“That’s literally the question that takes me out of my sleep”, says Mariana Canhisares when asked how she would describe herself. A former Cásper Líbero student, she graduated college in 2016 and has done amazing things since. Nowadays, she works as an entertainment journalist at Omelete, a pop culture website, and has a lot of stories to share!
To start, she remembered a past college experience: “I once had to write a text about myself without using adjectives… It was where my nightmare started: I didn’t know who I was. The actress Jameela Jamil once said that she started to know herself when she was 27. I think I’m in that process, I’m currently 27”. Mari is still figuring out her place in the world (and showing that it’s possible to have fun along the way). She likes to think she’s a humorous person: “I value humor. I think the worst situations in life get better with it”. Personally, I couldn’t agree more, it’s what I call “The Chandler Bing effect”. Besides that, Canhisares she also sees herself as a bit of an obsessive person, “in a way that I truly care about what I’m doing at work”, which may sound a little harsh, but has proved to be a valuable trait, as you will see further in this piece.
Journalism: a path
Journalism wasn’t her first choice. “[Besides journalism,] I thought about publishing, law and engineering. At the end of high school, I was really torn between journalism and engineering. I really liked writing, I think every journalist goes through that phase, but I also liked to do research in general. I liked to study”. However, she wouldn’t be able to stare at numbers for too long and saw in journalism a profession with lots of possibilities.
Interviews are her favorite thing about it: “[Even] if you are working with politics or economics there is a chance for you to travel, learn about something else, talk to interesting people. I’ve always liked Talk Shows and interviews. The idea of talking with smart people is something that has always been attractive to me”.
She started working at Omelete six years ago. Her previous works helped with what she is currently doing, “I did a bit of everything. I worked on the production of a news show, did an economics training at Estadão and created content about education. Being able to try all that was very cool and useful with what I do in my work with culture today”. She ended up in the entertainment industry, for two reasons: because she always wanted to and it just kind of happened. “My grandparents lived near a publishing agency that I’ve always respected and I’ve always liked TV, especially TV series. I binge watched them and had DVDs”.
When a spot at Omelete opened up, three of her friends told her about it. “I applied for the job but didn’t get it the first time. It was a Game of Thrones focused spot and I took the tests but wasn’t approved”. However, being an “obsessive person” as she says, she wanted to know why things didn’t work out: “After I got the news I hadn’t gotten the job, I emailed Natalia Bridi, who was in charge of the newsroom and asked her for a feedback, I wanted to know why I hadn’t gotten in. I said I was interested in working in that area and wanted to know what I’ve done wrong. When another spot opened a few months later, she remembered me because of that email”.
Since that email, the former “casperiana” has done a bunch of interesting and cool interviews and reports. She highlighted the Ted Lasso interview as a very special one to her. “It was the most recent one I did. I liked it very much. I found it [the TV series] during my cancer treatment, in 2020, and it was very important to me. It was a rollercoaster of optimism”.
As for her favorite report, she mentions a special piece about 007: “the first special I wrote about 007 was very important. I wrote a lot of things about ‘The Craig Era’. I spoke to a professor from The University of Oklahoma that specialized in James Bond. I interviewed a bunch of people who looked at culture material as a research subject: to understand how James Bond relates to politics after 9/11, how the ‘Bond Girls’ evolved through time, how we see James Bond. Understand how pop culture, even if it’s considered silly or just a way to get away from the world, also says a lot about what we are living”. Even though it was a lot of work, it was worth it, “I love James Bond too. It was a cool project and it was something that demanded a lot of my attention. I had a lot of material and, almost like a puzzle, I had to figure out how to explain things in the best way possible”.
She also mentioned that CCXP is something very special. “Every big event, when you finish it, is amazing. I interviewed Tenoch Huerta (Namor, Black Panther 2). It was the first interview I did in Spanish, live, with an audience, at CCXP and with a Marvel Star”. She also interviewed The Last of Us star Pedro Pascal: “Personally, I don’t know, I don’t recall [the interview]. It’s as if I stepped out of my body and someone else was watching”. She was nervous not specifically because of Pedro himself, but more because of the context “I’d met Pedro already, during The Lion King premiere, so I knew he was a cool guy. I was nervous not because of him, but due to the atmosphere [of the event]. There was a big cast, it was live, it was The Last of Us”.
Another interesting thing about her work is that she travels a lot because of it (and she frequently does it alone). Her first work-related trip was to Canada, a place she had never gone before. “I went to Vancouver to do a set visit for It 2 and it was the first time I talked to someone who I really admired and liked: James McAvoy. That trip was very different, I had no Internet connection, no cell service and didn’t quite know what I was doing”.
Years later, she would proceed to go on much bigger events. “More recently, there was the San Diego Comic Con and the D-23. The latter is kind of like Comic Con, but only Disney related. They introduced Disney+ and it was a three day event. “I worked for three days straight, covering panels, writing, recording and watching premieres. It prepared me for SDCC. Being able to go to SDCC is amazing. It’s the most important event of the year. I interviewed The Lord of The Rings cast. I didn’t sleep because of how much work I had. I woke up early, had a good breakfast because I knew I wouldn’t have lunch and maybe, if I could leave early, I might have dinner”.
The Oscars
Her latest job was covering The Oscars in Los Angeles. “I came back last week from the Oscars. It was the first one Omelete covered and it was my first time doing it. It’s been ten years since I entered Cásper and looking back at everything I’ve done, it’s very nice”. Even though she likes her job and still very much enjoys watching TV shows, it’s not always easy: “Sometimes things happen very fast. In journalism, you finish a report and there’s already another one. It never ends. Working with movies and TV, there’s always something to work on, that’s why sometimes it’s tiring. When you start working with something you like, you start looking at things differently. Your head immediately goes ‘oh, here’s something we can write about'”.
Inspiration and advice
In Women’s Month, Canhisares talks about a female journalist who was important and inspires her. “Natalia Bridi was very important to me. Not only as a journalist, but also as a mentor. A lot of my anxiety, she helped me manage it. When I joined Omelete, I think I’d watched only three Marvel movies, so she helped me with that. She gave me opportunities to work on things I wasn’t used to doing. She’s also a shy person, like me, and she overcame that by recording videos and such, so she helped me there too. She also writes very well, so when I had difficulties writing, especially reviews, I read her articles. She’s a huge reference for me”.
At the end, she gave advice to young female journalists, saying it’s important to trust themselves. “In some areas, like geek and nerd content, women are usually discredited and there’s some sexism involved in that. You have to trust what you do. Knowing to hear feedback and to select which ones are truly worth listening to”. For her, it’s important not to care so deeply about what other people say to you too and that it’s okay to make mistakes. She then gave a writing advice: “The first line of your text is the most important one. It’s what will make people want to read what you wrote”.
What to watch, according to Mariana Canhisares
To all the TV shows fans out there, here are some of the journalist favorites:
- Ted Lasso
- Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
- Succession
- Station Eleven
- Fleabag
- Arrested Development
- Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
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This article was edited by Giulia Howard.
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