Growing up in Brazil, I was still a child when my father first told me about one of South America’s most harrowing tragedies. It was a plane crash in Uruguay in the 1970s, and he vividly recalled following the developments and searching for survivors on the telly. The plane crashed in the icy Andean peaks a couple of hours after leaving Montevideo on a trip to Santiago, Chile, carrying members of the Old Christians Club amateur rugby team, along with their family and friends on board. Authorities searched for them for more than 70 days, and 16 people survived. The story was mythical and heart-wrenching, akin to a made-up tale told by a father scared of becoming an empty nester. But the reality couldn’t have been more real.

“In Uruguay, it’s a story one is born with,” Enzo Vogrincic began telling me as we connected over Zoom on a gloomy Thursday morning in London. A translator joined us to bridge our linguistic differences, despite our neighbouring roots. Stepping into the shoes of Numa in J. A. Bayona’s real-life thriller, Society of The Snow, Vogrincic delivered a tour de force performance, immediately making waves internationally as a powerful name to watch. But more than catapulting his name into the public eye with BAFTA and Oscar nominations, the project was a deeply personal achievement, with a script that hit close to home and a time on set he muses about with eyes glazing and a full heart.

“My first real contact with the story, I guess, was when I was 12,” he tells me. “One of the survivors came to give a talk at the place I was studying, and that was when I heard firsthand about the story from a survivor.” But growing up in one of the smallest countries in South America, becoming an international sensation, an internet heartthrob, and a confirmed name on every other red carpet since the movie’s release wasn’t exactly what he had envisioned, even in his wildest dreams.

“I really started acting when I was 15 years old. That’s when I decided this is the profession I want to pursue when I grow up, when I realised it was something I could actually do professionally. But my dream was always to be a theatre actor because it’s very difficult to break into cinema in Uruguay. The cinema industry in Uruguay is very small, so it’s kind of impossible to dream about being in film,” he said. “So I started studying theatre acting, and that started to work out. I started working properly as a theatre actor at 18 years old. And then getting into cinema was kind of a magical process. It happened almost without me trying, really.”

He remembers his first contact with the project as a pinch-me moment, an avalanche of excitement for the opportunity to embrace such a powerful character and to know that the story would finally be told again to the world. “I was just like, ‘Yes, this story needs to be retold, and in a way that’s really true to the events and the people.’ So I started on the casting process, and it was like an infinite casting process. It went on for months. And actually, the script was kind of the last piece of the process. We only got the script at the end of the last few rehearsals.”

Society of The Snow is a film that makes one question life’s purposes, the extent of the human body’s resistance, and how adaptable we are when in need of survival. Surrounded by an A-list of South American talents, Vogrincic kicked off on a note that seemed unable to go any higher. But it surely wasn’t the peak. As he gears up to make history, he steps into stardom and is getting accustomed to the spotlight.

Sitting down with Wonderland, he discusses his powerful character preparation, which included months in the freezing desert, facing starvation, and testing his physical boundaries; finding real-life Hermanos in his fellow cast members, and experiencing the fulfilment of a childhood dream coming full circle. Keep reading…

Do you remember when you first heard of the story? How close did it all affect you?
So in Uruguay, everybody knows the story because, clearly, it’s a Uruguayan story. So you’re kind of born knowing [about it], you know it from being a very young child. For me personally, my first real contact with the story, I guess, was when I was 12. One of the survivors came to give a talk at the place I was studying, and that was when I heard from a survivor firsthand about the story.

And how can we bridge that moment in time, when you first hear about the story, to now portraying Numa? What was your first reaction to the script?
It’s kind of been the story of my life. I feel like the story encompasses my entire life. I started acting when I was 15 years old, that’s when I decided, ‘this is the profession I want to do when I grow up’, when I realised it was something I actually could do professionally. But my dream was always to be a theatre actor, because it’s very difficult to get into cinema in Uruguay. The cinema industry in Uruguay is very small, so it’s kind of impossible to dream about being in film. So I started studying theatre acting, and that started to work out. I started working properly as a theatre actor at 18 years old. And then getting into cinema was kind of a magical process, it kind of happened almost without me trying, really. When I was introduced to the casting process, I was really enthusiastic about it, because I realised that this is the story that was going to be told in the film, and I was just like, yes, this story needs to be told again, and in a way that’s really true to the events and the people. And so I started on the casting process, and it was like an infinite casting process, it went on for months. And actually the script was kind of the last piece of the process, we only got the script at the end of the last few rehearsals. And so I feel like, but now I feel like the story has kind of come full circle for me, from meeting Gustavo Zerbino when I was 12 years old, him giving the talk at the school, to now I’ve been doing interviews with him, side by side, and you know, talking to him as a friend. It’s incredible.

