Stella Egypt: “Born free”

The thing that is most missing a Stella Egypt of this numb spring, which slowly awakens with the first reopening after the restrictions linked to Covid, is traveling. «I would love to take a tour of the holy cities of Israel: I am convinced that in my previous life there was some connection with lands such as Turkey and Morocco. Every time I go there I experience special sensations “ Stella tells on the phone explaining the importance not only of being centered as a person, but also of continuously finding a balance between body and mind, intention and action.

On television we see her in the role of a mysterious woman who, in the fiction of Canale 5 Good morning mom by Giulio Manfredonia, tries to put together the pieces of a turbulent life, but in everyday life Egypt is committed above all to redistributing the energy that it holds within itself in all parts of its being and its body. In fact, he has been practicing it for years kundalini yoga, a discipline that “changed her life from all points of view” and that seeks to unlock the energy residing in the lower back through a long process of breathing and meditation, something that helps her to carve out a space “Even while you live those situations in which you would like to disappear”, waiting to see her soon on Netflix in the film My brother, my sister alongside Alessandro Preziosi and at the cinema in Karim Code together with Valentina Cervi.

Do you also use this practice on set?
«I use it above all on the set because it helps me a lot: by now I have internalized it so much that it goes without saying. The difficult thing is to find a good teacher ».

When did you discover yoga?
“I had just come out of a very important story and I felt the need to discipline the energies that I had within me. I’ve always been a buckshot charge, someone not to be pulled up, but someone to appease. One day a friend of the theater told me about this practice and from there everything changed: learning to handle pain, to maintain a certain position and to act on control was enlightening ».

How do you manage control?
«I am very instinctive, I have no filters and I love to surround myself with people similar to me. At the same time, however, I hate anarchy: I define myself as free and I’m super lucky for that ».

Maurizia, her character in Good morning mom, anarchy knows it well.
“I like to call her a satellite character. I love interpreting stories that do not detach themselves from the imperfection of the mess of all of us: I have always believed little in linear things and in the Mulino Bianco family. Maurizia grew up alone with a mother in a suburban context and will be moved by a series of things that each of us can recognize as close to us ».

Did you make a mess of it instead?
“I could have spared something, but all in all I don’t: I strongly believe in chance encounters, which play a key role in my life. Perhaps, from another dimension, dad coordinates everything: I am very empathetic and very open, I am not born as a misguided one.

What child was she?
«Having lost my father at 11, I immediately started asking myself questions: it is a passing age in which the body changes, they start looking at you and you try to find a square. I was a much loved child, mom is a free woman who made her mistakes but who, when I told her I wanted to be an actress, immediately encouraged me by advising me to study and prepare myself ».

When does the passion arrive?
«The loss of my father touched some particular chords that made me understand that, if you no longer see the blue sky, it is important to go after it. Thanks to a very good professor, I fell in love with dramaturgy: reading theatrical texts allowed me to live lives different from mine, potentially infinite. So I immediately started with the workshops in Messina full of desire to do, hungry for the stage. Once I graduated, I went on a study trip to America, but first I put the history book of dramatic theater in my bag, explaining to my mother that I would try at the Silvio D’Amico in Rome and at the Piccolo in Milan ».

Determined.
“I was so charged up and so motivated that I knew I was going to make it. I have always cared about negative feedback and the meeting with Ronconi at the Academy led me to ask myself the right questions, a fundamental thing to formulate your own personal answers ».

Is it still impervious to criticism?
“Over time I have refined my critical elements. I defend my enthusiasm, that childlike part that I hope never to lose because the child tells you the truth in a ruthless way, he does not know the superstructures. I am like that, very strong and very fragile, hoping that the things that have hurt me are a wound and not a scar ».

In light of all this, what emotion will it be for her to go back to performing at the theater?
“Indescribable. At the beginning of the lockdown I was in Calabria, working on a beautiful show, a fusion of two Shakespeare texts for the company of Max Mazzotta: when the news of the closure arrived we were at dinner, closed in a bubble, catapulted into a situation which seemed very far to us. The situation of the Italian theater is not the simplest, and it is for this reason that we workers of the show would need a law that protects the category as in many other European countries ».

At a guess, I would say that he has made several dreams come true. What remains?
“Continue to travel at this speed. I don’t care about popularity relatively: I’m only interested in growing through encounters, working on always different characters and doing my best. Deeply grateful for what I have. “

(Opening photo by Maddalena Petrosino; styling: Umberto Granata @ EPSUITE19; make up: Raffaele Schioppo @ Simone Belli Agency; hair: Francesco Borghese @ Mimmo Laserra; dress, TL 180; bracelet and necklaces, all Barbara Biffoli)