Jesueta Barbosa remembers the scenes of the film Nei Matogrosso and criticizes Jove in “Pantanal”

“I have courage, I am full of courage,” declares the actor Jesuit Barbosa In a café in downtown São Paulo, the city where he lives. His career choices (and victories) prove what he says.

In 2025, he caught attention and received critical acclaim with his performance as Nai Matogrosso in the film “Homem com H”, which brought more than 600,000 people to the cinema and is one of the most watched films on Netflix. He reacts with humility and a shy smile, as he eats pesto pasta and drinks carbonated tea. “I look at some of the scenes and think I’m wrong,” he says of the praise on social media.

► Check out other special interviews from Velvet Magazine

The Jesuit always wanted more. He was born in Salguero, Sertão, Pernambuco, and spent his childhood in Parnamirim. At the age of ten, he moved with his family to Fortaleza, Ceará, where he began acting in school theater groups. His father was a police chief and hoped for more traditional jobs for his son, but he chose to pursue a degree in theater.

The collective “As Travestidas”, led by actor Silver Pereira, in 2008, was one of his first experiments in showbiz – and it actually deconstructed, as the name reveals, the image of the macho man from the hinterland. There Jesuita created the Dragon Queen Monique Frasau, at the age of seventeen. He participated in theater groups until 2010, when invitations to films began to appear, in roles that were far from masculine in Pernambuco: in “Serra Pelada,” directed by Heitor Dalia, he played a gay prospector; In “Tatuagem” by Hilton Lacerda, a soldier has a love affair with a band artist. He won awards and made his way to TV Globo.

I was a kid who didn’t belong to the general group, always the one on the side. But I had some pride, because I knew that somewhere, this also taught me something, gave me value.

On the list are “Amores Roubados”, “O Rebu”, “Sete Vidas”, “Ligações Dangerosas”, “Justiça”, “Nothing Will Be Like Before”, and “Onde Cemem os Fortes” (also here with the transcendent role of Ramirinho, the son of the strict judge. The boy hid the secret identity of the drag queen Shakira do Sertão). His last role in a TV series was as Joffe in Pantanal, which divided opinion – and he ensures the negative reviews don’t bother him. “They made a lot of comparisons, especially because it was a remake,” he says. “I already knew it was going to be this fragile character, and I wasn’t offended at all. I wanted to build Jove accurately.”

But Nye’s interpretation in the film Izmir Filho did not even attract negative comments. It’s common on social media to see video edits of the actor side by side with old recordings of the singer to compare the performance, and the audience’s conclusion is that it’s really very similar. The Jesuit disagrees. “I thought it was completely different. I said: Guys, this is a big mistake. But I had a positive response. When I approached Nay, I felt calm… He told me himself that it was not quite like that and I made the decision not to copy anything and do it my way,” he says.

He even acknowledges the physical similarities between himself and the artist (“We’re skinny”) and says they both share doubts. “Maybe it’s about family, about understanding that it’s necessary to create another kind of relationship, about leaving and understanding being alone in the city,” he says.

But the Jesuit ensures that he will have a free childhood, in contrast to the military rigidity with which Ney was raised. “There was an attempt to prevent me from going to the place of etiquette, and that is what I remember most,” he admits of his parents’ upbringing. “My body shaped itself based on what they said it was supposed to do. How to run, how to hold your arm, how to hold a notebook. I kept watching. Nye’s (childhood) was like that too, he said that a lot,” he says.

The creation process was actually a bit too intense for me. I didn’t realize he was attacking me. It’s a common thing, sometimes we work too much, and we don’t realize if it’s going too far.

Freedom has triumphed: At 34, he is part of the first generation of top actors at Globo who can freely embrace their sexuality, after decades of repression by enthusiasts who can never say they are gay. Every now and then he appears in public with his friends. “I take it as a compliment. At the time of the Pantanal, a picture was published of a boy I dated, and we were kissing on the beach. I thought the picture was very important. It was important,” he said in the slow voice and blank look of someone who was content to think about his course. Like Nye, in his time, he broke with the past.

The importance of boundaries

The Jesuit ensures that today he has control over his body and knows how far he can go without hurting himself. It wasn’t always like this. While recording the song “Praia do Futuro”, in 2013, with Wagner Moura, he gave his all in the running scene, in the far northern hemisphere, on the ice. Even though I was tired, I ran a lot. Wagner asked why he would do that. “I started to realize that he was right. The camera wasn’t about to turn away. Physically, before I needed to put my body through wear and tear, maybe because I was young. Today I know that I can take other creative paths,” he says.

In maturity, self-care emerges. Courage doesn’t always mean giving it your all. “I found another way to create and I’m happy about it. I no longer believe in getting into a story or getting involved in it… for example: starting to cry and not being able to stop after the scene is over. For me, the scene is over, it’s the end of the tears.”

It also tries to set limits on the use of technology. He even admitted that he is talking to ChatGPT and says that he is “creating a bot” that communicates well with him. At the same time, he says he is afraid of the algorithms of websites and social networks. “I think a lot about the question of God and the machine. But I’m the one who’s still afraid of the algorithm. Sometimes, I think it’s really terrifying, a bit of a fascist path. I can’t understand who makes the decisions, who decides what will be read or not. How will the information appear? That worries me.”

He says he is tired of using social media. “I’m a bit antisocial. I can communicate well, but I really enjoy my own space,” he says. The isolation coincided with the time of preparation and presentation of the “Sonho Elétrico” performance at Sesc Vila Mariana. “I’ve been able to keep the routine of coming home, eating well, and sleeping. Before that, that wasn’t happening, I was distracted. Theater is sacred,” he says.

Focusing on himself, he also says he would like to travel and study theater, perhaps in New York, in the coming months. Meanwhile, he spends his free time watching movies, reading, and trying to get back to writing. He is fascinated by the narrative of the French writer Edouard Louis. “When I was in college, I wrote and I was very good. I don’t know why I stopped, I think I started thinking that work was something else and I felt confused. But I’m trying to write some things, movie scripts, who knows.” He also mentions his idols: his parents, Gilberto Gil, the singer Madonna and Saint Sebastian, whose story he loves: a soldier who became a Christian martyr, famous for his unwavering faith and celebrated as a protector against hunger and war.

Like a saint, he ensures that he is not afraid. The entire speech is based on the courage mentioned at the beginning of the conversation. “I have been able to understand the obstacles I face, and the conflicts I create with myself. Fear paralyzes me. I don’t want to be afraid of anything anymore.”

Fear can be a result of maturity or self-knowledge. This Jesuit, who ensures that no one knows anything about him, uses boundaries as an incentive to learn more about himself and move forward, as he always has.

I value memory very much. For me, having freedom is being able to remember myself, my roots, and the way I was raised. Difficulties too, but how I always wanted to understand myself – and I had the impression that it would not be so easy.