Francesco Arca, in Fosca Innocenti is Vanessa Incontrada’s best friend

Francesco, in the series you have an attractive woman as your best friend. But in life, can there be a friendship between a man and a woman?
I strongly believe in friendship between man and woman, I myself have several female friends. Clearly, problems can also arise, because at times this relationship can lead to a story or have a “slip”, and then maybe recover: often some “variation on the theme” occurs. The only important thing is that there is mutual respect. Returning to the question, I do not think it can be established whether or not it exists in general: there must be a free relationship, without “ancient” mental schemes, which arises spontaneously between two people. Any relationship is possible, in my opinion, if it has these premises.

Francesco Arca: “Happy to have shot in Tuscany”

Instead of your character what do you tell?
First of all I feel great happiness, because the series is shot in Tuscany and I can speak Tuscan, my “mother tongue”. Cosimo is a 40-year-old owner of a wine shop, to whom I tried to give the classic Tuscan nuances: he is light-hearted, sunny, generous, ready for a joke. But this “superman” also has many frailties and insecurities.

The actor in a field of sunflowers in Tuscany. (Mediaset)

How are you different, you and Cosimo?
In addition to being light years away from me in the management of his life, Cosimo is not very direct, he does not expose himself and waits. I, on the other hand, take things head-on, I always expose myself for better or for worse. This is because in my life, having lost my father as a kid, I had to take on great responsibilities right away. I was the only man of the house with three women, I was a lighthouse for my family. Cosimo, on the other hand, is not the point of reference for anyone, he is very focused on himself, which I am not.

“He is single, I’m a dad”

What was the challenge in playing Cosimo?
For me the real challenge was to create a single character, with the rhythms and life of a person who just has to take care of himself. My life is completely different, because my day is dictated by work or, when I am at home, by my children, who absorb all my time.

Doesn’t the relationship with Fosca make him want to take root?
When Cosimo finds this great friend of his, with whom he grew up, and resumes a friendship with her, he begins to ask himself questions. He begins to understand that moments, to have value – and I speak of the pleasant ones as the difficult ones – must be shared, otherwise they are ends in themselves.

Wine bars, “places of the soul”

In fiction you have a wine shop, has it ever occurred to you to really open your own place?
I already did! When I was 16 with my mother we opened a wine shop in Siena, when my father had recently died. The relationship with her had strengthened, we talked a lot about what I wanted to do when I grew up, about my doubts and fears. I remember a wonderful time, also because for me wine bars are places of the soul, of aggregation, I love them very much. Subsequently, I opened a bistro in Rome, to which I had given a Tuscan connotation because I offered Tuscan products and wines. Crazy things happen over a glass of wine, a status of true well-being spreads.

In the series, Francesco is Cosimo, owner of a wine shop. (Mediaset)

Do you have any other projects in the pipeline?
I am now in Naples on the set of a new series, which will be called The last show and will be broadcast soon on Rai1. Directed by Monica Vullo and with me you will also find Arturo Muselli, Maria Pia Calzone, Laura Adriani, Mario Di Leva and Antonio Milo. He will be a detective, but far-reaching.

iO Donna © REPRODUCTION RESERVED