THEn video call from the parents’ house, Emanuela Fanelli, 37 years old, shows herself in a blonde version, with makeup and a nice beige sweater. At times a plush pajama with little hearts peeks out: «she belongs to my sister», she specifies, «I found it here, this is my sexy outfit». The actress who in There’s still tomorrow plays Marisa, Delia-Paola Cortellesi’s friend, and who we will see from January 18th on Prime Video in the series No Activity – Nothing to report, is preparing for a meeting with the students of his high school, Marco Tullio Cicerone in Frascati. That’s why she stayed to sleep at her house.
Emanuela has been very followed by kids on social media and on YouTube since A piece of Lundini, the program that launched it, broadcast on Rai Due until 2022. Ed is very proud to have such a young audience, “because at that age they are quite ruthless.” She is certainly not ruthless.
In No Activity, the new original Italian comedy series arriving on Prime Video, the protagonists are divided into couples. Two drug traffickers (Rocco Papaleo and Fabio Balsamo) await the arrival of a shipment of drugs. Two policemen (Luca Zingaretti and Alessandro Tiberi) are on a stakeout. At the station, two agents (Emanuela Fanelli and Carla Signoris) monitor them remotely. Other characters are added, played by Tommaso Ragno, Edoardo Ferrario, Maccio Capatonda, Francesco Pannofino, Diego Abatantuono. Time passes, the drugs don’t arrive. The two policewomen, meanwhile, take measurements.
Carla Signoris and Emanuela Fanelli in No Activity, on Prime Video from January 18th.
Tell us about your character, Palmira. The dialogues with Carla Signoris are truly hilarious.
Palmira worked on the field, in Mobile, and experiences the transfer to the switchboard as a punishment. He would like to leave and is just waiting for a “signature”. Furthermore, she finds herself next to this colleague, Katia, who instead considers her office “the heart of the action”. They couldn’t be more different. Katia is rigid and severe, or at least that’s how she appears. Palmira is naive, soft.
After seeing her in There is still tameni and now in No Activity one might think that she is actually a soft person. Or not?
Yes I am. I must say that I have exercised this softness in the 10 years I worked as a kindergarten teacher when I still couldn’t make a living acting. I was the good teacher to whom the children confessed their pranks so as not to be discovered: “Apple, help me, I did this and that.” I trained a lot.
What else did the children teach her?
I am patient by nature, working in the nursery I have become much more so. There were about twenty children, it happened that they all called me at the same time. I did a lot of exercise. Just as I trained with listening. In a class there is not just the group, everyone is a different person, you can get to know them by listening to them. But above all I learned something that I then took with me as an actress: to work well you have to be yourself. Don’t make small voices with children to seem nice, don’t pretend, because that way you’ll surely lose them. You have to show yourself as you are, then they will decide if they like you or not. Even in acting, where you play a character, you have to present yourself honestly, doing things that resemble you, that reflect your taste. There are some scenes of A piece of Lundini that went viral, but we didn’t write them with that goal. We just wanted to have fun, do what we would see as spectators. That’s why it worked.
Emanuela Fanelli. Photo by Lorenzo Poli.
His Marisa of There’s still tomorrow she is very empathetic, as is Palmira, who is the human part of the couple with Carla Signoris. Do these roles correspond to you?
Yes, because the fundamental ingredient is putting true humanity into it. Marisa lightens Delia’s life, makes the viewer catch his breath. My favorite scene is when we smoke a cigarette: there are the silences of when you are with a true friend, and you don’t need to fill the time by talking.
Do you believe that female comedy has its own specificity?
No, I’m a bit allergic to these things, it seems limiting to me. Otherwise I’d have to make jokes about boyfriends, or menstrual cycles. My first sketch, On bare feet, a man could have written it. The one about Anna Magnani’s make-up artist who feels frustrated because the actress loves her wrinkles could be made masculine, with a make-up artist.
The beginnings, between cellars and community centres
How did it start?
