Fernanda Torres

Fernanda Pinheiro Monteiro Torres is a Brazilian stage, screen, and television actress as well as an author, recognized for her versatility in both dramatic and comedic roles. Across a career spanning more than four decades, she has achieved significant national and international acclaim, receiving honors such as a Golden Globe, a Cannes Film Festival Award, a Brazilian Academy Film Award, and an Academy Award nomination.

Torres began studying acting at age thirteen at Teatro O Tablado, debuting on stage in 1978 in the production Um Tango Argentino. She made her feature film debut at seventeen in the 1983 film Innocencia. She earned early cinematic recognition when her performance in the 1985 movie A Marvada Carne earned her the Best Actress award at the Gramado Festival.

Her international profile expanded after winning the Best Actress honor at both the Cannes Film Festival and the Cuba Film Festival for her role in Love Me Forever or Never. Her filmography includes more than twenty screen credits, featuring prominent projects such as Excuse Me, I'm Going to Fight, Foreign Land, Four Days in September, Redentor, and The House of Sand.

In the theater, Torres has appeared in over a dozen plays, earning praise for roles in Orlando, Da Gaivota, and Two Women and a Corpse. As a founding performer with the Companhia de Opera Seca, she co-starred with her mother, Fernanda Montenegro, in The Flash and Crash Days, touring across Europe and the United States. Her monologue production A Casa dos Budas Ditosos launched in 2003 and attracted more than one million attendees.

On television, she starred as Vani in the popular Brazilian comedy series Os Normais from 2001 to 2003, a project that inspired two feature films. Between 2011 and 2015, she co-starred in the sitcom Tapas and Beijos, earning a Best of the Year Award for Best Actress. Her television work also includes appearing in the medical drama series Sob Pressao and creating projects such as Minha Estupidez and Bicho Homem.

Torres is also an accomplished writer, contributing columns to newspapers and magazines, including a weekly publication in Folha de S.Paulo. Her 2014 debut book, The End, sold over 200,000 copies in Brazil, was translated into seven languages, and was adapted into a ten-episode television miniseries that she created and scripted. She released her second novel, Glory and Its Litany of Horrors, in 2017.

In 2024, Torres starred as Eunice Paiva in Walter Salles's film I'm Still Here. For this performance, she became the first South American, Portuguese-speaking actor, and Brazilian to win the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. Her subsequent Oscar nomination made her and her mother only the second mother-daughter duo nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award. In June 2025, she was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.