untitled design

Sebastiano Pigazzi: “Giuseppi is me”

This article is published in the 22-23 issue of Vanity Fair on newsstands until 6 June 2023

“There was a rather difficult homosexual sex scene, the position was uncomfortable. They made me repeat it about twenty times». Sebastian Pigazzi is among the new entries in the cast of the awaited second chapter of And Just Like That…sequel to the iconic Sex and the City.
Born in 1996, a little James Dean and a little Luke Perry (especially when he smiles), he made his debut in TV series by Luca Guadagnino We Are Who We Aretook flight alongside exes Bella Thorne and Benjamin Mascolo (aka Benj) in the teen drama Time Is Up. And now stars with Sarah Jessica Parker. It only took one and only self-tape to convince the creator, Michael Patrick King. «He saw the two scenes that I sent him in a video and said:“ Giuseppi is him, let’s not look any further ”», he says in the Roman kitchen of his paternal grandmother’s house. Sebastian is born and raised in Americabut his parents are Italianand the mother, Diamante, is Bud Spencer’s youngest child. These days he’s here to visit his relatives and to shoot a cultural project for Rai.

Who is Giuseppi with the i?
“He’s my character. An Italian with a passion for poetry, an optimistic albeit melancholic type. Giuseppe, for the Americans Giuseppi, has a beautiful love story with one of the historical protagonists of Sex and the CityAnthony Marentino, or Mario Cantone».

When the original series first aired, she was two years old.
“I have a vague memory of my mom looking at her. Anyway, I got it back.”

What is your position on the issue of gay roles? Many of his colleagues, who are heterosexual, like Tom Hanks, support the principle that only homosexuals have the right to interpret them.
«By the same reasoning, the only ones who will be able to step into Hamlet’s shoes will be Danish princes. The actor’s job should be to portray a character other than his own person. I am convinced that the opportunity should be given to everyone».

Did you learn the acting profession from your grandfather, Carlo Pedersoli, aka Bud Spencer?
«He was happy to share his adventures: for him it was all fun. He had also taken me to the set of the series The crimes of the cook, his latest television work. But I would have liked to ask him many more things, much more advice. Yes, this is a regret. The distance didn’t help: I ​​was born in Boston, when I was two years old we moved with my parents to New York, from nine to 18 we lived in Los Angeles. We followed dad, surgeon. Then I returned to New York and finally to Beverly Hills, where I studied acting».

Did you have time to inform your grandfather of the choice to follow in his footsteps before he passed away in the summer of 2016?
«I think I made a definitive decision a few months before: I’ve always been attracted to his world, but skeptical about my real possibilities. It didn’t seem like an achievable dream and so I pushed it away for a long time ».

Would he have her support?
“He never encouraged close relatives to go his way.”

And the support of your parents, did you have it?
“I think my father called everyone in the family to put together a task force to change my mind. My mom has been a little softer and more optimistic, maybe she’s been in a couple of movies, like Superfantagenius, more for fun than for conviction though. He told me: “I’ll give you a few years, but start already considering a plan B”. I know it was for my own good. They were worried: I, so sensitive, how would I react to the no that would arrive?».

What do you mean by “sensitive”?
«Consider that I have always been very shy: as a child I was not very sociable and preferred to stay at home and write poetry, as a teenager I did poorly in school and continued to have few friends. Of course that way I look more gloomy than Giacomo Leopardi, and boring. I too have my own little record of funny bullshit».

For example?
“I bought an old red minivan for $500 just to go skiing with friends. It lasted 27 hours.”

Was he a sporty «Giacomo Leopardi»?
“Yes. I have also been swimming for years. In fact, I hated it, yet I was good at it. Dolphin and freestyle like his grandfather».

Salsomaggiore 1950: he was the first Italian to break the minute wall in his specialty.
“Without working out and smoking one Marlboro after another.”

Here and in the opening photo. vest and trousers, Dior Men. Sneakers, Hogan. Photo Sarah Krick

Let’s go back to the no to auditions: few, many or the right?
“Many, of course. And I still get a lot of them.”

The most significant?
“The one at my first audition ever, though The summer on by Gabriele Muccino. There were only two of us left for the final selections: myself and Brando Pacitto. I didn’t take it as a rejection, on the contrary: it was rather a push to improve, to achieve our goals».

It is true that he convinced Luca Guadagnino to take it in We Are Who We Are to the airport?
«I had proposed to the production. Then one day, in Rome, waiting for my flight to New York which was delayed, I met him. I thought, “It’s now or never.” I sat down next to him and hung up a button.”

Did you tell him he was Bud Spencer’s nephew?
“Absolutely not. But immediately after our conversation Luca wrote me a message: “Your grandfather was a legend”. He must have done some research online.’

Does it happen often?
“It’s rare in America. In Italy I receive many certificates of esteem for him».

Do you feel the weight of the comparison with him?
“For charity! Comparisons are zero: it is unattainable, a mountain, a myth. Everything he did, he did better.”

The best memory of a moment you spent together?
“The only time he joined me in California and got to know my world. We went to see the campers, which he was passionate about: he looked like a kid in a toy store. Do you know that I chose to sip watching his films to still have something about him to discover? ».

Besides catching up on his grandfather’s movies, what do you do when he’s not acting?
«I’m directing a feature film, I practice a lot of sport, I read, I go to the opera – a passion I inherited from my father – and I design jackets».

What kind of jackets?
«I find high-quality old pieces around and I customize them by adding fabrics, details of cushions, scraps of family carpets. It all stems from the nickname Luca Guadagnino gave me on set: “pariolino”. I explained to him that I’ve been to Parioli maybe six times in my life, always passing through. And yet he keeps calling me that, even yesterday we met, he says it’s because of my always a little elegant way of dressing (today he wears a blue T-shirt and reindeer jacket, ed.). Then until a while ago I used to put what I found in the closet, clothes chosen by my mom and my grandmother. In short, I realized how important style is and how much it communicates about us to others».

She doesn’t communicate much about herself on social media…
«It doesn’t come naturally to me to show what I eat for lunch and dinner. It bores me to post pictures of myself. A profile that looks like a selfie supermarket? No thank you. And then, I find that privacy is important».

Bomber, Dior Men. Photo Sarah Krick

Is this why nothing is known about his love life?
“I may be in love, but the idea of ​​love never corresponds to real love. I’m getting to grips with the material.”

Let’s make it short: is he engaged?
“Yes. Point”.

What is Sarah Jessica Parker like?
«Super professional, kind. The first time we met she asked me to suggest some restaurants in Rome, because one of her sons would come here».

What will happen next And Just Like That…?
«I’ll be in a couple of episodes of the fourth season of the Apple TV+ sci-fi series For All Mankind. Then I hope that a film in which I’m the protagonist will also come out in Italy: the shooting didn’t end even a month ago and the editing has just begun. I play Al Capone’s right-hand man in 1920s Chicago, in the cast is Linda Hamilton from terminators».

If his grandfather knew…
“I wonder what he would tell me.”

In the cast of the second season of And Just Like That… they come back, from the left, Karen Pittman, Sarah Jessica Parker and Sarita Choudhury. From 23 June exclusively on Sky and streaming on Now. Photos courtesy HBO Max and Sky

Styling Oretta Corbelli. Allegra Gargiulo collaborated. Grooming Virginie Pineda@Thevisionariesagency using R+Co.

To subscribe to Vanity Fair, click here.

Source: Vanity Fair

You may also like

Get the latest

Stay Informed: Get the Latest Updates and Insights

 

Most popular