prying eye is Netflix’s new national miniseries that arrives in the streaming catalog at the turn of the year – at midnight on January 1st. And the great attraction of the production is its plot of suspense and investigation, filled with mystery and sensuality.
Starring Emanuelle Araujo, Débora Nascimento, Nikolas Antunes and Ângelo Rodrigues, the story follows the life of Miranda (Débora), a beautiful woman and voyeur whose hobby is to spy on the life of Cléo (Emanuelle), the neighbor of the building opposite who she’s a call girl.
Neighborhood friends, the two have a cordial and friendly relationship. But everything changes when Cléo needs to travel with an important client and asks Miranda to take care of her dog in her apartment.
With a well-written text and good twists, the series abuses the suspense leaving the audience with “a taste of wanting more”. In addition, it also draws attention for the various sex scenes and for addressing themes such as vouyerism and sadomasochism.
These scenes, however, are not displeasing and are tastefully done. This can be credited, in part, to the fact that the prying eye being predominantly female both in front of and behind the camera.
The creation and script were left to the Argentine Marcela Citterio, while the adaptation was signed by Camila Raffanti. Luciana Oliveira is in general direction and episodes are directed by Fabrizia Pinto and Letícia Veiga.
Feminine gaze in erotic scenes
This feminine vision was fundamental to give the sex scenes prying eye a more natural and less eroticized look, without overexposing those involved. The production also had the help of Barbara Harrington, an intimacy coordinator who taught the crew how to make intimate scenes without harassment.
It is important to emphasize that Barbara’s work benefits both women and men and focuses not only on the act itself, but also on the choice of costumes, the safety of those involved (as in the case of BDSM scenes) and the emotional state of the actors. In prying eyefor example, one of the coordinator’s concerns was precisely the scenes in which the actresses are tied to the ropes.
About such stagings and the discomfort of starring in them, actor Ângelo Rodrigues who plays the character Heitor told, exclusively to the canaltechthat it was the first time he found himself on a set with only women, and that this was the main barrier he had to overcome to feel comfortable:
“It was the first time that I was on a set with only women working. As we are talking about scenes with some nudity, it was a total novelty to be able to do them in front of an exclusively female audience. Overcoming that fact was my greatest difficulty, but we had the support of our intimacy coordinator, Barbara Harrington, so that all the cast involved felt comfortable and at ease to deliver what our characters needed for the scene.
I feel that now I have more empathy for the work of actresses, because what often happens is the opposite. Usually, actresses are partially nude in front of a sea of men. Now, for the first time, I could feel what they feel.”
Nikolas Antunes, who lives the good guy Fernando, told the reporter canaltech that the biggest challenge in making erotic scenes is to make them real:
“Without a doubt the biggest challenge is to do something realistic, with true feelings and impulses, but respecting the particularities and limits of the scene partner. It sounds simple, but it’s not.
At no time did I have this fear, from the first reading it was very clear that Olhar Indiscreto is about young people who have a busy sex life, but that is just a detail within the plot.”
international projection
It is not new that Netflix has been investing in Brazilian productions. series like 3%?? Mouth to mouth and Good morning, Veronica have been successful in Brazil and abroad. the acclaimed Most beautiful thing, for example, released in 2019, was chosen by Variety as one of the best productions to watch on the platform. Thus, it is not unrealistic to think that prying eye can reach this level after its release.
When asked how they imagine the public will receive it, Nikolas and Ângelo are optimistic:
“The series is very beautiful, well done, has a good script and has a totally feminine look. I think these are ingredients that will make the difference in direct communication with our audience and I hope that the international market will come along” guarantees Nikolas .
Ângelo also hopes that the production will be seen by many people, and ensures that this is the ideal time to launch it:
“My ambition is modest. I want all the inhabitants of this planet to see Olhar Indiscreto and at the end to give me feedback. I believe that the public will be pleasantly surprised. The series raises reflections on female sexual liberation, either through Cléo, who is free and well resolved with her sexuality, or by Miranda, who learns about her sexual desire throughout the episodes.
As we live in the era of women’s emancipation, there is no better time than this to talk about these issues. And for thriller and mystery fans, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.”
Mystery and suspense mark the narrative
Speaking of thriller and mystery, the actors of prying eye told the canaltech what it was like to act in the genre. While Nikolas had already had the opportunity to develop suspense work, for Angelo it was new:
“It was the first time I did a production of the genre. What I found most interesting in the narrative was the way in which the complexity of the characters is presented. In each episode, details are revealed in a very subtle way.
The characters are all dangerously mysterious and that captured my attention. Knowing that everyone is suspected of committing crimes also whet my appetite.”
Despite the experience, Nikolas assured that prying eyes It has many features that make it special:
“I’ve worked on other psychological thrillers, but each job is unique and Olhar Indiscreto has many particularities, it’s very special. The simplicity of direct and realistic communication, the complexity of the plot with passages of time forwards and backwards, the twists and nuances of an approach that is not purely good or only bad”
This complexity of the characters mentioned by Nikolas was responsible for making the story of the Netflix series even more interesting, since the public cannot discern for sure who is the villain and who is the good guy in the story. Everyone has some degree of vulnerability and evil in them.
And of course, building such characters is not always an easy task. But for this mission, the cast had the help of a preparation team:
“We did a very affectionate preparation with Marina Elias and I am very grateful for that. Fernando is a very complex guy, a sweet man who went through many things in his life, keeping that sweetness in the foreground was, without a doubt, the great challenge because during the readings the opposite came to me.”
For Ângelo, the main difficulty was creating empathy with his character and trying, in some way, to legitimize his actions:
“The biggest challenge was to feel the character’s pains as if they were mine. The best exercise in empathy is not just imagining ourselves in the other person’s place, but living this reality from the other’s point of view.
In that sense, delving into the character’s universe and understanding his scars was exhausting. Heitor has a dark side, with wounds and bitterness that no one has access to. Getting to Heitor’s heart and legitimizing his actions was the biggest battle.”
Who is in the cast of Indiscreet Look?
Still speaking of characters, to tell this story in addition to Ângelo and Nikolas mentioned in this article, and the protagonists Emanuelle Araujo and Débora Nascimento, the production featured Tânia Alves and Débora Duarte —who deliver an exquisite performance when playing Miranda’s grandmother, whose Dementia prevents her from remembering important events in her life.
When and where to watch Olhar Indiscreto?
If you were curious about the plot and want to give the series a chance, we have good news: you you can watch Olhar Indiscreto on Netflix from the 1st of January??
