Andpifanio, Pier Piero, Frengo, Alex Drastico, Cetto La Any. But how many do you know of actors like Antonio Albanese57 years old, capable of giving life to a series of characters so strong and absurd from make you smile immediately as soon as you name them? A series of characters that remind you of a memory for each of them? Like Epifanio, with his maybe but maybe; o Pier Piero, force Innteeeeeeeeeer; and again Frengo, with his family why and because; and finally Cetto, more pilu more all.
And if, for some reason, you just can’t appreciate his characters and his films, it is anyway impossible not to love this extraordinary actor. For his story, for the things he says, because it’s true, authentic.
The last of his masks was that of Giovanni, an established professional dealing with the project of a cultural center in the Roman suburbs in Like a cat on the ring road – Return to Coccia di Morto. «John’s message», Albanese explained, «is savingjust saying. With culture you eat, you improve, you live other lives “.
Riccardo Milani, Paola Cortellesi and Antonio Albanese, awarded at the 2018 Silver Ribbons for A cat on the ring road. (IPA)
Even John, however, is missing some things, “for example certain looks he never gave. With Paola he manages to understand that she is working on all this. Giovanni is technically very prepared, he is a quiz intellectual like there are many, however, it experiences the problems of its territory ».
The idea of the sequel initially “it scared me a little»Said a Tiscali, «Reading the script, however, I said to myself ‘we can have a lot of fun’. There was an incredible development, you laugh more than the firstbut there are also deep themes. Irony can range, tell a reality, perhaps not quite serene, through comedy ».
The career of Antonio Albanese
Throughout his career he has worked with Soldini, Mazzacurati, Taviani, Archibugi, Amelio, Verdone and also with Woody Allen. It has become famous, famous throughout Italy, from north to south. All this starting from Olginatethe town where he was born in 1964, seven thousand souls or a little more resting on the lake of the same name, today in the province of Lecco.
“I made a simple path,” he told Valentina Torlaschi of Best Movie few years ago. «My job consists in‘interpret and tell the reality that surrounds me. Throughout my career I am basically following my countryand so in these thirty years I went from sweetness-shyness-naivety from Epiphanius to characters who have mirrored the ugliness of our society as the Minister of Fear or Cetto La Any “.
In the end, he admitted, “I do the same job as you journalists: I tell the company. Why do we have to take other people’s texts and deform them? Why do we have to stage a Richard III aboard a Harley-Davidson? This, for me, is one absolute presumption, as well as an extreme banality. I prefer to do like the real Shakespeare and tell my time. In my opinion this is theater, in my opinion this is cinema ».
The beginnings of Antonio Albanese
The path to all of this was not that simple. Sicilian parents, he grows up with his brothers Anna and Ignazio and it is the latter who makes him discover the theater by taking him to see Dario Fo. Work as metalworkerbut at 22 he decides to enroll in an acting class.
“I was a worker, a turner,” he told Very true. “A wonderful, healthy, clean condition, but there was something stirring, which fermented. I felt like a volcano, there was the desire to let something out. I was very luckyI worked a lot and my great fortune is that I love this job ».
Antonio Albanese and Sabrina Ferilli, here in Venice in 1998, are the protagonists of the film out of competition You laugh by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. (Handle)
His career begins against the will of the mason father (“When you leave the certain for the uncertain, in a world that is nevertheless mysterious, Daddy looked at me in fear,” he said) and with the silent and complicit support of the mother.
It starts with local radios, but the first big step is what he takes him from Olginate to Milanfrom the province to the Paolo Grassi Civic School of Theater, the Italian dramatic art academy.
“You could have developed a talent», He says,« with a small state membership, because it is a non-private academy, it is civic and I couldn’t shell out money“.
To pay the rent “I sold everything”
And if there is no money, what can be done to survive in the big city? “I sold everything! ”He explained. “I sold the sax, I sold the car and I did it because I had to pay the rent. There is nothing strange, after all, it is a normal path. It has happened to many. Then I didn’t want my parents to help meI didn’t want to worry them ».
