"Theater is and has always been the most important force in my life," said Renato Brandao. "It has a life-transforming, mystical power. It says that you can improve yourself, you can enlarge your horizons, you don't have to be bound by today's limits. I felt victimized when I was young, and it gave me optimism. It spoke to my heart."
Renato is politically impassioned, fearless and articulate. He was his parents' only child, born in Sao Paulo, Brazil. "My parents were very poor," he said. "We were helped by my grandmother and an aunt, who lived in a more middle-class area. The contrast between their nice neighborhood and our own very poor part of town gave me an early social awareness. It gave me also a will to improve my life and the lives of my parents."
His grandmother taught him to play the piano, and spoke to him of literature and classical music. He attended school, and his father encouraged him to learn English. At 15, attending high school for four hours each day, Renato began working part time in a bank. He also began to study German at the Goethe Institute, gaining a scholarship that enabled him to study without fee. He branched out.