How was your relationship with the survivors, and how crucial was this bond for you to understand Numa?
Well, really, the story belongs to them. It’s their story, so it’s crucial to meet them, to really understand the story, and to hear from them, to really understand the story, because no one else can tell you what really happened. Or can really tell you how Numa was on the mountain. When you hear about the story, you have this kind of mythical idea of the survivors, you kind of think of them as superheroes, but then when you get to know them, even though they’re 70 years old, they still have the energy of 20 something year olds, which is so nice. And meeting them actually humanises them as well, which is wonderful. And also obviously meeting them, you’re able to talk to them, and ask them more precise details about the story, about Numa himself, and meeting them, you can start to understand better the relationship they had. And in that way, through their relationship, I learnt things about Numa, and especially the way they talk about him as well, was very helpful. For example, when the actors were first introduced to the survivors, we went around introducing ourselves, saying, my name is so and so, and I’m playing so and so. And every time someone introduced themselves, there would be a joke, or an anecdote about the person they were playing. And when I introduced myself, I said, ‘I’m Enzo, and I’m playing Numa.’ And there was just silence, and they gave me a hug. Obviously, they didn’t know me, so they weren’t really hugging me, they were hugging Numa. But in that hug, I got so much information about who Numa was. I could tell there was really something special about him. And so in that sense, meeting the survivors was really key to portraying the story.

A director once told me that no film has ever truly captured the complete essence of a person or a story, as it’s simply not possible. How much creative license would you say you allowed yourself in telling Numa’s story, and how much of your own identity do you believe you infused into his character?
As an actor, you’re trying to get as close as you can to the character, but also at the same time, the character is kind of getting closer to you. So, in that dance between who is getting closer to who, that’s when I was starting to see how much I could put of myself into the character, or how much I already had of the character in me. When it came to interpreting Numa, I found him very difficult to understand. Throughout the whole process, I was working really hard to try and understand him, and I was terrified. I really thought they were going to sack me from the film at any moment, because I just couldn’t understand 100% of the character. And because of that place of terror that I was in, I worked and worked and worked and worked as hard as I could.

And it was only right at the end of the filming process, actually, that I fully started to understand Numa a bit better, after having been able to visit the Valley of the Tears, where the crash site was, when I met with his family after filming, and we went out to eat. I realised that in that process of putting as much effort as I possibly could into portraying the character and getting as close to him as possible, I realised that that was a very typical characteristic that Numa had. He was always trying to give the best of himself and go as far as he possibly could. And that actually made me feel a lot better, because I realised that I did have something of Numa in me that I was able to portray.

This is a story that deeply connects you to the darkest and maybe wildest side of the human experience. How did you tackle the physical demands of the process, and how did you prepare emotionally and psychologically to step into Numa’s shoes?
Personally, that’s actually one of my favourite things about acting, that you need to take yourself to the deeper places, or the darker places of the human spirit. Places that you might want to avoid, or we try to avoid on a daily basis, because you don’t need to go there. But in these cases, you’re forced to dig deep, and the deeper you go, the better for your work. And I really find that process beautiful, because not only do you get to know things, but you get to learn things about yourself as well. And I really like that.

When it comes to the physical preparation, the physicality of the whole process, of course it was physically tough, we were very cold, we were going hungry, and so you need strength to be able to withstand being cold and hungry in the mountains. But because we were cold and hungry on set, we didn’t need to act on those things. So having those elements being real made that side easier, because we didn’t need to act on them, and that freed up mental space to be able to focus on the emotions, the emotional side of things, which is a lot harder, I suppose.

And I think that knowing that this is a real story really helped with the filming process, because that made it easier to connect with the emotions that we were portraying. And when you think that it’s real, people really went through this, it really helps you to connect with the emotions. And you know, you can read the books, you can read everything before coming onto the set, and just knowing that all of that information, everything that has been discussed really happened to real people, makes it that bit easier to get to those dark places. And I really loved that. And I really enjoyed connecting with something so real. For example, in some of the scenes that I filmed as Numa, his best friend that he’s known ever since he was nine years old dies, and the fact that he is able or manages to accept that death and filming those scenes, it’s impossible not to get emotional. And so when you really put yourself in the mind of that character, it makes it that bit easier. It comes naturally.

Society of The Snow is clearly a movie about grief. But it’s also a tale on the power of brotherhood and how much love becomes a fuel to survival instincts. How do you reflect on the relationship you created with your fellow cast members and how you grew together on set?
As the story is about friendship and the love you have between friends, it’s impossible not to become friends with your fellow actors. I was with my colleagues for four months in the mountains. It was a casting process of seven months. We were rehearsing for two months together. So by the end of all of that, we became more than friends. And it was such a huge experience for us to all share together. We all came from the same place. This was the first big opportunity that we’d had as actors, you know, film opportunity. So the story and the experience really united us hugely. We spent all day, every day together. We supported each other. We had a laugh together. We got to know almost everything about each other. We spoke about life and death. And we became firm, firm friends, if not ‘hermanos.’ And I think that’s one of the most beautiful things about the whole process.

What are your main takeaways from this whole process — do you see yourself as a different person from when you started filming it?
I suppose, at the beginning of the filming process, I didn’t think I was someone who was particularly close to my friends. But at the end of the filming process, I realised how close I actually was to my friends. So that was a really nice change to note. There were many changes. And perhaps one of my favourite ones, just realising how close I am to my friends. Despite having just made 25 new friends, when I got back home, I realised just how close I was to my old friends. And that was a really great personal takeaway for me.