Latest news with #Nawi
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20 hours ago
- Entertainment
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‘Squid Game' Finale Ends With Surprise Hollywood Star Cameo
[This story contains MAJOR spoilers from the season three finale.] Fans around the world were ready for some big twists from the series finale of Netflix's smash-hit dystopian thriller Squid Game — but arguably no one saw this surprise coming (warning: spoilers ahead). More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Nawi' Star Michelle Lemuya Ikeny Thought She Was Auditioning for a School Play But Ended up in Kenya's Oscar Submission About Child Marriage K-Pop Girl Group Aespa Is Exactly Where They Want to Be Lorde Performs Surprise Glastonbury Set on Day of Album Release: "I'm Back and Completely Free" In the final moments of the show's last episode, the Squid Game universe suddenly gets a whole lot more global when the camera jumps to California to find a character played by none other than two-time Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett on the streets of Los Angeles, recruiting potential American players to join what one must assume is a U.S. version of the show's eponymous death game. The brief moment provides an instant answer to the widespread industry speculation about how Netflix will continue or create a spinoff for its most globally popular show of all time. For now, all we know is that a new American storyline for the hit Korean series has been seeded. More details about what Blanchett's cameo portends for the future of the Squid Game franchise — like, who might direct a new U.S. season, who else would star and/or how involved series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk will be — can be expected from Netflix in the weeks and months ahead. In the meantime, Squid Game fans across the globe have a whole new death and drama-packed season to digest. Netflix dropped all six episodes of the final and third season of Squid Game at midnight on Friday, Pacific Time, just six months after the premiere of the second season late last year. Adding a few dozen more deaths to the harrowing but candy-colored show's already enormous kill count, season three brought the curtain down on the story of protagonist Gi-Hun (Lee Jung-jae), as the everyman hero made his final face-off against the game's dark overseer, The Front Man (Lee Byung-hun). The season had plenty of surprises besides Oscar-winning actresses, too — most notably the inclusion of an innocent newborn infant as a contestant in the game, an upping of the show's anti-capitalist moral stakes to their logical extreme. The original season of the Korean dystopian drama shocked the world after its debut on Netflix in September 2021, rapidly becoming the streamer's most-watched show ever, and later winning a pair of Emmys for its creator and star. The first season's unprecedented success heaped enormous pressure on series creator Hwang, who famously writes and directs every episode of the show single-handedly. But season two nonetheless delivered, setting a record for the most views of a series or film on Netflix in its premiere week, and eventually rising to become the streamer's third most popular show of all time. Now, Squid Game's fate is back in the hands of the audience, as the world makes its way through season three. The casting of Blanchett lends instant artistic heft to whatever comes next for Squid Game. The Australian actress has been nominated for eight Academy Awards and won twice (for Martin Scorsese's The Aviator and Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine), and has also been nominated for two Emmys (Mrs. America) and has won four Golden Globes from 13 nominations. She's also known for picking her artistic collaborators carefully and tends to only work with top auteurs. Recent roles include the leads in Alfonso Cuaron's critically acclaimed Apple TV+ series Disclaimer, Todd Fields' Tár, Guy Maddin's Rumors and Steven Soderbergh's Black Bag. Blanchett also has some considerable ddakji skills up her sleeve and packs a mean, full-wind-up slap — as evidenced by season three's stirring final moments. 'If a story came my way that I felt could benefit from the amount of time that serialized storytelling can give it then, yeah,' Blanchett had told THR after Disclaimer in 2024 about her interests in doing more series television. 'But I suppose it just depends.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Studio': 30 Famous Faces Who Play (a Version of) Themselves in the Hollywood-Based Series 22 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise
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20 hours ago
- Entertainment
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‘Nawi' Star Michelle Lemuya Ikeny Thought She Was Auditioning for a School Play But Ended up in Kenya's Oscar Submission About Child Marriage
