Sandokan: behind the scenes of the series with Can Yaman

This article on Sandokan is published in issue 49 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until 3 December 2024.

If the set of Sandokan were Fight Club, there would be three rules to respect: put the phone on silent mode, not move near the cameras to avoid the shots from dancing, and not wear white T-shirts while the set design departments handle the brown stain, which stains . It’s June, the sun is beating down and the air is full of humidity when I arrive in Calabria, on the set of the international event series – produced by LuxVide, a Fremantle group company, in collaboration with Rai Fiction which we will see in 2025 on Rai1 -, ready to host a remake that smells of a masterpiece right from the first details, from the finishes on the belts and headdresses of the native Dayak tribes to the wooden porticoes of the house of the consul of Labuan, finely reconstructed by the set designers. Almost 50 years after the drama directed by Sergio Sollima which launched Kabir Bedi’s career, the pirate created by the pen of Emilio Salgari returns in all his splendor (and his biceps) in a more modern version with a protagonist who, after having bewitched the female audience thanks to Turkish soaps, is ready to make a massacre of hearts even with a black kajal around the eyes. Let’s talk about Can Yamanthe first to arrive and the last to leave, who wanders around the set with a bottle of water in his hand, very concentrated on repeating his lines until it’s his turn.

«Sandokan is the reason why I arrived in Italy: I trained for six months, including sword fighting, lessons on how to ride a horse and even dance courses to try to be convincing in this role”, says Yaman, who despite being in the ninth week of filming admits that he is not tired because on this set where they speak a little Italian and a little English “the atmosphere is serene even if the project is ambitious”. In fact, despite the incessant noise of the drills and of a very long tube that snakes across the parquet and shoots cold air to give some relief to the actors trapped in meters and meters of very precious fabric, the set that reconstructs the British consulate it is a microcosm in which one moment it seems to be at the high school dance and the next moment in front of the altar of a church. As soon as the director Jan Maria Michelini announces that the clapperboard is about to be beaten, dozens of prop operators, microphone operators, make-up artists and costume designers swarm like little ants to leave the field free and allow the front line workers and actors to give their best. «Silence», «Piano», «Sssssh» are the pounding words used by the assistant director to call for order to the point that, when an operator coughs, the person tapping the clapperboard looks at him as if he had taken his Golden Retriever hostage. «It took us a year to choose the cast, not to mention that we’ve been preparing for seven months: when I arrive to shoot I already know what I have to do, I have a very precise idea of ​​everything», says Michelini, slaloming between the channels for the electrical cables and various metal boxes arranged at the edges of this monumental nineteenth-century hall of wood and stucco, full of microphones, photographic lenses and various tools.

erika kuenka

He has just finished shooting the scene in which Sandokan meets the beauty’s father for the first time Marianna, played by newcomer Alanah Bloorblonde hair and moon skin, and the sultan of Brunei, and he couldn’t be more relaxed. The ball scene, in which dozens and dozens of extras with padded dresses and lit candles invaded that same room for a delightfully leopard-like moment, is now behind him, and is in itself a good reason to breathe a sigh and take a look at the production plan. Despite the great chaos around me, everyone knows very well what their place is and how to carry out their job. There is the story editor Aldo L’Erario who whispers to me some hints of the plot – Sandokan is shipwrecked on the island and has carved out a fictitious identity for himself – with the promise not to divulge too much; there is an assistant who protects the actors from the midday sun by brandishing a large orange umbrella, and there is still the director who explains to me that the Singapore consulate and brothel reconstructed here in Calabria are only a small part of the locations where the series is filmed. Among some interiors set up in the studios in Rome – like the holds of the Sultan of Brunei’s ship and the cabin of the evil commander Lord Brooke –, the environments in which the 1:20 scale ships were built for close-ups and aerial shots and the spaces set up here, near of Lamezia Terme, everyone agrees that the flagship of production is in Formello, with a ship almost entirely rebuilt in length and a gigantic latest generation LED wall system capable of replicating the aftermath of a storm worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster.

Erika Kuenka

«I want to do something credible for adults but which is also usable for children», adds Michelini, who was able to count on the presence of two Italian actors in the cast: Alessandro Preziosi is the iconic Yanez de Gomera, the young former dancer of Friends and protagonist of Oddities of love Secret Samuel instead he takes on the role of a surprising character (but no spoilers). While some assistants hunt Yaman in the hope of snatching a selfie from him that they already know they cannot post because the production policy is very strict, Ed Westwickthe Chuck Bass of Gossip Girlhe stands in a corner fiddling with his smartphone, fully dressed. In Sandokan plays the bad guy, but don’t think of his Brooke as a character. «It has many nuances that I enjoy interpreting, the gray areas are much more interesting to talk about», says Westwick, eyes narrowed and a sly smile, shortly before being called to shoot his scene: the one in which the consul orders him to film Marianna, convinced that she was kidnapped by Sandokan. It’s day 44 of 86as it is written on the clapperboard resting on an ocher velvet armchair, and everything goes according to plan, apart from a few too many drops of rain that fell the week before. At least until someone from production warns Can Yaman that Turkey just beat Georgia at the European Championships: this is the moment in which we realize that we are not in a nineteenth-century consulate but on a set, where the dream gives way to reality when an extra goal hits the opponent’s net.