Who
Age: 30
Hometown: Montevideo, Uruguay
What
Bringing to the screen the tragic true story of one of Latin America’s most famous disasters was no easy feat. Nevertheless, the Uruguayan rising star Enzo Vogrincic took on the pressures of grueling pain, fleeting signs of hope and thoughts of imminent death to honor the deceased and the survivors of that accident. In J.A. Bayona’s film Society of the Snow, Vogrincic stars as Numa Turcatti, a passender on board an ill-fated 1972 flight in 1972. When the plane collides with a moutain in the Andes, the survivors find themselves stranded on a glacier for more than two months. Numa serves as both the story’s protagonist and narrator.
“This is a story that you know about from the time you’re born,” Vogrincic says, when asked what the role meant to him. “When I heard about casting for this film, I knew it was a story I wanted to tell, because it fills you a sense of pride because they’re Uruguayan, but as you get deeper into the story, you realize it’s much bigger than that.”
Why
Despite not coming from a line of creatives and thespians, Vogrincic somehow felt an innate pull to the profession. “It’s something that I always ask myself, why I act,” he reflects. “It was something unavoidable for me. I’ve searched the family tree up and down, I can’t find actors, writers, poets… I almost think I did it almost in opposition to them. But it’s very personal; I am creative in everything I do. It’s part of my being. I can’t help it.”
The actor credits his time and rigorous six-day-a-week training at the prestigious Uruguayan performing arts school EMAD for giving him the tools to take on the most dramatic roles. From short films to plays to eventually landing his first feature playing a Cristiano Ronaldo-esque soccer star in Martín Barrenechea and Nicolás Branca’s Uruguayan sports drama 9, Vogrincic managed to steel himself in the process of making the jump from theater to silver screen. “It’s quite complex to jump from theater to film acting because you have to turn the acting you do in front of a large audience into a camera right in front of you. And that feels like the camera is seeing your soul.” He says, “That feeling takes time because it’s almost like jumping into the void. You need to pay attention. You need to be prepared and understand how you can make that change.”
When it came to filming Society of the Snow, Vogrincic’s dedication to the craft was put to the ultimate test as the cast and crew braved inclement weather conditions for the grueling five-month shoot. “The hardest thing was the avalanche sequence because it was two weeks and the space on the plane was small. There were 25 people in a very confined space buried in the snow, so it was on our body and skin, and that caused anxiety and that makes you feel a tired and claustrophobic feeling. I even filmed with a fever,” he says. “So, these were very challenging circumstances to film, and the only way to get through it was to know that it was real and that people actually lived through this and had it so much worse. We had to focus and keep filming, because the quicker we did it, the quicker we would be out of there.”
When & Where
As for where we’ll see Vogrincic next, the actor explains that he’s still considering his options, but for now, his focus is on enjoying this finite moment and on gearing up for the Oscars. “This movie has been like a window where people can see me and then decide if they want to work with me, and call me for projects. I’m deciding to enjoy the whole process from the beginning to the end, all the way to the Oscars, because I don’t know when something like this might come again.
Vogrincic says he is excited to see what roles might come his way next. “I will start reading scripts pretty soon because I’m ready to start acting again,” he says.While he loves the thought-provoking and soul-stirring depths of drama that make an actor go “deep within yourself”, he wants to change things up and break bad. “I’d love to play a bad guy. It doesn’t matter the genre, but a character that has an evil side, a dark side, that deep pain.”