Nawi: Dear Future Me, a Kenyan-German coming-of-age drama about child marriage that was Kenya's entry for the best international feature film race at the 2025 Oscars, has made waves in Kenya, on the film festival circuit and beyond. At the recent Beijing International Film Festival, the jury created a special jury honor to shine a spotlight on it. And on Friday, the movie won two awards at the Raindance Film Festival in London, one for best international feature and the second for the best performance in a debut feature, for its star Michelle Lemuya Ikeny. More from The Hollywood Reporter Lorde Performs Surprise Glastonbury Set on Day of Album Release: "I'm Back and Completely Free" Raindance Film Festival: 'Nawi' Wins Best Int'l Feature and Debut Performance Awards Polish Indie Kino Swiat Names New CEO The young Kenyan woman is 15 now, but was 12 when the movie was shot. Her portrayal of a young girl battling child marriage in hopes of an education and self-determination has been praised for being multilayered and full of charisma. THR's Georg Szalai talked to her about how she thought she was autioning for a school play, while ending up getting cast in Kenya's Oscar submission, how real-life experiences in her community mirror those of her character Nawi, wanting to empower girls and audiences, and whether she will pursue more acting opportunities. Did you always want to become an actress or how did you get the role in this film? As I grew up, it had never been a job that I had in mind but I'm multi-passionate. Personally, I have so many dreams, and I could do anything. I didn't know it was a movie role that I was auditioning for. I just thought it was a school drama, and I signed up and tried out. Then we had a two-week training with an acting coach in Kenya. What really inspired me and what motivated me to want to play this was the story of this film. It was actually about these girls in my home, and it was a movie advocating for their rights. So there's no way I could say no. I had no idea what actors do or how they do it, but I was willing to try. How did you know or figure out how to portray the experience of child marriage? What helped me be able to portray all the emotions was that I've interacted with these girls who are victims of early marriage. I have been their friend. We've lived together and seen them when this thing happened to them. So it is easier to do this because I've interacted with them. I know them, and I know how they feel. So I just tried to remember, 'Oh, my friends felt this and that. She didn't want this to happen, and this is how she felt.' What was the hardest part of acting for you?First of all, I come from the Turkana community itself [where the film is set], so playing this, accepting to play this role alone, was a bit of a decision to make. Because doing this means, for my community, that I'm going against them. I'm going against those traditions. I'm trying to say no to what they've been doing for years. So it is a bit of a difficult decision to make as a girl, because my community would take me as a betrayer, defying all these rules. Yeah, accepting to play the role itself was a hard decision. Also, the emotions were [challenging]. It's was my first time doing this. And what you do on camera and set while shooting is different from your real emotions. It may be a good day for you as a person, but you're supposed to act sad. But along the way, I had great mentors. The directors themselves were really nice, so I was guided. What did you think when you heard that two German guys were making a movie about your country, even though they are so respectful of its experience and culture?It was crazy and also great, because it takes people from a different continent, thousands of miles away, to come and make a movie about this. I really thought it was a good idea, even though people from within didn't try to do something like this. But I thought it was a cool idea because I've also always wanted to be advocating for these girls, to be part of this journey to bring an end to early marriage. So I thought it was a good idea, and I was really ready to work with them. We just want this to end. What has the reaction to the flm been like in Kenya and in your community?Ever since the film came out and we got people to watch it, there's been positive feedback from most of our audience. Especially the younger generation has responded very well. They now feel more empowered, and we are now hearing and reading the voices that were suppressed in the past. When it comes to the older generation, the uncles and the fathers who are doing this, with some, I don't really know if they are fully convinced. They are the people we really want to talk to, we really want the movie to influence. But so many conversations have been sparked on this topic, conversations that before the movie was out, noone could have. Very few people stood up to talk about this topic. It was a topic that was avoided. So many people are now against this. So many people now are not afraid anymore and are ready to speak up for themselves. And we've also shown the movie to girls in high schools, and they've written letters to their future selves [like Nawi does in the film]. I think it has really influenced them to dream big and not to be afraid of anyone, and not to be afraid of speaking out for themselves. The movie seems to have also traveled well, screening and winning awards in various parts of the world. How do you feel about making a global impact? I didn't think the movie would go this far [and beyond] Kenya and Turkana. But because it is making a global impact, I'm so happy because now so many people know what is happening here. It's a really good feeling to know that this is really working. People are now reaching out to us, wanting to help these girls, wanting this to come to an end, so we're getting help from people from the outside. I just love how the world gets to know the truth. It's been kept a secret for so long, and now that it's out, I'm glad that you're getting positive feedback, and many people want to support us. How amazing was it to find out that Kenya submitted the film for the International feature film Oscar?It was so quick. This is my debut film, and it was so crazy when they said it's been submitted for the Oscars. It was so cool. And I was so happy because as the official