There is an interview that went unnoticed for a month, but this is the most beautiful thing you can hear this year (and one of the most beautiful ever) on the They Talk About You podcast. This was done by journalist Malcolm Pagani for actress Sabrina Impacciatore, who, before arriving at the consecration with the TV series White Lotus, talks about her “obsession” with the profession, the crazy preparation of the characters (which caused her to risk losing her mind), many doors which he opened before him, and the many doors which he broke through, made those who stood before him laugh and cry. And listening to this, you too can’t help laughing and crying if you have a heart. But did we really need Americans to understand that you are the current heiress of Monica Vitti and Anna Magnani?
VHave you ever heard something on the radio while traveling by car and suddenly burst into tears? It doesn’t happen to me often, but this time it happened, and I couldn’t hold back my tears. The problem is that after half an hour at the toll booth, I burst out laughing out loud, without brakes, starting to doubt my mental stability. Fortunately, these overpowering reactions to the very strong emotions that literally swept over me were not a figment of my imagination. In fact, I listened to the most beautiful interview of the year (and perhaps one of the most beautiful ever) that a journalist Malcolm Pagani made for an actress Sabrina Impactatore for the podcast They’re talking about you (produced by Chora). Premise: There is no commercial agreement for this article, no knowledge from those directly involved (sorry), and not even any interest underlying the praise I’m about to give. Indeed, as a journalist, I must gnaw when a colleague succeeds in the very rare feat of pulling such a tense and true story out of an interviewee, so full of sermons and so dramatic in all its splendor. Instead, I was amazed that a month had passed since its publication, and no one had spoken about it yet. Riddles of Italian journalism.: we have an American-famous artist (thanks to the White Lotus series), a journalist who makes her shimmer in all her humanity, and we have been talking for a month now about a useless diss between songwriters and rappers arguing about auto-tune.
mLet’s move on to the essence, which Pagani immediately captures in the introduction: “Laughing and crying. Crying and laughingI. Try to follow her, and perhaps the same thing will happen to you. Punctual and prophetic. And those who do not cry and laugh, I would add, should ask themselves questions about their own sensitivity. Yes, because Sabrina Impacciatore is a human and artistic parable that should be studied in schools, and not just in acting schools: “A story of deep stubbornness,” the interviewer tells her, but she replies: “The right word is obsession. I have a disease of wanting to be an actress. I wrote this in my diary when I was 8 years old:One day I will become an actress and my life will be cinema.” Here I am, I did it”. But how did it get there? This is what will make you cry and laugh while listening to it. From the very beginning, there was no shortage of difficulties: “The assistant director told me at the age of 18 that I would never be an actress because I was not beautiful enough.” How many would have had the strength to go beyond such a fierce judgment? A little. Maybe very few. She yes. So now she rightfully enjoys well-deserved praise:I go on dates in LA and they say to me, “You’re so beautiful.”. And she laughs, but with the naivety of a little girl who has always known it.
mrather than saying that the goal you are looking for is beautiful, at least not only that, but rather the feeling of being recognized for what it is: great actress. However, even before the American series, all the clues were there. The first (and so far only) to notice this was the critic Franco Cordelli, who defined it as a “true revelation” of a theatrical performance that never knew repetition. Why? Because he would risk falling into madness: “I did three hours of emotional preparation every day. to go into these realms of truth and pain,” he explains in the podcast. For several months, he adds, “During the day, I didn’t go into zones of happiness or lightness. I closed relationships with all my friends, I didn’t get calls, I isolated myself to understand the reasons for the character.” So much so that he refuses any offers to return to the stage with this work: “I can’t go through this hell every night anymore“. Even her analyst warns her, “You risk crossing the line.” Obsession, remember? So strong that “one morning, after several months of touring, I had a strand (strand, approx. ed.) of gray hair on my head.”
