Chatting With True Detective’s Vinicius Machado!
By Tsadiqwah Scarville | July 6, 2015 | Gals On The Town
It’s #MainEventMonday! If you’ve been watching the new season of HBO’s True Detective, currently airing on Sundays, you’ve probably noticed one of the most sexiest Latinos on the rise, Vinicius Machado, heating up the series.
Fresh from a successful first season on hit series Power, this humble, Brazilian-bred eye candy takes “Brooklyn Bound” contributor Tsadiqwah Scarville down memory lane, from his early acting days and working alongside my favorite American gangSTAR 50 Cent to what guys can learn about what not to do when wooing the ladies!
Tell us about more about your character without getting yourself in too much trouble.
(Laughs) Yea I don’t want to get in trouble with it. I’m playing Tony Chessani, who is a very interesting character and something I haven’t done in a while since Nickelodeon’s Ned Declassified, where I played Fayman Phorchin. I’ve been playing your stereotypical gangster in Hollywood, which is great and I’ve embraced that box, but now I’m getting to step outside of that and branch out and show that I can do different things. It’s going to be interesting.
Once you have your script in hand, how long does it take you to memorize it? What’s that process like?
I love to transform myself. I love the process of digging deep into a character’s mind and becoming that spirit and that soul. I have different techniques on how I get there, but I completely transform my body, my look and my image, and for me that’s a fun process. Each role is challenging, beautiful and exciting.
I’ve heard you speak of the human story. What’s your story and what story are you telling by supporting causes like Feed the Children and finding a cure for lupus?
It goes along with charity in and of itself. Like Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “what self-centered man once torn down, I believe that man of the center can still build up.” It’s about collaborating … we can fly the skies like the birds and we can swim the ocean like the fish but we haven’t yet learned to live together as brothers–as a human family. Whatever contribution I can make toward any cause that will contribute to the better of humanity is a great cause for me.
Do people still call you “Vini Baby?” I hear that’s your nickname.
Yeahhhhh! (Laughs) People still call me Vinnie, Vini Baby…sometimes I still get Delicious…
Oh my … so appropriate! I’ll take it! What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done to get a woman’s attention?
Oh wow! I probably shouldn’t say this on air, but I’m going to give some exclusivity here today. My boys and I would go to the beach a lot; I was a soccer player, and we had to learn a lot of little tricks. And one time there was this huge bridge, so we stopped there was because we had some girls in the car with us. We decided we were going to be superman and jump off of the bridge! So some of us got really hurt. I didn’t roughly, but one of my friends, his foot landed on a coral reef as he went down into the water and it went straight through his foot. So yeah we had to rush him to hospital that night, and no I never did anything like that again!
Oh man bro, all for the love of the ladies! Any laugh-out-loud moments you had with working with Mr. Tough Guy, 50Cent when you were taping Power?
One day we were at a table reading and he showed up about halfway into it, and we had been expecting him because he’s almost always at the table reads. He’s always there, very hands on, very inspirational. He loves giving out inspiration but anyway, he showed up late and he ended up going to a different studio. And he was like “I went there and I ain’t wanna drive back so I hopped on the train, and it’s not my fault.”
He’s probably going to make a song out of it and remix the heck out of it with a catchy hook!
Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised! He can turn nothing into something! That’s who he is.
Any actors or actresses that you’ve worked with and you were so blown away, you had to tell yourself  “Wow, I need to up my game!”
Oh yeah, 100 percent great question! And I’m not just saying this because I’m on True Detective working with Rachel McAdams, but she’s so humble, and such a down to earth person off set. She’s a sweetheart and I say this with the all sincerity in the world. And when she turned on her character, that was very scary. I’ve never experienced that with anybody else I’ve worked with. And so it’s a challenge for me because there were times for me, like in my conscious mind I know I’m acting, but there were times that I didn’t know. Just the look in her eyes, the fierceness of her piercing eyes–so scary but so beautiful. Her work is gorgeous. I learned so much from working with her in that short period of time.
You can catch more from “Delicious,” I mean Vinicius in feature films like Beautiful & Twisted and Wild For the Night, and in his new book, Power, currently in development. But for now, check him out on True Detective, airing every Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO!
