Papel Principal (English title: Leading Role) is a Portuguese telenovela produced by SP Televisão and broadcast by SIC. It premiered on 25 September 2023. The telenovela is written by Ana Casaca from an original idea of SIC with the collaboration of Manuel Mora Marques, Pedro Cavaleiro, Pedro Barbosa da Silva, Catarina Dias, Filipa Poppe, Mariana Vicente and João Maria. It stars Carolina Carvalho, Margarida Vila-Nova, Ângelo Rodrigues, José Mata, Mafalda Vilhena, António Fonseca e Victoria Guerra.
Plot
Aurora is a young actress who became famous early on and is still widely recognized as one of the most prolific comedy actress working today. Besides the popular teenage series that kick-started her career, she also does musical theatre. But behind the appearance of a headstrong and good natured young woman hides someone who was manipulated by her mother her whole life. Despite having done everything for her daughter to succeed, Irene secretly feels a level of resentment. After all, Aurora has managed to accomplish everything that her mother never could.
Along with her husband Júlio, Irene enrolled Aurora in a casting call for the teenage series “Os Eleitos” (The Chosen in English) but, upon realizing that the final decision was split between her daughter and Lúcia, Irene had no qualms about pulling some strings and swaying the choice for her daughter to get the lead. Lúcia, who grew up in a rough neighbourhood, saw this casting call and the chance to get the lead as her ticked out of her life of hardship. However, Lúcia ended up being run over in a hit and run that nearly took her life.
While recovering in hospital, Lúcia watches as the series becomes a hit, the very series in which she should have been. Instead of her, she sees Aurora in the lead, paired with Fred, the young man who plays the Aurora's best friend and her first love, both in the series and in real life...
Cast
Carolina Carvalho as Aurora Guerra
Joana Cravo as Young Aurora
Margarida Vila-Nova as Lúcia Rocha
Ana Lopes as Young Lúcia
Ângelo Rodrigues as Frederico «Fred» Nascimento
João Bettencourt as Young Fred
José Mata as Paulo Peixoto
Ivo Arroja as Young Paulo
Mafalda Vilhena as Irene Guerra
António Fonseca as Júlio Guerra
Victoria Guerra as Vera Nascimento
Renato Godinho as Miguel Castilho
Marco d'Almeida as Ângelo Tavares
Carolina Loureiro as Gabriela Santos
Márcia Breia as Fernanda Peixoto
Melânia Gomes as Daniela Teixeira
Gomes also plays Bruna, an fictional character from “A Casa da Aurora” Noémia Costa as Matilde Silvestre Carlos Areia as Gustavo Silvestre Sandra Faleiro as Marina Bezerro Pedro Lacerda as Joel Bezerro Patrícia Tavares as Silvina Castilho Tavares also plays Silvina's pseudonym Henrique Divo Diogo Martins as Roberto Baptista Isabela Valadeiro as Inês Freitas Miguel Raposo as Manuel Silvestre Sofia Arruda as Denise Bezerro Igor Regalla as Diego Caseiro Vera Moura as Telma «Donatela» Castanheiro João Arrais as Zen Bezerro Cleia Almeida as Teresa Silvestre João Vicente as Pedro Dinis Diana Palmerston as Rita Castilho Beatriz Forjaz as Alice Teixeira
Guest stars
Joaquim Monchique as Marcelo Pimenta
Cláudia Vieira as TBA
Production
In September 2022, the pre-production for the telenovela began. Almost a year later, the first scenes began to be filmed on 28 June 2023 in SP Televisão studios, in Oeiras at Parque dos Poetas and in on the outskirts of Lisbon.
Ratings
Premiering with the purpose of raising the audiences left of its predecessors in the time slot since the lost of leadership of the audiences Amor Amor - Vol. 2 saw the one of the worst pilot-episode rating of the first track of telenovelas broadcast by SIC, drawing a rating of 7.5 points and audience share of 15.5%.
Since the first episode, the telenovela hasn't show some leadship in the audiences, although with some rating and share records.