Gonçalo Waddington

Gonçalo Waddington isn’t your average creative. Born in Lisbon in ‘77, the guy basically grew up inhaling theater air down in Cascais while still a teenager. By ‘96, he’d already crashed into TV with a part in Polícias—yeah, those classic ‘90s police precinct dramas. It took a minute, but by 2006 he landed his first film gig in Alice, directed by Marco Martins, and kept popping up in Martins’s later stuff like Saint George. Waddington doesn’t just act; he writes, directs, basically juggles hats like he’s got extra hands. He made his own short films—Nameless, which hit the Las Palmas fest in 2010, then Immaculate at IndieLisboa in 2013. But theater’s his playground too. He adapted Proust for the stage (wild move, honestly) with Albertine, The Celestial Continent, pulling triple-duty as writer, director, and star—oh, and his partner Carla Maciel was right there with him. TV? He co-created and starred in Odisseia, a comedy series that actually landed. Plus he and Carla teamed up for MacBain, a play tailor-made for them by Gerardjan Rijnders, which debuted in Lisbon. He’s dabbled in everything from Ibsen (Rosmersholm, The Wild Duck) to gritty films like Blood Curse and Noise, and even short films like Chorus. Waddington’s face pops up in all sorts of Portuguese cinema—Yvone Kane, Misbegotten, The Portuguese Falcon, April Showers, The Lines of Wellington. And then, finally, in 2018, he steps up to direct his first feature, Patrick, with O Som e a Fúria, dropping in 2019. Guy never sits still.