It is a very Italian habit to follow the launch of a product and then leave it there, without worrying about how that product will go on. And it’s a shame, especially when dealing with such refined productions as Block 181, the Sky Original series created together with TapelessFilm and Red Joint Film managed to tell the infighting between the Milanese peripheral communities through a double key: that of multiculturalism – the protagonists of Block 181 are, in fact, the Italian and South American communities – and del polyamory. As the series progressed, audiences got a chance to take a closer look at this microcosm linked to the violence and power it brought. three boys to choose each other, to give life to a sentimental and carnal relationship and, above all, to lay the foundations of a family you can always count on. They are Bea, Ludo and Mahdi, respectively played by Laura Osma, Alessandro Piavani and Andrea Dodero: they are the three of them, after all, the real beating heart of Block 181, and it is they that we wanted to hear to comment together on the finale of this first season a second one will soon followeven though the three guys, who reply on Zoom from three different places – Osma from Santa Marta, Colombia, Piavani from Bergamo and Dodero from Milan – say they haven’t received the script yet.
“It will be great to have the opportunity to continue exploring the stories of these characters. I am very happy and curious to see what will happen to the three and, in particular, to Ludo “, Piavani says adjusting the hat that covers her red and disheveled curls. “When I saw the last episodes, as a spectator I told myself that I wanted to find out how the story would go on, and here we are”, adds Osma who, after the experience of Block 181, he began to express himself in Italian much better than some natives who stand out here and there on television. The story of the three protagonists, who in the series we have seen in more or less all sauces – from threesomes to outbursts of love and hate for the choice to go out on their own with the hope of taking a slice of that six-tier cake which is the Milanese drug trafficking -, starts from afar, about a month before the start of filming. “We met at the final auditions: Laura spoke in Spanish, and Andrea and I in Italian. A month before shooting we moved to Milan in the same building: living there we had the opportunity to be together a lot and to arrive on the set even more closely “, Piavani tells before answering what all viewers have wondered about watching the series on Sky in recent weeks: how difficult it was to stage the sequences that see the three boys in intimate attitudes and, above all, without veils.
“There was a lot of respect during the shoot, we never felt uncomfortable. There was always someone on the set ready to ask us how we felt, even if everything was easier precisely because of the relationship we built with Ale and Laura “, he explains. Andrea Dodero, in Milan to shoot the last scenes of the new series that sees him as the protagonist: The Good Mothers, coming out soon on Disney +. “In the episodes these scenes are very fast due to the editing, but the truth is that we shot them for whole days”, adds Piavani, while Osma describes them as real “Choreography”, a perfect dance where it was necessary to understand how to fit the pieces together to create a harmonic construction (we also add that the takes were shot behind closed doors and with very few people present, including a psychologist ready to intervene in case the actors needed support). “They were not easy scenes, but we are professionals and we also faced them in a funny way because of the friendship that bound us”, resumes Osma who, after the experience of Block 181, is seriously thinking of moving to Italy, even if her work as an actress takes her almost everywhere, from El Salvador to Cuba – “Where I work, I live”, she says -. It goes without saying that, after the series, hundreds of users contacted the three actors privately on social networks, amidst heartfelt compliments and even some advances to say the least push which, explains Piavani, at one point even required a block (“They’re crazy” ).
Although all three admit they are still uncomfortable seeing each other on television – «It’s strange, I’m not used to it. I’ll probably realize in a month what it really was Block 181 for me “, says Dodero -, Laura, Alessandro and Andrea agree that one of the most valuable lessons of the series are the families we choose to build independently of those of blood. We ask them if they have built them in their own life: “I have had many families in my life, many people with whom I met and who I frequented,” says Andrea. «I come from a large family – 5 women and a man – but we are very individual. Having traveled often, I can say that I have had many families, and one of these is the one we formed with Alessandro and Andrea “, Laura intervenes. “I come from a very large family – I am the last of four brothers – and, having lived in Rome, London and Bergamo, I have certainly managed to build many micro-families that it is a privilege to carry on”, comments Alessandro. It remains that all three, after Block 181, they think they have grown up: Piavani thanks to working together with people from different parts of the world; Laura thanks to the obstacle of the language that she managed to overcome brilliantly, and Andrea for the anxieties of the work that she has learned to manage in the field. Now, waiting for the scripts, we just have to wait for the car to start up again, and live together another 9 months – the processing of the first season lasted the beauty of 108 days – together, closer than ever.
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Source: Vanity Fair
