Alice Braga on the final season of “Queen of the South

Backstage Live

Long May She Reign

Alice Braga says goodbye to “Queen of the South”

By Jenna Fanelli

The following interview for Backstage’s on-camera series The Slate was compiled in part by Backstage readers just like you! Follow us on Twitter (@Backstage) and Instagram (@backstagecast) to stay in the loop on upcoming interviews and to submit your questions.

ALICE BRAGA HAS PLAYED

antihero and queenpin Teresa Mendoza on USA’s “Queen of the South” for five wildly successful years, during which the show and the Brazilian actor herself both gained a dedicated and adoring fan base. The fifth and final season premiered last month. With the end nigh, Braga joined Backstage on Instagram Live to discuss working on the show, her journey in the industry, and the advice she has for her fellow performers.

Braga is proud of Teresa’s character development over the years.

“I’ve never done TV before this experience. And it’s very, very powerful, I think, for an actor [to revisit] a character every year—because all of us, I think, we grow as human beings, as people, just on a daily basis of who we are. From one year to another year, we meet people, we challenge ourselves, we grow up. And it feels to me that you do that with the character, because the character journey is changing, so you’re changing with the character, and you’re really connecting with the audience. Just that feeling of: This character has been with me for five years—I’ve never had that experience. It was very challenging and very powerful, with that idea of how much you grow as a person [and] as an actress.”

Building a believable arc was the most challenging part of playing Teresa.

“To be believable, I wanted to create some ground for her, so the audience could connect and could remember who she was and what changes in her life led her [to today]. So I always try to keep a few different personalities in her soul and the way that she was, so people won’t think that she suddenly changed from one thing to the other. I think I tried a lot to humanize her—not to be likable, because I think we’re entitled to have flaws as human beings. But mainly so people could understand where she came from.”

Playing an antihero was a fulfilling challenge.

“Normally, we see men playing this type of character. So just being able to be a woman, a Latina, doing it, it was a wonderful challenge; but that idea of being the antihero, but also a survivor, because she comes from that reality, because she comes from a childhood that is very harsh. And [because] she overcomes so many challenges in her own life, she ends up being the heroine of her own journey. And I always thought that was interesting. Of course, she’s a drug dealer, [so] of course there’s this whole ‘villain’ thing in her life. But at the same time, how much [she] is a survivor, able to survive so many harsh things that happened in her journey.”

Want to hear more from Braga? Watch our full interview at backstage.com/ magazine, and follow us on Instagram: @backstagecast.

Alice Braga on “Queen of the South”

TELEVISION

Elizabeth Olsen Heads to HBO Max

By Casey Mink

FOLLOWING HER LAUDED RUN ON

“WandaVision,” Elizabeth Olsen is sticking with the small screen. Next up, she’ll lead “Love and Death,” an HBO Max limited series about Texan housewife Candy Montgomery’s murder of Betty Gore in 1980. David E. Kelly will write the series, with “Homeland” director Lesli Linka Glatter on board to helm the episodes. Additionally, Kelly and his “Big Little Lies” and “The Undoing” partner Nicole Kidman are re-teaming here, with Kidman attached as a producer.