« In America they love me, in Italy they forget about me. The Loren? I used to take her to the hairdresser…”- Corriere.it

Behind that sort of bow by Giancarlo Giannini, while pointing to the star with his name on the Walk of Fame, there is applause, sweat, laughter, beauty. Tomorrow the Minister of Culture Sangiuliano, Vittorio Sgarbi and some artists will celebrate Giannini.

You are allergic to parties and celebrations: does this taste different?

«It’s my most important award, more than an Oscar because it crowns a life, even if I have about thirty career awards. Talking about myself makes me uncomfortable. I like living in solitude, reading, doing manual work, being a bricklayer, plumber, electrician».

Forget electronics, his great passion.

«I’m an expert, I have patents. For Robin Williams in Toys I built a jacket that makes sounds and 2500 other things. Every now and then he would call me for instructions: how can I get the trumpet out with the Japanese voice?”.

Only two Italian actors have stars in Hollywood.

«Rudolph Valentino and I. It was an initiative by Tiziana Rocca for Filming Italy Los Angeles. Mastroianni should have been five, but he has handprints in the cement, which I don’t have».

Dustin Hoffman congratulates her in a video.

“Once in a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, after seeing The innocent of Visconti, he said to me: how can you act like that? I tried to imitate you, I answered him».

You voiced Al Pacino and Jack Nicholson much more often. But Hoffman says voicing her in Marathon Runner…

«He says that I improve it in rhythm and expressiveness. But it’s not true, a dubbing never improves an interpretation, it’s always a cripple of something; I had a beautiful voice and started to earn some money. With Dustin we talk about the great films of the past, there is a platform of melancholy between us ».

The other Italian stars are three great women.

«I’ve never worked with Lollobrigida, but I met her at an award and she was witty and lucid, contrary to what has been said. with Anna Magnani and Sophia Loren, yes. I remember Anna, in the she Wolf by Zeffirelli, on stage when he was with his back to the audience he was telling me jokes. Artists are like that. Sophia asked me to accompany her to the hairdresser, in Castiglioncello they asked her which cut, that of Magnani, ».

To whom did he dedicate the star?

“To Lina Wertmuller. Without her we wouldn’t be here talking now. She offered me the remake of Overwhelmed by an unusual fate, but the project fell through. He called me Giancarlino, like Fellini with whom Lina had worked. Federico also called me the bat of the night. I used to visit him in the dark on his sets. He invited me to taste some spaghetti with meat sauce with Parmesan cheese from Parma. The truly great are simple, childish, innocent. Like Pasolini who offered me a film on San Paolo during the Resistance, but skipped that too».

Pasqualino Seven beauties?

“Eh, my Oscar nomination. I managed to impose that film on Lina, she was skeptical, how do you make people laugh in a concentration camp? I was thinking of Pulcinella. I was inspired by a water seller I had met in Cinecittà, an ugly Neapolitan who offered fresh water».

Americans dote on her. What is her true relationship with them?

“Love and detachment. I made two 007 and refused many roles, they offered me the Italian of the South, without distinguishing between a Sicilian and a Neapolitan. Acting in our language is more complicated than in English. I said our actors are the best in the world and they jumped around my neck. The great US actors are of Italian origins. Sorrento? I would work there, but if you don’t call me…”

Listen Giannini, that story of the black cat…

“It went viral. I could have said Topo Gigio. It’s true, for the Venice Film Festival I don’t exist, everyone rewards me, I’m not even a black cat. I’m interested in discovering people’s humanity, the joy of living, this I said when I was teaching at the Centro Sperimentale, before they sent me away with a phone call, not even a letter of thanks. But I have been lucky in my life. It all started by chance, I had to go to Brazil for the first artificial satellites when a friend suggested I enroll in the Academy, I thought he was referring to fashion and not theatre, I didn’t even know what it was».

Over 150 films between cinema and TV. A difficult time?

«Film of love and anarchy it is the film that I love the most, it received bad reviews in Italy, in Cannes I was awarded by Ingrid Bergman as best actor, she gave me the prize on the stairs, I arrived late because no one believed it».

“I finished the second chapter of Book Club, with Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen. I’m a policeman who persecutes them.’

They think he’s from Naples.

“Because I lived there ten years as a young man. My father worked on submarine cables in Pozzuoli. I attended a magnificent high school, my physics teacher had been Enrico Fermi’s classmate. Then the Neapolitan language is the most beautiful in the world».

«80, mine. I still consider myself a child but no one can scold me. There is no shortage of ideas. Mario Soldati told me that the best ones arose from a distribution of forces between what he wrote and the opposite of what he wrote ».