Sônia Maria Campos Braga (; born 8 June 1950) is a Brazilian actress. She is known in the English-speaking world for her Golden Globe Award–nominated performances in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) and Moon over Parador (1988). She also received a BAFTA Award nomination in 1981 for Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (first released in 1976). For the 1994 television film The Burning Season, she was nominated for an Emmy Award and a third Golden Globe Award. Her other television and film credits include The Cosby Show (1986), Sex and the City (2001), American Family (2002), Alias (2005), Aquarius (2016), Bacurau (2019), and Fatima (2020). In 2020, The New York Times ranked her #24 in its list of the 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century.
Early life
Sônia Braga was born on June 8, 1950, daughter of Hélio Fernando Ferraz Braga and Maria Braga Jaci Campos, a costume designer from Maringá. Sônia's siblings are Júlio, Ana, Hélio and Maria. Sônia is the aunt of Alice Braga, an actress. Her parents and her four siblings moved to Curitiba and then to Campinas, São Paulo. When Braga was 8 years old, her father died, and she attended a convent school in São Paulo.
Career
In her teens, she took a job as a receptionist and typist at Buffet Torres, a wedding reception and event catering company in São Paulo.
Sônia's brother Hélio presented the TV Tupi children's show, Jardim Encantado. At age 14, Braga was invited by director Vicente Sesso to play small roles in children's programs and teleteatros on TV Tupi, including Jardim Encantado. Sônia then joined a theater group in Santo André, in the ABC region. At 17, she debuted in the play George Dandin in Santo André.
In 1968, she was cast in the first Brazilian production of the musical Hair. Sônia was, at first, turned down by director , but at the insistence of producer/actor , she joined Antônio Fagundes, Ney Latorraca, and the rest of the cast. Despite Institutional Act No. 5 being enacted by the dictatorship in Brazil, the musical ran for 3 years. In 1977, Caetano Veloso wrote the song Tigresa in tribute to her: “She tells me she was an actress and worked on Hair. With some men she was happy, with others she was a woman”...
In 1968, Braga was in the film O Bandido da Luz Vermelha. In 1969, she was invited to perform in A Menina do Veleiro Azul, a soap opera produced by TV Excelsior, but the network closed before the soap opera aired. In 1970, Braga was invited to join the cast of Irmãos Coragem, a soap opera written by Janete Clair, which aired on Rede Globo. Also in the early '70s, she appeared in supporting roles in the films and Cléo e Daniel. Despite the success on stage and acting in soap operas, it was in the children's television series, Vila Sésamo, broadcast in 1972, that Braga became a household name.
In 1975, Braga starred in the telenovela Gabriela, an adaptation of Jorge Amado's novel Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon. Directed by Walter Avancini, the soap opera was a great national and international success, establishing Sonia Braga as a sex symbol. Braga returned to embody another Jorge Amado character, starring in the 1976 film Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands directed by Bruno Barreto, alongside José Wilker and Mauro Mendonça. The romantic comedy was a box office hit in Brazilian cinemas and also received major recognition internationally. In 1983, she starred in the film Gabriela, alongside Marcello Mastroianni.
In 1976, Braga participated in the cast of Saramandaia. The following year she starred in Espelho Mágico as Cynthia Levy. One of the highlights of the soundtrack of the soap opera is the cover version that Gal Costa recorded of Tigresa, music that Caetano Veloso composed in honor of Braga. In the late 1970s, Braga gave life to another renowned character in Brazilian television, Julia Matos in Dancin' Days (1978). In the storyline, Braga played an ex-convict who gets out of prison ready to win back the love of her daughter, played by Gloria Pires. In 1979, Sonia Braga ventured into children's theater in the play No País dos Prequetés. The following year she returned to television in the telenovela Chega Mais alongside Tony Ramos.