C.is Viggo Mortensen. There is Léa Seydoux. There’s Kristen Stewart. And there is Denise Capezza in Crimes of the Future by David Cronenberg, one of the most anticipated (and most divisive) films of the Cannes Film Festival 2022. But how was it possible to pass from Marinella di Gomorrahfrom Natalia di Baby and from Giuseppina di Bang Bang Baby to the mysterious Odile, who exerts so much attraction on Seydoux by using her face as if it were a painter’s palette and not living flesh (and convincing her to do the same)?
Denise Capezza in Cannes with Léa Seydoux, Kristen Stewart, Nadia Litz and Lihi Kornowski (Getty Images).
Try it on self tape
«I arrived at Crimes of the Future in the most classic way: with an audition via self tape »explains the thirty-two year old actress, already struggling with another project (an international series, Unwanteddirected by Oliver Hirschbiegel). Very happy to be in Cannes for the first time but even more happy to have participated in the film of a Maestro like Cronenberg. Who has entrusted her with a role that is not at all classic, instead … «I am an artist who with her performances wants to push herself towards a new concept of beauty, modifying her features. No, nothing to do with plastic surgery as we see it applied every day, which pushes us – on the contrary – towards an approved model. Vain illusion, because the idea of beauty is subjective, there can be no standard. Fascinating is whoever feels at ease in his body and transmits this sensation, this “light” to others ».
Denise Capezza in Cannes (Getty Images).
What a surprise, David
How did it go on set?
I worked above all with Léa, who does not respond at all to the stereotype of the star: humble, generous, willing to share the vision of the scene… And what a surprise David! The first time I met him I was afraid but, talking for an hour, all fear has dissolved: he is available, open, certainly not the genius he is. Calm, calm, calm down to you too. He directs the actors as if it were a jazz concert, he lets your creativity flow, he trusts those who choose by giving few and precise indications. It is also fun.
Really unexpected, given your films… Which ones did you already know?
The fly, Videodrome, The naked meal, The promise of the murderer, History of Violence. Then recently I saw his debut, the “genre” ones, and Crimes of the Future it represents not only Cronenberg’s return to cinema after eight years, but also a return to that kind of work.
Denise Capezza with Léa Seydoux in “Crimes of the Future”.
A past as a dancer
But when did you discover acting?
Actually I started with dance, I studied for 15 years in Naples. Then, when I was eighteen, I had to stop due to a knee injury and I took the opportunity to get closer to acting, which attracted me since I was a child but I had never had the time to experiment, between school commitments and training. I signed up for a course, and I didn’t stop from there. The debut? At 21 as the protagonist (they were looking for a foreigner) of a Turkish TV series: Uçurum. I left for Istanbul and in a month I learned the language.
Eh, the ability of a dancer to commit …
Dance – a constant challenge to the limits imposed by the body – has formed me a lot as a professional. And as a human being: I’m a fighter.
Cannes better or better Swan Lake at the Scala?
(laughs) One of my biggest dreams is to play the role of a dancer. To interpret Swan Lake alla Scala in a film… The perfect squaring of the circle!
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