Alice Pagani: #diamociunamano, no more taboo

Like exposed electric wires, the long hair that Alice Pagani has freed to make them “stretch to infinity” is twisted around her fingers and produces sparks and thoughts at supersonic speed. As she smiles – a lot – and apologizes – often – for the barrage of words, she says those threads grew with her during the year of the pandemic. “I spent the time looking inside myself, looking for my light,” he says, lowering his eyes. Meanwhile, outside, two things were happening: a film, Do not kill me, streaming from April 21, and a book, Ophelia, of which he has just delivered the proofs and which will be released in May by Mondadori Electa.

It is evening, and she is tired and excited together, after a press screening of the film. «The special effects are very beautiful, the physical part is very important. I’m used to the stuff streaming out (the series that made her famous, Baby, aired on Netflix for three seasons, ed), but cinema is an experience. I hadn’t been there since August, I got excited ».

It is a dark film, with supernatural elements, already defined «the Twilight Italian »: was it difficult to interpret it?

«The challenge was to make the purity of my character, Mirta, an“ over-dead ”. It was also a journey within me, which grew more and more. And it influenced, because I was shooting while I was writing it, also the writing of Ophelia, which is the alter ego I gave myself on Instagram ».

He once said he wanted to write the story of her and her mother. Has it become this book?

“No. Maybe one day I will turn the story of the two of us into a film, I have a form of dyslexia for which reading and writing is complicated for me, I work better with images. And then as a child I always thought about living in a movie with my mother. I had seen The Truman Show and I always wondered if what we were experiencing was real or not. The book, on the other hand, talks about this girl who comes from a small village, like mine was, and follows a road similar to mine but different, as I wanted to imagine a parallel path, my alternative life, something that could have been. I lived it as a second chance, I put everything that inspires me, songs, film atmospheres ».

It’s a first-person story.

«Yes, I wanted the reader to see things from Ophelia’s perspective, there is a lot of me and my dream world, dark, fairytale. The character starts from the protected environment of the country, where the only things you are afraid of are silence, darkness, boredom, to then arrive in the metropolis and be afraid of others, of the fact that everything is bigger than you. Ophelia fights to defeat this fear, and hers is a search for happiness, in a place where there are more possibilities to grow, discover, get to know each other, find one’s place ».

Is the desire to become an adult yours too?

“Absolutely yes. Even if the encounter with the adult world is disappointing because it is made up of labels, lies, material things. There is disillusionment: Ophelia is not looking for a house, clothes, money, a beautiful girl or a handsome boy next to her, she is looking for herself and who makes her feel herself, not being afraid to be what she is ” .

How does he do it?

“He comes from a small country where sexuality is a taboo, one cannot speak openly, the church is a point of reference, it is repressed a lot, there is female castration. To find himself, he must also explore his body. I write about masturbation because it is a way to get to know each other, and I am convinced that you have to talk about it in a casual way because it is a way to become aware of your body. And I also write about sex; it’s a bit difficult to get into the adult world by saying, “Of course I’m straight.” You have to experience the experience. In this book Ophelia allows herself to study with a woman, to understand how it feels to love a person of the same sex, she wants to find out after having experienced an experience with a man ».

She too left from Piattoni, the town where she grew up in the province of Ascoli Piceno, to land in Rome.

“It is a place where there are not many possibilities, but only a cinema, a shopping center and three bars, which close at 8 pm even if there is no curfew. Many houses and then the woods, the countryside. As a child you always have to invent something to play, because there isn’t much to do. Time is marked by the stops of a bus that in a very long time takes you to the nearest place, which is a capital, however, far from everything. The scooter becomes freedom, the arguments are football that revolves around the oratory pitch, then the church. People are very devoted and at the same time judgmental towards those who are open, different, and for this reason they are frightening ».

Who was different?

“Me, to begin with. Let’s take my choice to go to art school, for example: it was seen as a freak school. Yet for me it was a very important school because in that closed context, at the age of 14, seeing the naked bodies of the models for the first time, to be able to draw them, and understand that they exist in all shapes, perfect, imperfect, it was a revelation. But feeling “other” started earlier. I remember my mother explaining to me what menstruation was, I told it in class and the other mothers complained. Mine are workers, I lived in public housing, where life is harder, the first school you encounter are difficulties, the people you frequent have problems with money, integration, survival. I grew up among Chinese, Kazakhs, Filipinos, who were my friends. From the houses of the wealthy we looked like aliens, at school I was the head of the group of the marginalized. I was hyperactive and dyslexic, I ended up in a wheelchair due to temporary immobility due to a rare disease. Yet the obstacles and the example of my mother have made me a strong girl, without fear, I have always done and said what I thought in a closed and even racist context ».

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The complete interview on issue 16 of Vanity Fair on newsstands from April 14th