Anna Ferzetti: my special year

This article is published in number 51 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until December 22, 2020

At one point Anna Ferzetti slaps her partner Pierfrancesco Favino. A loud slap. Except that, at that moment, Favino was not his companion: it was d’Artagnan. And she was Enrichetta of England, the villain of Giovanni Veronesi’s new film, All for 1 – 1 for all, premiered on Sky on Christmas Eve. The plot: to save the monarchy, the queen of Austria (Margherita Buy) sends her aged and rusty musketeers (Pierfrancesco Favino, Valerio Mastandrea and Rocco Papaleo) to carry out one last mission: to escort Henrietta and her daughter Ginevra to the Netherlands. , where the princess will have to marry.

It goes without saying that, between the departure and the arrival, everybody will happen. Including duels, magical encounters, lots of laughter and, of course, some slaps. That now Anna, undressing her wig and stage clothes, remembers from her studio in Rome: “I told him: I can’t give fake slaps, so let’s try not to make the scene wrong, because I’m really shooting it”, he says amused in a gray sweatshirt and without makeup. “I was actually terrified of two things. The first was to blow up the new fake that he had stuck in his face: I’m a former pentathlon athlete, I’m strong ».

The second?
“Don’t stop laughing. It was the first time we were acting in the same film. I thought I wouldn’t be able to be serious. “
So it was nice to work together.
“Very. Until now we had always avoided, to ensure that I built a professional path independent of him. This year, however, we felt it ».
After the nomination for the David di Donatello as Best Supporting Actress?
«After that and many jobs that have given me satisfaction. 2020 was profitable for me: I shot 40 & climbing, a female film where I act alongside Elena Di Cioccio, and I’m finishing shooting the second season of the Rai series I wanted to be a rock star. I think I have begun to prove that I am Anna, not just Gabriele’s daughter (Ferzetti, a well-known film and theater actor who died in 2015, ed) or Pierfrancesco’s partner. Now, if they proposed it to us again, we would be happy to make another film together, even if working apart has always been our strength: we have been engaged for 17 years, being on your own occasionally reinvigorates the union ».
During the lockdowns, however, you will have been together quite a lot.
«A lot, yes. With my mother, who lived with us in quarantine, and our two daughters, we did things we were no longer used to: eat together, watch a movie on the sofa, chat, read books. I have almost learned to cook, I have arranged the cupboards and found old diaries ».
Did you find out more about Pierfrancesco, Greta or Lea?
“I discovered something more about myself.”
What?
“Sometimes I find it hard to say ‘I love you’. I prove it in other ways. I look a lot like my dad, I’m closed. I find it difficult even to hug my daughters. Maybe I’m dying to do it, but I’m ashamed. So I try hard, I hug them, then I feel the need to play down by pretending a little girl’s voice. Perhaps over time it will pass. What will not pass instead is gratitude for what I have, another thing discovered in quarantine. At Christmas, for example, I don’t want anything. It is enough for me to enjoy what I have built up to now with my family ».
How will you spend the holidays?
«On the 24th we will celebrate my birthday. I am, I stress, 38 years old. Carried very badly, I know: they all give me more ».
All who?
«Directors, for one thing: they always hire me to play 45-year-olds! Maybe it’s because Greta is grown up now: she is 14 years old ».
Lea has nine: does she still believe in Santa Claus?
«Of course, today we are sending the letter. And on the 25th we open the gifts. Then, of course, in the evening we will look All for 1 – 1 for all: it’s the perfect Christmas movie, it makes us feel like children again. It reminded me of when my dad used to read to me The Three Musketeers of Dumas to make me fall asleep. Now we read it to Lea ».
Which of the two is better at reading?
«Picchio (Pierfrancesco’s nickname, ed) is more engaging. I make a thousand little voices and I feel stupid. However Lea has a lot of fun. And now she plays the little voices too. It reminds me of my dad who answered the phone and pretended not to be there: “Plonto? No, there is none” (simulates a foreign maid accent, ndr). Lea fa uguale ».
This year Lea starred with Pierfrancesco in Our Father, a film that earned him the Volpi Cup.
«Yes, for her it was a way to spend a month with her father and to better understand our work. I remember that, as a child, when my father left for long theatrical tours, I asked myself: but does he leave because he doesn’t want to be with me? ».
Is the little girl good for acting?
«The first scene he shot was so good that Picchio and I started crying. I don’t know if she is capable, I know that if she wants to continue she will have to study a lot. He will have to understand that he cannot skip stages just because he is a daughter of art ».
She has never skipped them, indeed she has been defined as “an actress who enters on tiptoe”.
«Better this way: I’m happy to have built my career starting slowly».
Does it start slowly in life as well?
«Always: I am very suspicious, especially in friendships. As a girl, I gave my all to the people I loved. But I took too many blows, so now I start cautiously ».
On tiptoe even in love?
“Well, the feet have something to do with it: Picchio and I met because at a party he beat me up while dancing. I was 20 and had no idea who he was. He had mistaken me for a theology student. ‘
Why precisely theology?
“It must have been my look: dark helmet, palazzo pants, ribbed jacket. Every now and then he says jokingly: where did that girl with the big eyes go? And me: it has grown. Anyway, we never parted from that footed foot ».
Not even after the quarantine which, according to a previous statement, would have enriched the divorce lawyers.
“No no, at least I haven’t called him yet. Among other things, before getting divorced, we should get married. “
Will you do it?
«I don’t know, for me it is as if we were husband and wife. But sooner or later we’d like to throw a party. Except that I am not even baptized, I should go all the way: baptism, communion, confirmation… ».
Or you could get married in the Municipality.
«No, Picchio is a believer, he cares a lot».
And she?
“I don’t go to church, but I have a creed. As a child, when I argued with my parents, I ran across the fields, lay down on a meadow and talked to “my god”. Now I’m talking to dad. ‘
What does it tell him?
«I tell him my life, I tell him about this bad period. That perhaps he would not have minded: he has spent the last few years in solitary confinement. He shunned people. If everyone went to the beach in the morning, he went there at lunchtime when the beaches were deserted. I would pay to get it back even for a moment. “
What would he do in that moment?
“I would ask him: Dad, am I doing well?”
And would he answer?
“I don’t know, he was a man from 1925, not used to compliments. When he came to see me at the theater he said nothing. But he was moved. That was her way of telling me: good ».

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