Rocco Fasano: “Enough with toxic masculinity”

This article is published in issue 8 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until February 23, 2021.

In the lobby of the Milanese hotel, no one seems to recognize Rocco Fasano. It will be because of the mask that leaves only the green eyes uncovered, because his face certainly could not go unnoticed, it is the face of the idol of young people grown up with Shame on Italy. In the series that tells the story of a group of Roman high school students, a remake of the Norwegian original, he plays Niccolò, the protagonist, together with Federico Cesari in the role of Martino, of the most heartbreaking and moving love story of recent television seasons.

Fans would say: always, why Shame it is not just a series: it is the object of enormous veneration, generational identification and obsession, as happens only with disruptive phenomena.

For Rocco it was the dividing line between life before and today. Before, he was an unknown young actor, unsure whether to continue acting, engaged at the same time in auditions and studies in medicine. Today he lives between Paris and Rome and, at the age of 27, he is part of a new generation of Italian stars already famous in the world, thanks to the distribution power of digital platforms (specifically, Netflix). Like Alice Pagani, protagonist of the other teen series Baby, who will share the big screen with him – Dpcm permitting – in Do not kill me, love story between boys who die and then are reborn hungry for human flesh. Directs Andrea De Sica, former director of Baby, which therefore is the architect of an operation that unites the fans of the two series, halfway between crossing and sacrilege: Baby meets Shame. It has already been said about this highly anticipated film from both sides that it is the Twilight Italian, with the same storm and stress in fantasy sauce, and two beautiful and charismatic young performers.

So for the transitive property, would you be our Robert Pattinson?
“So they say, yes.” (ride)

A little bit like him.
“They started to point this out to me back when Pattinson was Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter. Then, from Twilight forward, the comparison has become a constant ».

What character do you play?
«I can say little. Except that I play Robin, a boy who dies of an overdose along with his sweetheart, Mirta. She awakens after death and must find Robin. He has only one problem: to live he must eat human flesh ».

Is Robin?
“He is a character at the antipodes from those played in the past. Full of dark sides, he does terrible things, he’s a very bad boy. ‘

With this good face how did he do it?
“Eh, it’s a very different role … It was fun.”

Does it have anything in common with Robin?
«The vehemence with which I love. When I love a person I do it without restraints, one hundred percent, like Robin. I am very passionate ».

Jealous too?
“Unfortunately, yes, a little.”

Also Niccolò di Shame is a character who falls madly in love.
“Yes, I have other things in common with him. He has a beautiful vulnerability, which he has a good relationship with. Niccolò is a positive example of how to react to the obstacles of life, in his case the borderline personality disorder and the problematic love relationship with Martino ».

Vulnerable characters often happen to her.
“Yes, and it is an immense gift for an actor, they are roles that allow you to explore a very wide palette of emotions. I don’t like male characters who carry a toxic masculinity that is now outdated ».

Explain.
“Men, in cinema and mainstream series, had to be virile, macho. The most vulnerable characters, on the other hand, were ridiculed, represented in a speckish way. I don’t think it was intentional, it was just the result of a simplistic approach ».

Speak to the past tense why things are changing?
“I think so, in American entertainment characters and performers are emerging, examples of a different masculinity.”

A conquest for all men?
“If we find in the media a representation of men who cry, who show themselves vulnerable, who fail, it means that we are freeing ourselves from a cultural load that we carry on us unnecessarily. Because emotions have no sex ».

Do you often cry?
«A few times but when crying happens it’s uncontrollable…».

Has your generation freed itself from machismo?
“Without a doubt we are very far ahead, we are far from the male chauvinist and patriarchal society”.

In Shame homosexuality and sexual fluidity are normalized, they are never told in dramatic tones. Is this also the case in reality?
“Yes, among my peers and even more so among younger boys, the fact that the boundaries of sexuality are blurred is a concept now taken for granted. For example, saying that you have a curiosity towards people of the same sex is not a problem, it is a common thing. There is also more experimentation: I find it right, rather than self-censoring and re-entering a role chosen by others. It’s nice to try, to understand who you are, it’s nice to be all different ».

Are your parents equally progressive?
“Let’s say a middle ground between progressivism and conservatism”.

What family is it?
«A simple family from Potenza. My father works at the Caf, my mother sells objects for wedding lists. They are very pragmatic people, I am the only artist in the family. And I had to fight a little to become one ».

What did they dream of for her?
“Like all simple Southern families, they hoped for a good, secure job. So at the beginning I took theater courses in secret ».

When?
«At 16, but in reality I always had the dream of being an actor, at least since elementary school. I remember this performance of the Divine Comedy in which I was playing Dante: I was very committed, at 7 I was very clear that that was the thing I wanted to do ».

Even?
“Yup. I always said it, I did imitations. Being an actor is more like a vocation than a job. Also because you have to face a series of objective difficulties, such as the lack of routine and minimum guarantees, which discourage anyone who is not fully convinced ».

What did you like about acting as a child?
“What I still like today: escape. Not escape, rather exploration. The fact of not being a single granite thing, but a plastic being that transforms itself ».

How did you play it then?
«Very well, they have a lot of us and we also ended up in the regional newspaper». (ride)

The teenage com’era?
“A mess, like everyone else. Always hyper busy, I was a big nerd, I never went out, I also graduated in piano at the Conservatory. My father used to tell me: but do some bullshit your age. I nothing”.

And then?
“After I was 18, I calmed down. I understood that I could observe the river in full life and decide what to do ».

How did he do?
“Psychotherapy and meditation helped me.”

How were you in Potenza?
«I accused a little of the limited reality of the province, but there were friends and we had American cousins ​​who we used to visit in New Jersey and who came to Potenza in the summer. Then it is true that the province gives you a very strong push to reach your goals ».

But today he lives between Rome and Paris: why?
«I love Paris madly, for the nineteenth-century architecture and the culture it offers. With some friends we rented an apartment, I’m learning the language and I also starred in a French series for Netflix, which is called Mythomaniac and which should come out soon ».

When did he arrive in Rome instead?
«After high school, to study medicine, and in the meantime I continued to devote myself to acting with coaches. My parents did not agree, but it went very well, even the difficulties shaped me, they made me become a person with my feet on the ground and my head in the clouds ».

Head in the clouds?
“I’m like that and that’s okay because the actor has to be a little detached from reality, to imagine something other than himself.”

At what point are you with your medical studies?
“If we talk about exams, they are just over half, and frankly I don’t know if I will continue, because the university is increasingly irreconcilable with my professional commitments. Then there is also a question of perspectives: after six years of Medicine I should take a competition for specialization without being sure of being taken in the one that interests me ».

Which?
“Psychiatry. Which has a lot to do with acting: the first is more contemplative, the second more active ».

How will he tell his parents that he wants to leave university?
«I’m serene, now I’m on my side. After Shame everything has changed ».

Especially for her.
“Yes, I began to understand that I could make a living from acting, thanks to Shame today I am the protagonist of a film ».

Are you still linked to the character of Niccolò?
“A lot, it changed my life, it’s impossible to detach emotionally, it was a great lesson in empathy, Niccolò also took me to very dark and painful places. And then the fanbase is incredible: they are people who thank you in such emotional ways, because they saw themselves represented, because in that story they found the courage to come out or talk about borderline personality disorder “.

Do they stop you often?
«Yes, I can no longer go or do what I want, sometimes I find myself photographed in strange poses, in the street. But perhaps with the mask we have found the solution ».