Photo via Juan Caruso on Instagram
We were joined on the Popternative show by Juan Caruso who can be seeing portraying Álvaro Mangino in the survival thriller Society of the Snow. The film premiered on Netflix January 4th and is based on the book of the same title by Pablo Vierci. Netflix announced that it received 22.9M views, making Society of the Snow their #1 film on the platform this week.
Society of the Snow tells the true story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 chartered to fly a rugby team to Chile in 1972 that crashes on a glacier in the heart of the Andes Mountains. Only 29 of its 45 passengers survived the accident, leaving them trapped in one of the most hostile and inaccessible environments on the planet, resulting in having to resort to extreme measures to stay alive. Directed by J.A. Bayona (The Impossible, The Orphanage), Society of the Snow is Spain’s official selection for best international feature at the 2024 Oscars and received a 2024 Golden Globes nomination for best non-English language film.
When discussing the overall experience of the film from auditioning to shooting, Juan says, “I knew that getting the role was going to change my life. The whole experience was a learning stage.”
He also goes into detail about the challenges filming the avalanche scenes: “We got sick 2 weeks into the shooting [of the film], the plane was tiny, and we were like 19 people and 8 bodies one on top of the other, in the snow, frozen, wet. In that scene I was hanging [on] so I didn’t get trapped. It was hard for the other actors; they had to [climb out] from the snow as many times as the director wanted. I was so sick, but that scene and the ones that follow up are the best [scenes] in the movie.”
Watch the full conversation with Juan Caruso below.
Society of the Snow is streaming on Netflix.
Follow Juan Caruso: Instagram