Wagner Maniçoba de Moura (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈvaɡneʁ mɐ̃niˈsɔbɐ dʒi ˈmowɾɐ]; born 27 June 1976) is a Brazilian actor and filmmaker.

[2] In 2015, he went on to star in the series Narcos, playing drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, a role for which he was nominated for several awards, including the Golden Globe.

Besides being a well-established and acclaimed actor in Brazil, Moura has achieved international success as a part of the movement that seeks positive representation for Latin Americans in Hollywood.

José Moura, his father, was in the military, so the family, still consisting of his mother, Alderiva, and his younger sister Lediane — who works as a pediatrician — became used to moving around.

In the early 2000s, he was a reporter for an interview program on TV Bahia – an affiliate of Rede Globo – and covered high society parties talking to businessmen and celebrities.

Receiving critical and public acclaim, the show left Bahia and went on the road to Pernambuco, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro where it continued to succeed.

Then came the series Sexo Frágil, which entered the network's Friday night schedule after its success as a sketch on the TV show Fantástico.

[9] He then amended the telenovela with the limited series JK, the biography of the Brazil's former president Juscelino Kubitschek, playing the title character in his youth.

[10] In 2007, he was scheduled to play businessman Olavo Novaes, villain of the telenovela Paraíso Tropical, wrote by prestigious Brazilian screenwriters Gilberto Braga and Ricardo Linhares.

The film broke all box office records, won awards in Brazil and Europe, including the Berlin's Golden Bear, and generated controversy and debates about piracy, police harassment and urban violence.

Elite Squad: The Enemy Within repeated the success of the first version and for ten years held the highest-grossing title in the country's history.

[22] In 2014, he starred in Futuro Beach by Karim Aïnouz, once again at the Berlin International Film Festival, as a lifeguard from Recife who goes to Germany after falling in love with a tourist.

[citation needed] In the same year, Rio, I Love You was released, in which Moura plays a parachutist who talks about Christ the Redeemer in the short film by José Padilha.

As a director, he worked on the music video for the song "Te Amo" from the album Bicicletas, Bolos e Outras Alegrias, by singer Vanessa da Mata.

In April 2015, Moura was confirmed to play one of the "seven men" in the movie The Magnificent Seven, a remake of the 1960 Western classic alongside names like Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Haley Bennett and Luke Grimes, scheduled to premiere in 2017, but had to decline the invitation due to filming the series Narcos, in which he was the antagonist.

Also at Sundance, he launched the Netflix drama Sergio, about Brazilian diplomat Sérgio Vieira de Mello, in which he is both the protagonist and producer.

During interviews, he announced that he signed a contract with Disney+ to produce a series about Maria Bonita, and will be in the next productions by Kleber Mendonça Filho and Karim Aïnouz.

In 2022, he starred in the Apple TV+ series Shining Girls with Elisabeth Moss, in the role of journalist Dan Velásquez,[30] joined the cast of Civil War, a film by Oscar-nominated director and screenwriter Alex Garland with production by A24,[31] and starred in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, with Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Olivia Colman and Florence Pugh, voicing the wolf who is revealed to be the physical incarnation of Death.

[32] He starred, alongside Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Regé-Jean Page, Billy Bob Thornton and others in the feature The Gray Man, considered the most expensive in the history of Netflix, as the eccentric Laszlo Sosa.

In the role, Moura lost twenty kilos and was praised by the Russo brothers, who called him "an incredible actor, one of the most talented in the world".