A question of the heart, the film with Kim Rossi Stuart Antonio Albanese. (LaPresse)
If, as he says, the path has been similar to that of many other aspiring artists, the results were uncommonbecause after the beginnings on the stage of the Zelig – historic Milanese venue – and the experience with the classics, success has arrived. First in “his” city of him, then everywhere. “Yup, Milan hugged me», He explained,« the audience told me ‘if you want we can accompany you, and if you want we can even pamper you for a while!’ ». And so it was.
The Paolo Grassi theater school in Milan
“I went to the Paolo Grassi in a moment of maximum splendor, “he said,” when the director was Renato Palazzi, a true intellectual. There I listened to names like Pina Bausch, Giampiero Solari, Gabriele Vacisdirectors who were looking for new ways, from which we “stole” the energy, artists never late“.
Then meeting characters like Paolo Rossi, Michele Serra“Very important to theatrical writing, one of the smartest men I’ve ever known,” he said, “e Stefano Benni, Carlo Mazzacurati, the Taviani brothers. A fortune, not a coincidence, to see their creative effort being appreciated by them too ».
When Giorgio Gaber invited him to his house “I arrived three hours earlythen he came to see me in the theater, I was already sweaty before going on stage. In work we cannot live on quantity, if anything on quality and unfortunately I believe that this aspect has been lost in the last few decades ».
We were 5 friends at the bar: Giorgio Gaber, Dario Fo, Adriano Celentano and Antonio Albanese (from left to right) sitting at the table during the broadcast “125 Millions of caz… you”. Standing with the guitar Enzo Jannacci. (HANDLE)
The inspiration of Antonio Albanese
There is a lot, a lot of quality in the things he does. And inspiration can come in the most unpredictable ways. How many times looking at him have we wondered where he got the inspiration from to give life to one of his characters?
“I’m never inspired by a person or a character,” he told very true. “Maybe there may be the shyness of a neighbor that has always fascinated you (talk about Epiphanius, ed). A drawing: make a set of signs and there is a drawing “.
A scene from To Rome with Love: Alessandra Mastronardi with Antonio Albanese. (IPA)
He has a face in which laughter of those that shake the walls intersect, a patina of melancholy, that strange sweet desperation that accompanies the fate of some of his characters. The face, of course, is not enough. They serve, as always, the talentthe work that went into developing it and the courage. What is needed – indeed, what is indispensable – for try it all the way.
“Your first and last film”. And instead
“At the time,” he told Tiscali“A distributor told me,”Albanese this will be your first and last film“, Speaking of my first directing, Freshwater man of 1996 “. And instead 25 years have passed since then.
Below, a funny scene from Freshwater man
“I remember very well the day before shooting, I was in a hotel in Varenna, it was pouring with rain, I was tense, I didn’t sleep all nightHe recalled.
«The next morning a beautiful sun broke out, it was magical. That film gave the opportunity to to test myself, I needed to directit was thanks to Vincenzo Ceramiwho scripted with me, which however I found the courage to work in my lands. It is a sweet film precisely, where ingenuity has an almost transgressive flavor: I dedicated it to my daughter ».
His ways of speaking
At the time the future was uncertain and all to be written; maybe she could hope so, but surely she could not know that one day the its idioms would become commonplace – undoubtedly!. “The truth is that I’ve never ghettoized myself in a circle in a room, “he said,” I find it boring. “
On the other hand, he likes «to turn 360 °, to enter everywhere, to know stories, faces, to learn. I come from the proletariat undergrowth, Sicilian origins, I came to live in Lombardy, crossing the country diagonally and getting to know it. At the end, I pursue common sense and some wonderful normalitythat at times, alas, it is escaping us“.
Antonio Albanese, his loves
Father of Beatrice and Leonardohe loves art, fishing and the countryside, he loves dialects, friendships and “living the cities on foot”.
Antonio Albanese with his wife Maria Maddalena Gnudi. (IPA)
Can’t help but kindness, common sense and above all family. He bought a piece of land in Tuscany with forty olive trees and gave each one the name of a friend. To a man made just like that, how can you not love?
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