submission from Kenya for the Oscars, I knew that the movie would get more recognition, and if you get more recognition, people get the message. So that was what I was really happy about. I'm just a kid, and being associated in any way with the Oscars was something so cool, and I was happy. Do you think of yourself as a rule breaker or social activist?If my community has taken me to be a social activist, a rule breaker or just a rebellious teenager, I really don't care, as long as I get to convey this message to the outside world, and as long as these girls get justice, as long as we bring up these voices that were suppressed. I'm ready to be an activist. I'm ready to break any rule that helps avoid the loss of life of these girls and avoids a girl living a life that she doesn't want. I'm ready to advocate for that. How is school going and how much longer is it for you?I'm 15 years old and in my second year of high school. I have two more years of high school, then I have another national exam. I was in my last year of primary school, and we also sat for my national exams when we were shooting the school. I go to school in Nairobi, but we're just home for a short break of one week. Are you thinking about doing more acting in the future? Yeah, I am thinking of doing more acting, because I feel like film is a very nice way of storytelling, a very nice way of conveying a message to society. So I'm thinking of doing more acting, but am also focused on school. I want to make sure my grades are good in school, because I also just have many dreams. In my community, there are girls who have not been able to get this opportunity to get an education and to get to study. So, I also don't take it for granted, and that's why I really want to work hard in my studies. Do you think you might want to go to acting school? I would love to go to acting school. But as I said, I'm kind of multi-passionate. I don't want to just do one thing in life. I want to do so many things, take many different career paths, because I find that interesting, and it makes life a bit more interesting. So yeah, I would love to go to acting school. I would love to go to medical school. I have also thought of engineering and maybe law. I'm just trying to figure it all out. I'll figure it out. Thanks so much for your time. Before I let you go, is there anything else you would like to share? I feel that how we are living right now and what is happening right now is a result of what the previous generation in my society did and the decisions they made. That's why this is happening. So I really love Nawi because this film tells a story that the generations before us could not tell or were afraid to tell people. So I would really love to tell people not to be afraid of speaking up for themselves and not allow the traditions in your community to determine who you will be. For example, I would tell a girl: You can. You are more than just a wife. You can be so many things in life, and not just a wife. This film is telling a story that generations before us could not tell or were afraid to speak about in public. And it just asks them to dream big, be positive in life. You can be anything you want to be. Best of The Hollywood Reporter The 40 Best Films About the Immigrant Experience Wes Anderson's Movies Ranked From Worst to Best 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Pope Francis, First Latin American Pontiff, Dies at 88
Pope Francis, history's first Latin American pontiff who charmed the world with his humble style and concern for the poor but alienated conservatives with critiques of capitalism and climate change, died Monday. He was 88. Bells tolled in church towers across Rome after the announcement, which was read out by Cardinal Kevin Ferrell, the Vatican camerlengo, from the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta, where Francis lived. More from The Hollywood Reporter 60 Sheep, 8 Camels, 100 Goats: 'Nawi' Shows Child Marriage Through the Eyes of a Gifted Girl in Kenya Jacob Elordi on Returning to Australia for Amazon Limited Series 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North' And Working With His "Cinema Father" Justin Kurzel Star Wars Celebration Announces Los Angeles as Next Location as Japan Edition Winds Down 'At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church,″ Ferrell said. Francis, who suffered from chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed as a young man, was admitted to Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14, 2025, for a respiratory crisis that developed into double pneumonia. He spent 38 days there, the longest hospitalization of his 12-year papacy. But he emerged on Easter Sunday — a day before his death — to bless thousands of people in St. Peter's Square and treat them to a surprise popemobile romp through the piazza, drawing wild cheers and applause. From his first greeting as pope — a remarkably normal 'Buonasera' ('Good evening') — to his embrace of refugees and the downtrodden, Francis signaled a very different tone for the papacy, stressing humility over hubris for a Catholic Church beset by scandal and accusations of indifference. After that rainy night on March 13, 2013, the Argentine-born Jorge Mario Bergoglio brought a breath of fresh air into a 2,000-year-old institution that had seen its influence wane during the troubled tenure of Pope Benedict XVI, whose surprise resignation led to Francis' election. But Francis soon invited troubles of his own, and conservatives grew increasingly upset with his progressive bent, outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics and crackdown on traditionalists. His greatest test came in 2018 when he botched a notorious case of clergy sexual abuse in Chile, and the scandal that festered under his predecessors erupted anew on his watch. And then Francis, the crowd-loving, globe-trotting pope of the peripheries, navigated the unprecedented reality of leading a universal religion through the coronavirus pandemic from a locked-down Vatican City. He implored the world to use COVID-19 as an opportunity to rethink the economic and political framework that he said had turned rich against poor. 