lThe interview continues, and Malcolm Pagani handles it with great skill: he begs and leaves at the right time, adds personal anecdotes not to show off, but to arouse empathy in the interlocutor, and then does what I prefer in interviewer: he sinks, seems to disappear, opens up space without suggesting that his presence is necessary. And yet it’s there, you hear it, you perceive it with hm, a, a in the background, to then explode in turn, after Sabrina’s great burst, releasing: “Very powerful! “Besides, because what can be added to the description that Impacciatore makes of her mode of action, in accordance with the Anglo-Saxons and the extreme identification and far from imitative reality of the Italians? Read (but if you can listen to):” Why the hell should I imitate them? Of course, I could make them well (characters, approx. ed.) What drives me crazy is trying to understand them, get through them, cross paths, change, love life a little more, feel less stupid, less lonely, that I can not condemn anyone and understand everyone. This is dope. I don’t do pear because I’m an actress“. Very powerful! what else to add?
Noin describing the difficulties he faces, moreover, there is never a hint of fatigue, frustration, the thought of giving upI. To despair, yes, but fleeting, like a summer downpour, opening a glimpse of serenity in the sky. For example, when she describes preparing for a role that she wanted with all her heart, but in the end it was stolen: she lives for 15 days like a hero, limps like him, sews her own clothes to go to auditions, buys a bag. from a nomad in Porta Portez, she rips off her hair clips, takes off her shoes and at night, convinced that they have not lived long enough, goes down to the street and he runs over him several times on a moped (and pre-sprinkled ketchup on it). This is his role, there can be no doubt about it. Listening is going great. This worries everyone. She is sure that she will become the main character. But no: Penelope Cruz she has read the script, and the director, given the media coverage of the character, chooses her. “Kids, I have bad news to tell you,” her manager admits over the phone, and she bursts into tears. Tears will last for two months. Shower. Cruel, but again leaving a place of serenity thanks to irony: “I renamed her Penelope “Puz” and from that moment on I can no longer regret.”
It’s time to sink and Pagani, cunning, does not miss the opportunity: “Do you know that you parody Monica Vitti and Anna Magnani?“. Hit and sunk. Sabrina burst into tears, she says that for her they are more than professional references (“Nannarella, I love her like she loves a teacher”) and says that many compare her to these sacred movie monsters: “Skola explained to me that I reminded Her Monica Vitti and also Mike White told me: “You know Sabrina, you remember me Anna Magnani.” This is true. In Italy, there are no other actresses who, like her, know how to excite so naturally and intensely, moving from comedy to tragedy. Did the Americans need to certify it? Obviously yes. But in order to become the most beautiful interview of the year (and one of the most beautiful ever), something else was required, such as a total connection between real life and cinema. He proves it to us when he explains audition for White Lotus, prepared on one day (Sunday) in a thousand vicissitudes and with the help of friends. He introduces himself and plays it all out in front of the director: “The first scene made him laugh so much. The second scene made him laugh so hard. In the third scene, he was silent, I looked at him, and he was in tears. In the following days, when confirmation arrives that she has been taken away, the first call is made to her mother, who allows herself to scream in pain and love: “Thanks, Eney!“. This is the name of Sabrina’s father, who passed away just a month ago.
TONow everyone is waiting for her as a guest, everyone wants her in their film, everyone praises her with rave reviews, but she never forgets.”the narrow plane of my face inside the toiletwhen, in order to pay for acting training, she worked part-time as a cleaner. Now she laughs like crazy, like the 8-year-old girl who wrote in her diary: “One day I will become an actress and my life will be cinema.” She laughs and enjoys, without false modesty, wondering herself where she has come: “I’m in Hollywood today! I’m sorry, but I can’t resist, but how did I know that one day this would happen? But in the finale, he makes us understand that it could not be otherwise: “If I look at my life and look at everything that I have invested, given, believed, donated, loved … love always comes back“. He not only returned to it, but also brought it back to us in this magnificent interview, which should be kept and listened to every time we have doubts, when we try, among a thousand obstacles, to achieve our personal and professional goals.