MOVIEMAKER.COM 19PHOTO BY JOHN RUSSO / 20TH CENTURY STUDIOS
“Like, I’m going to get cool movie offers
because I’m going to play a superhero! And
it’s really not like that.”
The New Mutants was originally created
as a spin-off of the X-Men comic books,
focused on teenage characters as they
discovered and developed powerful
new abilities. Given the success of
Stranger Things and It, the timing couldn’t
be better for a superhero-focused addition to
this emerging canon of horror-themed stories
about adolescents reckoning with feverish,
frightening bodily changes. After attending
a recent screening of the finished film for
cast and crew members, Zaga felt especially
thrilled that the story that Boone originally
conceived arrived on screen fully intact. “It
was great. It was so strange,” he said.
“It feels so different from every single
X-Men or superhero movie you’ve ever
seen, because it has that John Hughes and
Stephen King vibe,” he revealed. “Sometimes
in horror movies I feel like you can’t really
relate to the story cause it’s so foreign, but
in our movie, it’s very relatable.”
Zaga, who had acted in just a handful of
television and film projects prior to film-
ing The New Mutants, developed a great
collaboration with Boone after experiencing
the filmmaker’s knowledge and passion as
a storyteller firsthand. “It’s unbelievable
how much love he pours into everything he
puts his hands on,” he said. “I said to myself,
I want to work with people like that who
really put their heart and soul into projects.”
Boone’s enthusiasm behind the camera en-
couraged him to indulge his creativity more
freely on set, especially when the time came
to perform scenes involving superpowers
and special abilities added or expanded in
postproduction.
“One of our most important tools as ac-
tors is our imagination. It’s a skill set that
an actor should have, the imagination, the
ability to put on a silly onesie and pretend
you’re bad ass and on fire and whatever it is,”
he said. “My power is to turn as hot as the
sun and become massively strong. But they
can’t light me on fire, so I had to put on this
onesie and I looked like a traffic sign, full of
dots everywhere. Or when you have to look
into this doll pretending it’s a massive demon
bear that’s terrifying. It’s kind of silly, but it
was probably the highlight of my career.”
Boone and Zaga have since reunited
for the director’s ten-part adaptation of
Stephen King’s The Stand, for CBS All Ac-
cess. Zaga said he’d also love to keep explor-
ing the story of his character, Roberto, in
a The New Mutants sequel or even trilogy, if
fans receive the first film in the way he andhis collaborators hope they do. “I would love
to continue working with this amazing cast
and with Josh,” he said. “I’m so ready for
Roberto’s spandex 2.0, putting on 20 pounds
again of muscle and looking like a meat-
head. It’s been such a delicious ride. To get
to play a Brazilian superhero in an X-Men
movie, it’s like a dream come true.”
The actor’s sense of patriotism and
loyalty to his native Brazil inspired other
avenues for his creativity as a storyteller.
He’s developing a script echoing Tom
Cruise’s Cocktail that he hopes to produce
and co-star in opposite Vanessa Hudgens.
“It’s a romantic comedy about a guy who’s
a bartender wooing the girl who he doesn’t
know is a rich girl in a Copacabana palace
setting,” he said. “I always wanted to tell a
story about the Rio that I know—the beauti-
ful side of Rio.” Especially after witnessing
the obstacles that delayed The New Mutants,
Zaga explained that he developed the proj-
ect as an outlet and opportunity to maintain
a semblance of control over his career.
“As any sort of creative person, you need
to work on something that’s finite,” he
observed. “As actors, if you do an audition,
that’s never going to come out anywhere. So
you’re not really doing anything, and that’s
not rewarding. So we need to compose mu-
sic or paint or something that will be done
and out and ready.”
With a light at the end of the tunnel finally
in sight for The New Mutants, and after add-
ing a few more acting jobs on his resume,
Zaga said he feels more poised and excited
than ever to seek challenging opportunities—
though ones where the challenge is for him
to pull them off, not for the end result to get
seen. “I was fortunate enough to have just
worked with amazing people in The Stand,”
he said. “I had to learn sign language and to
dive into someone’s mind that was complete-
ly different from mine. So I want to do things
like that, that are constantly inspiring to me,
constantly teaching me something.”
“I think it’s never been a better time
to be an actor,” he suggested. “There’s so
many projects, so many shows with so many
characters. There’s so many opportunities.
It’s a very inspiring time.” MMSPRING 202050 Film Festivals
Worth the Entry Fee in 2020.
Three Years Running!“
TO GET TO PLAY A BRAZILIAN
SUPERHERO IN AN X-MEN
MOVIE, IT’S LIKE A DREAM
COME TRUE.
”