Fernanda Torres was a surprise winner at the Golden Globes – she won Best Actress in a Drama for the Brazilian film I’m Still Here. Torres is a Brazilian actress, and as it turns out, she’s a nepo baby in Brazil. Her mother is Fernanda Montenegro, who is one of the most famous and respected Brazilian actresses of all time. Brazil’s version of Meryl Streep and Louisa Jacobson, perhaps. Or maybe it’s more like Kirk and Michael Douglas. While Torres is a virtual unknown to most American audiences, she was asked to speak on the current nepo baby conversations percolating through Hollywood and beyond. Torres has a message: don’t kill the nepo babies!
Fernanda Torres, the daughter of prolific Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro, has clapped back at critics of nepo babies in Hollywood, dubbing the label as an “ancient” idea and crowning herself as the “nepo baby person that proved that a nepo baby is worth living.”
“You don’t have to kill a nepo baby as soon as he is born,” Torres told IndieWire while reflecting on her recent Best Actress win at the 2025 Golden Globes for Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here. “I really hate this idea because this is ancient, that people learn in their environment. The dining table of my house was the place where my parents were rehearsing. It doesn’t mean when you are a nepo baby that your life is solved. On the contrary, you have to invent yourself. You have other issues.”
Nepo babies refer to people in the entertainment industry who come from celebrity or generally wealthy parents, and swiftly became an enemy of the zeitgeist a few years back for their presumingly easier path to success. Although discourse on nepotism in Hollywood regularly makes the rounds, Torres voiced that it’s the “wrong fight” when it comes to equality in the industry.
“The good fight is to fight for good education for everybody,” Torres explained to IndieWire. “Inequality is not based on the chances that a nepo baby can have. You can kill all the nepo babies in the world, and you won’t solve the inequality problem. Taxing big fortunes is a way of fighting against inequality. Fighting for health for everybody, for education for everybody. Don’t kill the nepo babies! Nowadays, we are full of wrong fights,” she continued. “We’re full of noisy fights that don’t lead us to anything. The fight against inequality, the fight for taxing great fortunes, the fight for regulating the digital world, those are the good fights. Come on people, wake up.”
I enjoy her message of “don’t blame nepo babies for inequalities, taxes should be higher!” I get her train of thought though, because the nepo baby conversation IS about inequality and how “privileged” people get more opportunities than regular people. All that being said, this isn’t a great argument: “It doesn’t mean when you are a nepo baby that your life is solved. On the contrary, you have to invent yourself. You have other issues.” Like… people who didn’t grow up with parents in any film industry have to “invent” themselves too. And it’s a lot harder for them to do so without being the “daughter of.”
Photos courtesy of Getty, Avalon Red.
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- Fernanda Torres,Image: 903878362, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Maria Laura Antonelli/AGF Foto/Avalon
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- 'Wolfs' premiere, 81st Venice International Film Festival, Italy – 01 Sep 2024,Image: 906424892, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Available in UK, USA & Europe excluding Poland, Model Release: no, Pictured: Fernanda Torres, Credit line: KIKA/Wenn/Avalon
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- 'Wolfs' premiere, 81st Venice International Film Festival, Italy – 01 Sep 2024,Image: 913922920, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Available in UK, USA & Europe excluding Poland, Model Release: no, Pictured: Fernanda Torres, Credit line: KIKA/Wenn/Avalon
Look, I just think it’s sweet nepo baby karma that she won the Oscar, in the context of her mother lost to the og nepo baby Gwyneth
Three things:
1. You were lucky the brazilian fanbase didn’t find this article lol, they can be … a LOT
2. Fernanda Montenegro (her mother) is … I mean, Meryl is Amazing, but there are no words to describe. She is a living legend. A true icon – and I’m not brazilian, but have consumed brazilian culture my whole life (kind of like Americans with the UK?), so there’s that…
They look a lot alike, but in terms of career trajectory, personality, they couldn’t more different. Torres is mostly a comedic actress, blazed a trail much different from her mom and her dad, perhaps only recently now stepping closer to the Drama route.
3. I think, although her spoken english is very good, some of her message was lost in translation – so I guess my portuguese brain kind of got what she wanted to say? but in english it just sounds .. oversimplified.
Anyway, happy to see a post about Fernanda, so happy for her win! =)
What Americans are consuming UK culture ? We can’t name hardly any of their celebrities unless they get famous playing Americans.
Just like Americans could care less about soccer
I think the main problem with nepo-babies is when they are constantly getting work or opportunities outside the scope of their talents. Jamie Lee Curtis is a nepo-baby, but she is so talented and I never think of her parents (maybe because I was too young and heard of JLC before her famous family?). Same with Carrie Fisher. She wasn’t the most compelling actress, but she was a fabulous script doctor and hilarious to boot. Even Kate Hudson doesn’t really irk me because she knows her strengths and kinda sticks to her lane, if that makes sense?
There are lots of children (and grandchildren) of famous people who seem to work hard and succeed. It’s the talentless ones (Brooklyn Beckham & wife, the Smith kids, Tori Spelling, Harley Quinn Smith, etc.) that grind my gears. As well as the ones who think that it was just as hard for them to achieve what they have as it was for someone without those connections.
Brazilian here. I’d say Fernanda Torres’ mother, Fernanda Montenegro, is bigger and more respected in Brazil than Meryl Streep is in the US. Indeed an icon, a valuable piece of Brazilian theatre and cinematic culture. But Torres is also extremely liked and respected as she has carved a space and a name for herself (different from her mother’s) over the last 30 years in TV and theatre.
I think this nepo-baby discussion needs to be put into context and depends on the country as well. Fernanda grew up in Brazil in the 70s with parents in the industry, but in no way was she basking in the amounts of privilege and wealth of counterparts in Hollywood. I would say that Brazilian nepobabies born in the 90’s 00’s have had the opportunity to grow in a lot more wealth and influence as mass culture has grown as have pay checks for those in the industry; but again, I don’t think its the same for Fernanda’s generation.