Austin Film Festival 2023: Miguel Frazão Discusses ‘Autumn,’ How He Transformed Into His Character, and More

Miguel Frazão is one of the breakout stars of the Austin Film Festival. Leading the extraordinary cast of Antonio Sequeira’s Autumn, Miguel delivers a mesmerizing performance as Otávio, a fifty-year-old man who is grappling with the complexities of fatherhood, struggling through a mid-life crisis, and trying to rediscover his purpose in life.

Set in a small Portuguese town, Autumn follows a family whose dynamic is thrown into turmoil when their son leaves to study aboard. Focusing only on the school breaks when he comes back home, we observe snapshots of a daughter’s coming of age, a father’s mid-life crisis, a son’s emancipation, and a mother learning to cope with an empty nest sydrome. Autumn is an intimate, heartwarming, and nuanced portrayal of family relationships, offering a poignant reflection on how we often struggle to move on, grow up, and grow old.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Miguel about Autumn, his transformative performance, building a familial bond with his castmates, and more.

PC: Antonio worked with your daughter in the past. It was during her self-tape that he realized he wanted to cast you for this role. How did he initially approach you for this project? What were those early conversations?
Miguel: It’s funny. He cast my daughter, Beatriz [Frazão], for this film. While they were doing rehearsals with the actress who plays the mother, he wanted to do some role-play where Beatriz’s character tells her mother that she kissed a girl at school, but she didn’t know how to. Antonio wanted to include the father in that conversation. He hadn’t cast that role yet. I was there just waiting for her to finish, and he asked me to play the role.

I was very relaxed because I wasn’t auditioning. I was just playing. I think that was the trick. I was so relaxed. I was just playing this character who wasn’t me because I wouldn’t have any problems with that. But he wanted me to play it more conservatively. We kept doing rehearsals, and he eventually asked if I wanted to play the role.

My background is in stunts. I’m a stuntman. I’m a stunt performer. I have training as an actor, and I’ve done several roles, but they’ve always been related to action. This was quite a surprise, and I enjoyed it so much.

PC: You’re fantastic in it! You were a lot younger than he initially envisioned for this character. They had to age you up with makeup and different techniques. How helpful was that in your process and how did you prepare?
Miguel: I actually arrived on location early to meet with the locals and talk with the people there. It’s a different mindset from us, urban people who live in the city. Portugal is a very rural area. It’s not like the States. It was very interesting. I milked goats. I axed down trees. It was really, really interesting. You had to taste the different wines that they produced because everyone does it in a different way. It was very interesting.

PC: It was also really important to Antonio that each of the actors incorporate elements of themselves into their characters. How were you able to bring yourself to this role?
Miguel: I think he cast me because I was constantly making jokes. I think that’s what he wanted for the role. That was my input. The jokes were written on the page. He’s probably the best guy to answer that question. He did confess that it was mainly that, and the chemistry between me and my daughter.

PC: Like you were saying earlier, your character represents a very old-school mentality and mindset. When you’re playing a character who’s so different from you, is that more or less challenging?
Miguel: That’s a good question. It’s challenging because you have to leave your body and become this character, especially as he’s making these racist and sexist jokes. It’s uncomfortable to say those things, but you have to remember that it’s not you. It’s a character that you’re playing. It makes sense after I spent so much time with the people there because it’s a different mentality. They’re not bad people; they just don’t know better. That was the most difficult part. I was saying things to my fellow actors that I was like, “If I said this to my wife…” [laughs]

PC: This is your first feature film as a lead. Congratulations, by the way. Did anything surprise you about the experience? What did you learn about your craft?
Miguel: I didn’t know I could do it. I’ve played a lot of different roles. I’ve had a lot of different parts in many, many movies. I didn’t know I could play such a deep role and craft such a complex character. I was a bit concerned because I was working with my daughter. She was born for this. She has a Golden Globe. She auditioned for Anne Frank and won out over six hundred applicants. She’s really good. I’m not that good. [laughs] I was like it’s going to be noticeable if I’m working opposite her. But I decided to dive deep. I canceled everything else that was going on in my life. I was that character for however many weeks we shot. I was nervous, but that’s why I did what I did.

PC: You are that good. Did your daughter share any words of wisdom with you?
Miguel: Yes! We practiced the scenes. She really lives in a character. She has a really transformative process that I could never understand. She’s really quiet and polite on set. She’s nineteen years old, so you would expect her to be pulling out her phone and doing TikTok dances or posting on Instagram. She doesn’t do that. She’s really quiet. But when we start filming, she changes completely.

PC: As the film makes its world premiere at the Austin Film Festival, what do you hope audiences take away after they see it? Is there a particular scene that you’re really excited for them to see?
Miguel: The movie is very raw. It’s real life. This is how things happen, and that’s an experience that you don’t see much of in movies these days. It’s all about visual eye candy and cinematic experiences and a lot of things that go into blockbusters. We’re giving audiences a different experience. They’re experiencing family life and empty nest syndrome. That’s what happens when your kids leave. We see how that affects the relationship between the father and the mother. They’re like, “Who are we going to be now?” I think audiences who have grown-up kids can relate to that. I have more kids. Beatriz is the oldest, but I relate to that.

My favorite behind-the-scenes moment is when I axed down a tree. It’s not deep or dramatic. There were two lumberjacks who were there in case I couldn’t cut it down. They would have stepped in and cut down the log, and then I would have finished it. But I have twenty-four years of training with samurai swords, so I used all of my body to chop that tree down. I cut it down in four or five swings. They were all so impressed.

They took me into their little group of lumberjacks. They had me taste their wine and cookies. That was the funnest part of the movie. I went from this city guy who knows nothing about the countryside into an honorary lumberjack. That was my favorite bit of the movie.

But as far as my favorite scene, I really like the dinner scene where my daughter tells us that she’s going to study abroad. I also love the long shot of the family at their first lunch. We had to rehearse and rehearse that scene. But the dinner scene, you have my son’s girlfriend there. She’s witnessing us arguing and all the disruption.

PC: One of the themes of this film is finding your purpose. How did you discover your own passion for stunt work and storytelling?
Miguel: I’ve trained in martial arts since I was a kid. I met a guy named David who was moving from America to Portugal to set up a stunt team. I met him and started training with him. I had no intentions of becoming a stuntman, but he didn’t have anyone on the team who fit my build. All of them were muscular and had all these tattoos. They’re gym guys. I’m more of a regular person, so I’m far easier to put in a role than any of them because they’re all typecast as henchmen or doormen or security guards. I can play a lot of different roles, especially if they’re period pieces. That’s how I started.

Because I wanted to have skills that my colleagues didn’t have, I went on to study acting because none of them had done that. I wanted to give something else to the team. Some of them are precision divers, others are weapons experts. I went into acting to provide something different. Then I started doing different roles and was invited to do more and more. Who knows what’s next.

PC: Antonio wrote and directed this film. Is the experience different when the person who created this universe is also at the helm directing? What was that collaboration like?
Miguel: Yeah, it’s totally different. He really knew what he wanted. He was very specific with the reactions, looks, and actions that he wanted. When you do television, for example, the director isn’t always engaged. You know they’re there to create an industrial product. On a project like this, you can bring more of yourself to the role. You have to trust your actors, which he did. He knew specifically what he wanted to portray with each character. I was impressed with him when he did the short film with my daughter. They won a couple of awards around the world. I was really impressed then and I was really impressed on this project.

To keep up with Miguel, follow him on Instagram. For more information about Autumn, visit their official website.