cwith that beard that looks a bit like that, he seems to have come straight from the pages of Dostoevsky (an author who, moreover, he loves, has interpreted both The demons is Ivanfrom The Karamazov brothers). «I move much more at ease in nineteenth-century clothes than contemporary» he smiles Fausto Russo Alesiwho then explains: «It’s a look dictated by scenic needs: I’m finishing shooting The conversionon the Mortara case (Edgardo Mortara, the Jewish child baptized without his parents’ knowledge and kidnapped from his family by the Papal Gendarmerie in 1858, ed). It’s the eighth time I’ve worked with Marco Bellocchio: we started with Winin 2009. An important step was, in 2019, The traitor (it was Giovanni Falcone, ed)”. The summit of the collaboration, however, is Night exterior, the Rai series on the 55 days of the kidnapping of Aldo Moro (now available on Raiplay) where he masterfully impersonates Francesco Cossiga.
Inner similarity
«With Bellocchio there is never an imitative work: he seeks an “inner resemblance” that passes through the gaze, the voice, the attitude or something that intuits about you» explains Russo Alesi.
And what did he intuit about her?
I think he wanted an interpreter willing to immerse himself – without fear, without judgment – into that “black”. It was necessary to restore an authoritative personality (Cossiga represents the State), but with various facets, even completely opposite. There were different keys to play, an immersive journey into the complexity of the human being.
Fausto Russo Alesi (Getty Images).
Understood: you are a fundamentalist of the trade.
I try to keep the energy right for everything, for work and for the family (he is married, has a daughter who is in middle school and a seven-year-old boy, ed). However yes: I like that every role is a path of true knowledge, and I like to face it with the body. I have always practiced a fairly extreme theatre, in the sense of quite “physical”, demanding: 5-6 hour marathons (sometimes 12, as with The demons by Peter Stein), very tight two-hour monologues…
“Scientific Scopone”, a masterpiece
Not a good comedy, huh?
I can’t wait, because life is tragicomic! I’m just waiting for an extremely funny but intelligent film that acts as a real mirror to the audience (with the tics that define us, caused by cracks, foibles, ineptitudes), in the wonderful tradition of the Italian comedy. What a masterpiece it is – to name one – The scientific scope? In the meantime I’m cultivating a project for the stage, it will go on stage in February.
Do you anticipate it?
Another Eduardo De Filippo, after the Christmas at the Cupiello house of 2012: The art of comedythe story of a traveling company of strolling players who get stuck in a small village, the stage has gone up in flames… An extraordinary and little-represented text, very important for this historical moment of ours.
Why exactly for this?
He talks to us about art as a necessity, as an essential right both for those who “produce” it and for those who use it, and how often the sector has been (we saw it during the pandemic) forgotten and little recognized. As Eduardo said, not just fettuccine…
When was such an all-encompassing passion born in you?
I was certainly an outgoing child (much more than I am now), disruptive, intrusive – in elementary school the nun hated me – (laughs): the impulse to go on stage as a vital issue comes from there. The first two times as a spectator were dazzling. A more worldly occasion – at the Teatro di Verdura in Palermo for an operetta, Chinchilla, on a warm Sicilian evening with an elegance from before La Scala (it almost seemed like being in the 1800s) – and the other, more “militant”, at the age of 9 in Syracuse: three tragedies in three days. The dive was powerful.
“My father & Visconti”
Fausto Russo Alesi in “Outside night” (photo Anna Camerlingo).
And it was then that he decided to study acting.
No, even if I could have, there were courses, but I played volleyball at a competitive level (I bless teamwork, it taught me so much!). In the last year of high school, a choice for the future was imposed. Being at 360 degrees inside things is a characteristic that belongs to me and I convinced myself: “I have to leave my greatest passion to venture into what will be my greatest passion”.
Suddenly? There were perhaps artistic precedents in the family.
Not exactly. Dad did amateur theater in high school and, when Luchino Visconti came to Sicily for site inspections The Leopardor, he had the possibility of an audition in Rome. My grandfather didn’t send it: that “no” was so strong that he gave up.
A classic example of the Jungian theory according to which parents unconsciously pass on to their children the baton of what they would have liked to achieve.
But he never put pressure on me, on the contrary: he almost put a spanner in my works to be sure it wasn’t a whim. My friends, on the other hand, supported me: for my 18th birthday, they gave me the book Be an actor (laughs), with the best six Italian acting schools. He helped me identify the right one for me: I was already well aware that one must train, one must study. I moved to Milan (quite a leap, a blender) to attend the Paolo Grassi Civic School of Theater.
Fausto Russo Alesi in Russia
Fausto Russo Alesi in “The strangeness”.
And from there came the Piccolo and Luca Ronconi…
No, Ronconi later. As soon as we graduated, in 1996, with six colleagues from the academy we founded the company Atir (Independent Theater Association for Research, ed), captained by Serena Sinigaglia. And there a further training period started, our gym was on the field. After seven intense years, I began a more personal journey, but staying close to them: for me, building, maintaining and developing relationships is a fundamental part of the profession.
The next key steps?
L’Ecole des Maîtres, an international master’s degree designed by Franco Quadri: young European professional actresses and actors are offered the opportunity to meet the most important masters of the contemporary scene. There I met Eimuntas Nekrošius (award-winning Lithuanian director, ed) and in 2002 the project of The Seagull, a show so successful that it toured for two years (what a thrill in St. Petersburg!). My first direction followed, in 2005, and the decade of intense work with Ronconi, the crossing of great characters and great texts, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Saint Joan of the slaughterhouses by Brecht. To finally get to Bellocchio.
He will soon be 50 years old. Balance sheets?
Libra, if anything, I was born on October 13th (laughs). Being quite self-critical, I don’t wait for the dates for the balance sheets. I certainly won’t give up on new challenges.
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