'We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented,' Francis told an empty St. Peter's Square in March 2020. But he also stressed the pandemic showed the need for 'all of us to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.' Reforming the VaticanFrancis was elected on a mandate to reform the Vatican bureaucracy and finances but went further in shaking up the church without changing its core doctrine. 'Who am I to judge?' he replied when asked about a purportedly gay priest. The comment sent a message of welcome to the LGBTQ+ community and those who felt shunned by a church that had stressed sexual propriety over unconditional love. 'Being homosexual is not a crime,' he told The Associated Press in 2023, urging an end to civil laws that criminalize it. Stressing mercy, Francis changed the church's position on the death penalty, calling it inadmissible in all circumstances. He also declared the possession of nuclear weapons, not just their use, was 'immoral.' In other firsts, he approved an agreement with China over bishop nominations that had vexed the Vatican for decades, met the Russian patriarch and charted new relations with the Muslim world by visiting the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq. He reaffirmed the all-male, celibate priesthood and upheld the church's opposition to abortion, equating it to 'hiring a hitman to solve a problem.' Roles for womenBut he added women to important decision-making roles and allowed them to serve as lectors and acolytes in parishes. He let women vote alongside bishops in periodic Vatican meetings, following longstanding complaints that women do much of the church's work but are barred from power. Sister Nathalie Becquart, whom Francis named to one of the highest Vatican jobs, said his legacy was a vision of a church where men and women existed in a relationship of reciprocity and respect. 'It was about shifting a pattern of domination — from human being to the creation, from men to women — to a pattern of cooperation,' said Becquart, the first woman to hold a voting position in a Vatican synod. The church as refugeWhile Francis did not allow women to be ordained, the voting reform was part of a revolutionary change in emphasizing what the church should be: a refuge for everyone — 'todos, todos, todos' ('everyone, everyone, everyone') — not for the privileged few. Migrants, the poor, prisoners and outcasts were invited to his table far more than presidents or powerful CEOs. 'For Pope Francis, it was always to extend the arms of the church to embrace all people, not to exclude anyone,' said Cardinal Kevin Farrell, whom Francis named as camerlengo, taking charge after a pontiff's death or retirement. Francis demanded his bishops apply mercy and charity to their flocks, pressed the world to protect God's creation from climate disaster, and challenged countries to welcome those fleeing war, poverty and oppression. After visiting Mexico in 2016, Francis said of then-U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump that anyone building a wall to keep migrants out 'is not Christian.' While progressives were thrilled with Francis' radical focus on Jesus' message of mercy and inclusion, it troubled conservatives who feared he watered down Catholic teaching and threatened the very Christian identity of the West. Some even called him a heretic. A few cardinals openly challenged him. Francis usually responded with his typical answer to conflict: silence. He made it easier for married Catholics to get an annulment, allowed priests to absolve women who had had abortions and decreed that priests could bless same-sex couples. He opened debate on issues like homosexuality and divorce, giving pastors wiggle room to discern how to accompany their flocks, rather than handing them strict rules to apply. St. Francis of Assisi as a modelFrancis lived in the Vatican hotel instead of the Apostolic Palace, wore his old orthotic shoes and not the red loafers of the papacy, and rode in compact cars. It wasn't a gimmick. 'I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful,' he told a Jesuit journal in 2013. 'I see the church as a field hospital after battle.' If becoming the first Latin American and first Jesuit pope wasn't enough, Francis was also the first to name himself after St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th century friar known for personal simplicity, a message of peace, and care for nature and society's outcasts. Francis sought out the unemployed, the sick, the disabled and the homeless. He formally apologized to Indigenous peoples for the crimes of the church from colonial times onward. And he himself suffered: He had part of his colon removed in 2021, then needed more surgery in 2023 to repair a painful hernia and remove intestinal scar tissue. Starting in 2022 he regularly used a wheelchair or cane because of bad knees, and endured bouts of bronchitis. He went to society's fringes to minister with mercy: caressing the grossly deformed head of a man in St. Peter's Square, kissing the tattoo of a Holocaust survivor, or inviting Argentina's garbage scavengers to join him onstage in Rio de Janeiro. 