Silvio Orlando: “I don’t know who I am”

This article is published in number 41 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until 12 October 2021

Silvio Orlando feels abandoned by Nanni Moretti: «We haven’t worked together since 2006. Yet at a certain point it seemed that he couldn’t make films without me… ». Are you serious? Are you kidding? Both things. He alternates very lucid judgments about himself with jokes, mixes irony, self-irony and sincerity, shuns seriousness and points to the enemy: “I hate rhetoric.”
At the last Venice Film Festival he presented two films out of competition: Ariaferma by Leonardo Di Costanzo, the story of the relationship that is created between a prisoner (him) and a prison officer (Toni Servillo) while the structure is being dismantled, which comes out to the cinema on October 14th.

The other movie is The hidden child by Roberto Andò, in cinemas from 4 November, in which he plays a music teacher who by chance finds himself hiding a child wanted by the Camorra at home.

He’s been an actor all his life.
“It is a work entirely based on pleasing others, the actors are a concentrate of insecurities”.

And she?
“I am the monument to insecurities.”

Does this come from the desire to be an actor, to establish oneself?
“I was looking for my place in the world and getting on a stage made me understand that that profession immediately gave me a consensus, I felt that it was the thing I had to do, it reduced the distance from others, it allowed me to be inside a forum” .

Otherwise he was left out?
“Objectively, I’m not a man who inspires respect in others. Do you think that certain actors I have worked with have confessed to me that I inspire awe… for me it is inexplicable ».

Because?
“Because in my head I’m always the one there.”

How was that one there?
“One who apologized for existing. I did not feel predestined for who knows what future, I did not believe I would become a person able to show the way to others, but this thing was my strength: it allowed me to be an actor, that is, one who cancels himself to enter in the world of others. Even when I do an interview I am always afraid that everything will end at any moment ».

At 64 and with a career like yours, how could it end suddenly?
“It can end in many ways.”

Are you afraid of going out of fashion?
“Tastes change, generations as well, maybe an actor more charismatic than you arrives, and then there’s this damn way for young people!”

But she is very popular with the public.
“It’s reassuring, I think.”

Therefore?
«Nothing, the insecurities do not go away. It is like feeding a pet inside, which adapts in a thousand variations. In the end, if you are an actor, when you are not around, you miss you. It is the famous oblivion, which I have always imagined as being inside a deep well full of frogs ».

He has had many awards.
«Yes, but the jerk of saying: ‘You don’t know who I am’, I don’t have it. Rather I say: I don’t know who I am! Also because I hate self-celebration. I think everyone has to go along with what they are and I am basically a lazy person. I like the work but not the fatigue ».

Did you struggle a little?
«Maybe I worked less than I could, even though I recognized myself as a starting talent, which consists in a certain vibratility, sensitivity. Some actors have the body, others the voice, I have the ears ».

What does it do with its ears?
«I hear and listen to everything. I think I have the perfect pitch for listening to others, I immediately understand what the others play and how to position myself. This thing also makes me suffer because I immediately understand when listening to the other is poor. And so today it all comes down to slogans, even when I have to talk about films, in the end I always repeat the same phrases ».

At this point I don’t know how to ask her about the two films Ariaferma e The hidden child.
«They are two films of maturity, based on a score in which there are many silences. Both directors asked me to be a character rather than play him ».

How you do it?
“It takes a lifetime to learn not to act anymore. Over the years you risk losing yourself, repeating yourself, falling back into a cliché ».

What cliché did you try to stay away from?
«From the Neapolitan. With our colleagues from Naples, as children we felt the weight of the tradition of our theater in an unbearable way. Some have managed to forget it, but sometimes it is something that leads you to find shortcuts and adapt to expectations ».

Was it tempted?
«The first strong temptation was TV, which simplifies everything. When I made a program with Antonio Ricci, The phoenix, I asked him: but how should I make this scene? And he: don’t worry, be a Neapolitan ».