At the Cicerone classical high school in Frascati we did theater in the afternoon. I liked it a lot and luckily those who attended the course were considered cool. At that age it’s important. The first high school show was at the Capocroce theater in Frascati. A very respectable theatre, for goodness sake. But, well, I didn’t make my debut at the Elysée in Rome, or at the Strehler in Milan.
He did a lot of training. When did the turning point come?
I started at 16 but I wasn’t looking for an agent, and so I didn’t have access to auditions. I didn’t look for it because I was afraid that if I didn’t succeed I would have to realize that I wasn’t good enough, and it would be too painful. For many years, acting was a hypothesis of happiness that I kept aside, like opening a chiringuito in the Caribbean. I read my monologues in community centres, in cellars, in off-street theatres. One evening there was Federica Remotti listening to me, who proposed me to join her agency, and she is still my agent. The first audition was in 2015, for the film Do not be naughty, by Claudio Caligari: they got me. The turning point came with Lundini in
2020. Five years is the right amount of time to make it, at least for me. I knew I wasn’t the first choice, and now that it’s going well I try to take it in moderation, I don’t have my blow-ups inside the house.
Emanuela Fanelli and Paola Cortellesi in There’s Still Tomorrow. @Luisa Carcavale.
After Lundini’s program arrived Droughtthe film by Paolo Virzì for which he won the David di Donatello, and Call my Agent for TV. Now, the success of There’s still tomorrow. You and Paola Cortellesi are friends. Did you expect this result?
Every now and then Paola and I look at each other and say: do you realise? We knew we would like the film, but it went beyond our imagination. A black and white film is not simple, but There’s still tomorrow it touches deep intimate chords, it makes you think back to the male and female models you grew up with. And come out with a strong positive drive. Paola and I are really friends. We met on the set of Massimilano Bruno’s film The last will be last, and after a couple of years a deep friendship began. For this reason I am doubly happy: for the artist I have always admired and for a person who is so present in my life.
But is it true that you spend your evenings in your pajamas?
Happens. We don’t live a glitzy rock star life. Maybe we think about going out, then instead we order ourselves something to eat and start chatting on the sofa.
He has 237 thousand followers on Ig, but there is nothing about his private life. Why?
I’m very private. I keep precious things for myself, otherwise they lose value. It’s not that I put up dad’s photo with a little wish for his birthday, it’s a question of personal modesty. I don’t even post aperitifs with friends, only professional videos and images.
How do you experience success?
I still struggle to realize it. A few days ago I had just parked, badly, just outside the pedestrian crossing. A gentleman shouted at me: “Well done!” and I thought he was making fun of me. Instead he complimented me. For the rest nothing has changed. I am very grateful to be able to make a living from this profession, I am grateful for the affection of those who don’t know me. When I won the David di Donatello I was a trend topic on Twitter, he moved me. The public’s affection cannot be taken for granted.
Emanuela Fanelli: «My Romanness is undisputed»
Let’s clarify: are you from Rome or from the Castelli?
I’m from Morena which is Rome. It borders Ciampino which is not Rome and there is great rivalry with us. Morena is the last neighborhood of Rome before the Castelli. There
My Romanity is undisputed, my grandmother lived in Largo Preneste.
When you’re not working what do you do?
Last year I was very good, I signed up for the gym. At the end of October I moved house – still rented – and on the first day in the new house I fell in the bathroom, cut myself, broke my sacrum. And I was still shooting Paola’s film. I haven’t been back to the gym since.
After a year, he might reconsider.
Well, I’d like to find an amateur basketball team. In the gym I don’t have a goal. They told me: you’ll see, your endorphins will start and you’ll become addicted, you won’t be able to help but go to her. They never happened to me. I went there out of courtesy: I had a personal trainer and I was thinking about that poor guy who was waiting for me.
And for the rest?
I stay with my friends, I have a whole life in the Castelli Romani. They help me keep my feet on the ground, as does my family. Dad is very proud but when he enters the house he says: “What, has Eleonora Duse arrived?” I’m not engaged but I have a lot of love around me.
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