'We have always been marginalized, but Pope Francis always helped us,' said Coqui Vargas, a transgender woman whose Roman community forged a unique relationship with Francis during the pandemic. His first trip as pope was to the island of Lampedusa, then the epicenter of Europe's migration crisis. He consistently chose to visit poor countries where Christians were often persecuted minorities, rather than the centers of global Catholicism. Friend and fellow Argentine, Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, said his concern for the poor and disenfranchised was based on the Beatitudes — the eight blessings Jesus delivered in the Sermon on the Mount for the meek, the merciful, the poor in spirit and others. 'Why are the Beatitudes the program of this pontificate? Because they were the basis of Jesus Christ's own program,' Sánchez said. Missteps on sexual abuse scandalBut more than a year passed before Francis met with survivors of priestly sexual abuse, and victims' groups initially questioned whether he really understood the scope of the problem. Francis did create a sex abuse commission to advise the church on best practices, but it lost its influence after a few years and its recommendation of a tribunal to judge bishops who covered up for predator priests went nowhere. And then came the greatest crisis of his papacy, when he discredited Chilean abuse victims in 2018 and stood by a controversial bishop linked to their abuser. Realizing his error, Francis invited the victims to the Vatican for a personal mea culpa and summoned the leadership of the Chilean church to resign en masse. As that crisis concluded, a new one erupted over ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the retired archbishop of Washington and a counselor to three popes. Francis had actually moved swiftly to sideline McCarrick amid an accusation he had molested a teenage altar boy in the 1970s. But Francis nevertheless was accused by the Vatican's one-time U.S. ambassador of having rehabilitated McCarrick early in his papacy. Francis eventually defrocked McCarrick after a Vatican investigation determined he sexually abused adults as well as minors. He changed church law to remove the pontifical secret surrounding abuse cases and enacted procedures to investigate bishops who abused or covered for their pedophile priests, seeking to end impunity for the hierarchy. 'He sincerely wanted to do something and he transmitted that,' said Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean abuse survivor Francis discredited who later developed a close friendship with the pontiff. A change from BenedictThe road to Francis' 2013 election was paved by Pope Benedict XVI's decision to resign and retire — the first in 600 years — and it created the unprecedented reality of two popes living in the Vatican. Francis didn't shy from Benedict's potentially uncomfortable shadow. He embraced him as an elder statesman and adviser, coaxing him out of his cloistered retirement to participate in the public life of the church. 'It's like having your grandfather in the house, a wise grandfather,' Francis said. Francis praised Benedict by saying he 'opened the door' to others following suit, fueling speculation that Francis also might retire. But after Benedict's death on Dec. 31, 2022, he asserted that in principle the papacy is a job for life. Francis' looser liturgical style and pastoral priorities made clear he and the German-born theologian came from very different religious traditions, and Francis directly overturned several decisions of his predecessor. He made sure Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero, a hero to the liberation theology movement in Latin America, was canonized after his case languished under Benedict over concerns about the credo's Marxist bent. Francis reimposed restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass that Benedict had relaxed, arguing the spread of the Tridentine Rite was divisive. The move riled Francis' traditionalist critics and opened sustained conflict between right-wing Catholics, particularly in the U.S., and the Argentine pope. Conservatives oppose FrancisBy then, conservatives had already turned away from Francis, betrayed after he opened debate on allowing remarried Catholics to receive the sacraments if they didn't get an annulment — a church ruling that their first marriage was invalid. 'We don't like this pope,' headlined Italy's conservative daily Il Foglio a few months into the papacy, reflecting the unease of the small but vocal traditionalist Catholic movement that was coddled under Benedict. Those same critics amplified their complaints after Francis' approved church blessings for same-sex couples, and a controversial accord with China over nominating bishops. Its details were never released, but conservative critics bashed it as a sellout to communist China, while the Vatican defended it as the best deal it could get with Beijing. U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, a figurehead in the anti-Francis opposition, said the church had become 'like a ship without a rudder.' Burke waged his opposition campaign for years, starting when Francis fired him as the Vatican's supreme court justice and culminating with his vocal opposition to Francis' 2023 synod on the church's future. Twice, he joined other conservative cardinals in formally asking Francis to explain himself on doctrine issues reflecting a more progressive bent, including on the possibility of same-sex blessings and his outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics. Francis