Bea Santos summons Al Pacino as Inspiration for Fine Performance in “Blindsided”

“Blindsided” is your standard psycho killer fare punched up by an out of sight performance by Bea Santos (“True Detective”) as a resourceful young woman named Sloan. Did I mention her character is blind? And that she is a balls to the wall bad ass?

Girl don’t take no shit from this crazy fool.

I spoke with Ms. Santos recently about the movie and about her particularly challenging role in it. The Canadian actress, who is not blind, tells me that she has never played a sightless character before “Blindsided”. She prepared for the film in a genuinely interesting manner. Santos says she studied 1992’s “Scent of a Woman”, harvesting cues from Al Pacino in his dazzling Oscar-winning performance as Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, along with watching and learning from You Tube videos.

As her vision was blurred for purposes of the movie and she also wore sunglasses, Santos shares that it was “actually hard to see”, inspiring her to tap into an acting sensibility in which she “led with my ears”.

The closing visuals of “Blindsided” are jarringly violent and gruesome, the final one we see showing Sloan without her shades on. The image is wide open to the viewer’s personal interpretation. Santos describes the scene thusly: “It’s a moment of sight and clarity…relief and strength…of a Phoenix rising.” Though you may well see it differently, it is difficult to imagine a more eloquent assessment.

Santos lives in Toronto and tells me she loves the city. A proud native Canadian, she expresses a genuine desire to work in and support the country’s entertainment industry. To this point, you can watch for her soon as a cast member in Season 13 of Canadian TV’s “Murdoch Mysteries”.

Wherever you catch her, one thing seems certain. This is a burgeoning talent to keep an eye on.

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