É Tudo”, and especially in the scenes of Chicão and Andrômeda. “It’s an explosion of desire that the two characters have, I think the public likes that”, he says, comparing the characters to the protagonists of “Lady and the Tramp” and “The Princess and the Frog”. “We’ve already seen this, it’s a recipe that works”, he assesses.

Happy with the character’s impact, Gabriel now wants to show that he can handle characters with other profiles. “Every time Globo calls me it’s for characters like that, and I really like it, but I’m fighting here at home for people to notice that I can also do other things,” he says.

He says he wants to try out plots at other times, especially 9pm, the most popular on Brazilian TV, which he has never attended. “If I’m going to do a comic group, ok, I’ll do it, because I’m not going to refuse work — because it’s not easy to be an artist in this country —, but I think that’s what producers and directors need: looking outside the box .”

The dream role, at the moment, is that of a heartthrob who carries the plot on his shoulders. “I’m 40 years old, soon I won’t be able to be a good guy (laughs)”, he comments. “I have a plan and a goal to make this leap. I’m working towards that, to have an opportunity in this place too.”

“This neutral guy is also very challenging,” he says, who, outside of Globo, has starred in productions such as “Desjundados” (Prime Video) and “Homens?” (Comedy Central). “I’m feeling increasingly powerful in this sense, due to my maturity and the experience of working hard, thank God.”

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