eventually sanctioned Burke financially, accusing him of sowing 'disunity.' It was one of several personnel moves he made in both the Vatican and around the world to shift the balance of power from doctrinaire leaders to more pastoral ones. Francis insisted his bishops and cardinals imbue themselves with the 'odor of their flock' and minister to the faithful, voicing displeasure when they didn't. His 2014 Christmas address to the Vatican Curia was one of the greatest public papal reprimands ever: Standing in the marbled Apostolic Palace, Francis ticked off 15 ailments that he said can afflict his closest collaborators, including 'spiritual Alzheimer's,' lusting for power and the 'terrorism of gossip.' Trying to eliminate corruption, Francis oversaw the reform of the scandal-marred Vatican bank and sought to wrestle Vatican bureaucrats into financial line, limiting their compensation and ability to receive gifts or award public contracts. He authorized Vatican police to raid his own secretariat of state and the Vatican's financial watchdog agency amid suspicions about a 350 million euro investment in a London real estate venture. After a 2 1/2-year trial, the Vatican tribunal convicted a once-powerful cardinal, Angelo Becciu, of embezzlement and returned mixed verdicts to nine others, acquitting one. The trial, though, proved to be a reputational boomerang for the Holy See, showing deficiencies in the Vatican's legal system, unseemly turf battles among monsignors, and how the pope had intervened on behalf of prosecutors. While earning praise for trying to turn the Vatican's finances around, Francis angered U.S. conservatives for his frequent excoriation of the global financial market that favors the rich over the poor. Economic justice was an important themes of his papacy, and he didn't hide it in his first meeting with journalists when he said he wanted a 'poor church that is for the poor.' In his first major teaching document, 'The Joy of the Gospel,' Francis denounced trickle-down economic theories as unproven and naive, based on a mentality 'where the powerful feed upon the powerless' with no regard for ethics, the environment or even God. 'Money must serve, not rule!' he said in urging political reforms. He elaborated on that in his major eco-encyclical 'Praised Be,' denouncing the 'structurally perverse' global economic system that he said exploited the poor and risked turning Earth into 'an immense pile of filth.' Some U.S. conservatives branded Francis a Marxist. He jabbed back by saying he had many friends who were Marxists. Soccer, opera and prayerBorn Dec. 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was the eldest of five children of Italian immigrants. He credited his devout grandmother Rosa with teaching him how to pray. Weekends were spent listening to opera on the radio, going to Mass and attending matches of the family's beloved San Lorenzo soccer club. As pope, his love of soccer brought him a huge collection of jerseys from visitors. He said he received his religious calling at 17 while going to confession, recounting in a 2010 biography that, 'I don't know what it was, but it changed my life. … I realized that they were waiting for me.' He entered the diocesan seminary but switched to the Jesuit order in 1958, attracted to its missionary tradition and militancy. Around this time, he suffered from pneumonia, which led to the removal of the upper part of his right lung. His frail health prevented him from becoming a missionary, and his less-than-robust lung capacity was perhaps responsible for his whisper of a voice and reluctance to sing at Mass. On Dec. 13, 1969, he was ordained a priest, and immediately began teaching. In 1973, he was named head of the Jesuits in Argentina, an appointment he later acknowledged was 'crazy' given he was only 36. 'My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative,' he admitted in his Civilta Cattolica interview. Life under Argentina's dictatorshipHis six-year tenure as provincial coincided with Argentina's murderous 1976-83 dictatorship, when the military launched a campaign against left-wing guerrillas and other regime opponents. Bergoglio didn't publicly confront the junta and was accused of effectively allowing two slum priests to be kidnapped and tortured by not publicly endorsing their work. He refused for decades to counter that version of events. Only in a 2010 authorized biography did he finally recount the behind-the-scenes lengths he used to save them, persuading the family priest of feared dictator Jorge Videla to call in sick so he could say Mass instead. Once in the junta leader's home, Bergoglio privately appealed for mercy. Both priests were eventually released, among the few to have survived prison. As pope, accounts began to emerge of the many people — priests, seminarians and political dissidents — whom Bergoglio actually saved during the 'dirty war,' letting them stay incognito at the seminary or helping them escape the country. Bergoglio went to Germany in 1986 to research a never-finished thesis. Returning to Argentina, he was stationed in Cordoba during a period he described as a time of 'great interior crisis.' Out of favor with more progressive Jesuit leaders, he was eventually rescued from obscurity in 1992 by St. John Paul II, who named him an auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires. He became archbishop six years later, and was made a cardinal in 2001. He came close to becoming pope in 2005 when Benedict was elected, gaining the second-most votes in several rounds of balloting before bowing out. 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