The nice Neapolitan?
“Everyone loves the Neapolitan but from a distance, because it always creates apprehension: the other cliché is the clever Neapolitan who cares, who steals your wallet”.

Did you suffer from this prejudice?
“It is an intangible thing but it exists. Now I am a famous Neapolitan, therefore considered at least not a snatcher (ride). Today there is talk of politically correct, of protecting more certain categories of people more exposed to judgment, and I understand this because I have tried on myself what discrimination means, in my passage from Naples to Milan ».

How did he defend himself?
“I was doing a whole job of masking.”

Let’s go back to Ariaferma. What did you find out about prison in making this film?
“The idea that you’re wasting your time, that your time doesn’t make sense and won’t have it for years. And then I realized that the prisoners feel threatened not only by the brutality of the system but also by its excessive humanity ».

Explain.
“The permit reward system has decreased the sense of belonging that was important among the inmates. Today everyone tries to get by on their own. A paradox ».

Has the left forgotten about prisons?
“There was a left that took it upon itself, today it is a bit reticent on the subject. Surely keeping people in prison in these conditions is neither right nor left: it is a problem of civilization ».

Are you still on the left?
“Yes, above all I am a thinker, but to place oneself means to exclude a lot of people, the same effect as a certain type of well-aligned cinema”.

You have done a lot of auteur cinema. Let’s talk about Paolo Sorrentino.
“I said the first words written by Paolo for cinema: he was the screenwriter of a film by Antonio Capuano, Powder of Naples, in which I acted. It was an imaginative cinema that could not be done in Italy without a predestined one like him. Then in fact he created his cinematic universe, but he never called me for his films. Not even for The great beauty, where everyone was there except me ».

Hadn’t she ever told him she wanted to work with him?
“Nerd”.

Don’t you do it? Is there a label between actors and directors?
“When you talk to a director, that dialogue slowly turns into a silent request. All time. It is particularly distressing for directors to hang out with actors. But I understand them: when one has to make a film you clutter the imagination of this wretch who struggles to tell you that you will not be there. And so begins this rather painful minuet for the actor. It’s the same thing that happened with Nanni Moretti ».

Instead Sorrentino then chose her for The Young Pope.
“Maybe he was desperate.”

Ma no!
«For all my colleagues of my generation, English is Arabic, but mine was drinkable. Then my character gained more space in the script. Unfortunately”.

Why unfortunately?
“I was distressed, because I had to study more lines in English. In fact, in the end it became a gag, with Paolo asking the assistant director: has he already called Silvio? Because in fact, on the phone, I begged him to cut the scenes for me ».

Let’s talk about Nanni Moretti: she always says that you have a sadomasochistic relationship.
«Nanni has a very tiring way of working, which arises from an insecurity, so the sets always become psychoanalytical sessions. When you go to see a film by Nanni Moretti you never think about how you feel after seeing it, you say: however, it seems to me that he is better … You develop that kind of concern in the audience ».

He feels like an intermediary between him and the public?
«No, because he always remains central. Let’s say he trusts me and I think I’ve never let him down. But, well, we haven’t worked together for sixteen years ».

Don’t you ever hear from each other?
“Every now and then he calls me and tells me he wants to do something with me but then disappears. It happens often. However, I am always grateful to him for allowing me to be an actor as I did in his films ».

One person he never separates from, however, is his wife, the actress Maria Laura Rondanini.
«I call it“ One hundred steps ”, because as soon as I go away it calls me, asks me where I am and what I do. In 21 years we will have been separated for a month. Perhaps it is a morbid way of living the relationship but it is ours ».

It’s hard?
“When we are not together I miss her.”

Why did you get married in Venice?
«I had just won the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival and in a live interview on Tg5 I said that we would get married there, in Venice, the following month. There was nothing really planned. I wanted to surprise you ».

Ivan Cerullo’s photo.

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