Silvio Orlando: «I claim the right to bankruptcy»

Mthey are not among the Neapolitansor superstitious? «By playing a dying man I wasn’t afraid of bad luck, but of representing a ballast for the comedy» he explains Silvio Orlando. «Today we behave as if we lived forever, we have expelled the idea of ​​death, which in reality is the only certainty. But the public is not happy to be reminded of it…”. So? «In the end I trusted Paolo’s nose (Virzì, ed): my character brings good humor. We had been thinking about the sequel to for ten years August holidaysa blockbuster in 1996 that became a strange cult phenomenon thanks to TV broadcasts.”

Radical chic against “forced”

That’s how – in Another mid-August holiday (in cinemas from 7 March) – Orlando returns to play the role of left-wing journalist Sandro Molino, ideologically a little rigid, dealing with the “burini” neighbors on holiday in Ventotene. How times have changed is summarized by the professions of the two children: a start-up millionaire for the “radical chic”, an influencer for the “forced”. «In the first film the “new right” family – to summarize – was nice, vital. In this, she’s in a bad way… The existential void once belonged only to certain elites that Antonioni spoke of, it was a luxury of the bored classes, now it is a bit of a mass one. The difference is that the right is very proud of itself, while we are no longer able to believe in ourselves, our self-esteem is low, we have locked ourselves into a nostalgic dimension without understanding how to deal with the present.”

On tour with Charlatans

My goodness, this is a sad picture.
No: I claim the right to fail! Another idea that we have erased from our heads is that of being able to be losers, when the awareness of failures is the real engine for improving ourselves as human beings. A theme that is dear to me: not surprisingly, it is the same as the sshow that we are taking on tour (Charlatans by the Spanish playwright and director Pablo Remón, ed). However, I have faith in the generation of eighteen year olds.

“A little crack”

He is not credible as a testimonial of failures: he goes from film to film, from full theaters to full theaters.
One, fortunately, only remembers the positive moments, but I had many ups and downs, many small cracks. With my characters I try to stay close to those who didn’t make it, or who struggle to make it, not to the “winners”. “Loser” is a good word: it indicates someone who fought, who at least tried.

Can you tell us a “little crack”?
Milan, second half of the 80s. I arrived in 1985 for Comedians by Salvatores, al Elf Theatre. The protagonists (Paolo Rossi, Claudio Bisio, Antonio Catania, Gigio Alberti) represented, immediately afterwards, the backbone of Gabriele’s cinema. The protagonists, except me. The producer had decreed: “Don’t talk to me about Neapolitan!”. I don’t know why: Gabriele wanted me, we were friends… Lesson learned: you can’t please everyone.

How did he discover his vocation?
Acting, to be honest, was the last thing I aspired to, even in the role of Pinocchioin elementary school, I had left the teacher speechless, who went to call the principal… (laughs). At the time I had a handicap that caused me to be shy: I wasn’t a good speaker, let’s put it that way… I would have been the joy of a speech therapist.

“I played the flute”

Did he eat his words?
Eat? I was a eater of endings, truly bulimic. And I still am, I realize: on the set of The Young Pope by Paolo Sorrentino Americans were worried about my English. “Don’t worry: they don’t understand me even in Italy!” I reassured them. “But in the end, for some imponderable reason, they listen to me.” Showing that flaw in a disarming way has always created a union, a thread, with the public. Now they call it empathy, okay.

And the arrival on the scene?
I played the transverse flute and my own music was my passion: I loved it very much, even though it wasn’t reciprocated. Luckily there are no sound traces left from that period! In high school I was a member of the FIGC (the Italian Communist Youth Federation, ed) and I offered to take care of the cultural part. There was no difference between the artistic dimension and the political dimension, art was an alternative way of doing politics, a vehicle for communicating with different means. I had created a group specialized in popular music (it was in fashion), we performed at the Unità parties. We called ourselves the “Alberto Corvalán”.

And who was he, excuse me?
Exactly… He was a member of the Communist Youth of Chile, son of the secretary of the Communist Party: he was tortured to death. Pinochet’s coup d’état in 1973 was devastating for my generation, it marked a watershed.

“Our idealism”

How did you feel about the Inti Illimani? Lucio Dalla sang: «Andean music, how boring».
Yes I know, (smiles) yet for us they were better than the Beatles: the soundtrack of a state of mind, of dreams, of our idealism. It was a continuous singing at the parades, beautiful! Today we no longer sing, we haven’t had a hymn for 40 years.

Why did he leave music?
It requires effort and I don’t have an aptitude for effort, I love work but not effort. I also played in shows – in the mid-70s in Naples it was an explosion of experimental theater, you inevitably fell into it – and that was the vehicle. When I made my debut on stage I felt that it came naturally to me and the audience listened to me: I had found my place.

Hence the experience with Salvatores. And then?
The wall raised in Milan pushed me to Rome, and things did they are set in motion the way I dreamed of as a boy. That Moretti chose me for Red Palombella it was something unimaginable: at the end of the 80s it was already a myth, with I am an autarchic and Ecce Bombo had “historicized” our generation. They were a big bang! Bam!!! And Nanni was proof that one could be successful by pursuing an anomalous cinema, full of ethical strength. THEThe journey with him guaranteed me a very stable center of gravity.

“My wife & I”

Other key meetings?
The one with my wife (the actress Maria Laura Rondanini, ed): it turned my life upside down. I don’t know if our relationship is healthy, because it’s absurd: in 24 years we’ve been apart for a month and a half, two at most! A psychoanalyst would make a short treatise out of it.

Perhaps the reason, in part, is understandable: you do not hide the fact that, at the age of nine, you were marked by the death of your mother.
It was taboo for a long time: now I’ve overcome the trauma and can even joke about it. Irony is the possibility of stopping reality when it is about to collapse on you, said Romain Gary (author of Life ahead of youfrom which he took his highly acclaimed monologue, ed). A helmet that you wear so you don’t hurt yourself too much. I remember my mother being strict: who knows if she would have approved of this job…

He would have succumbed to the satisfactions, including the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival in 2008, however Giovanna’s father by Pupi Avati.
We live with the fear that our work will suddenly… Pouf! We write in the sand, Totò explained. Knowing that an international jury, president Wim Wenders, has awarded you is a reassurance. By the way, the one with Pupi was also an important meeting: the demonstration that ideological differences matter relatively.

Illegal Neapolitans

We’ll see her soon Partenope of Sorrentino.
I remain silent, I signed with a pencil of blood.

In Naples dust by Antonio Capuano had pronounced the director’s first “cinematic words”…
Yes, Paolo was the screenwriter. But maybe I didn’t pronounce them very well if it took him 25 years to call me… (laughs)

You will have a common vocabulary.
We are both from Vomero, “illegal” Neapolitans. Neapolitans are the saddest people on the planet, and those from Vomero the saddest of all: an introversion seasoned, however, with irony.

The “sad” Neapolitans?
We are pre-judged: everyone knows what a Neapolitan is, except us.

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