Antonio Ornano: “They didn’t kick me out of GialappaShow. For them I would even go on TV naked!” – MOW

HHave you seen the first episode of the new edition? Who fared best among your former colleagues?

In pieces. So I can’t give a complete opinion. From what I’ve seen, however, it’s still a really cool show. Max Giusti, for example, I found extraordinary. He killed me laughing!

Do Brando Godano and the characters you brought to the GialappaShow “relive” on the stage of your show “Maschio Caucasico Irrisolto”?

No.

You really like those characters, you know…

It’s not this. It’s just that it would be impossible to bring them on stage. On stage, I always prefer to do monologues. In this case, very focused on my insecurities and fragilities. Obviously I start from observation and then I exaggerate what I see to make it comical, funny. An exercise that would be good for everyone in life, I think. I like playing on fragilities. On mine as well as on people’s.

For example?
For example, I talk about the fact that I went into analysis for the first time at 48 years old.

And how did it go?

Let’s say that I was and am very skeptical towards therapy. I think it could work. Only, not with me. Once again, the problem is me (laughs, ed.). In short, in the end it turns out that the cause of everything is always your poor parents and the solution is that you need to love yourself a little more. Obviously, here I’m taking things to the extreme as I do on stage. But from my point of view, it’s not even that far from reality, that’s it.

A bit as if the ending was always that the murderer is the butler, but to “discover” him you have to spend a lot of money…

Well, even the question of money, as a good Ligurian, is not secondary for me (laughs, ed.).

And since these days it seems impossible to be an artist without flaunting your complexes and “disorders”, what are yours? Do you have, I don’t know, at least a hint of impostor syndrome?

I don’t even know what that is (laughs, ed.). However, I don’t know if this phobia has a specific name, I’m always afraid of empty seats in the theater. In fact, I’m just terrified of no one coming to see me. After fifty dates that I’ve done, I can tell you that I’m sure I’m putting on a truly beautiful show, which I like very much, which represents me and which entertains people. But from the first to the fiftieth, if I had answered you the same way maybe I would have lied to you. In the sense: I’m very insecure, I have to prepare endlessly before going on stage, work like crazy, be sure that everything is perfect. And then that it works, that people really laugh. They’re there to see me, it’s just me. I can’t fail.

Just to exorcise: the time you performed in front of the smallest number of people?

When I was 20, there were more of us on stage than people seeing us, on average. Once in particular I did a matinee in front of three people in the audience. 60-seat theatre, an excruciatingly heavy show on the Nuremberg Trials. On Sunday afternoon, in spring.

Good choice! On the topic of “exorcism”, your biggest piece of shit?

Ah, I can tell you the first, I started off great: in high school, during a test, I farted in front of the Latin teacher thinking it would go unnoticed. And instead, with the baby! She looked at me very askance and politely asked me to go to the bathroom, in front of the whole class. I still have nightmares about this episode (laughs, ed.)

Compliments! Closing the “therapy” subplot of this interview, any other fragilities besides the fear of “no one” coming to see you in the theater (or of farting loudly in public)?

I’m very insecure about my body, even doing the Maneskin for Brando Godano’s sketch at the GialappaShow wasn’t very easy for me, for example.

What if the Gialappis, perhaps for the next edition, proposed you to create a character that involves showing yourself naked on TV?

I would accept immediately, without ifs or buts. I told you, I love them. And I trust them blindly. On a theater stage, however, I would never have the courage. Not that seeing me naked is really at the top of my audience’s wish list, I think (laughs, ed.)

Would you LOL?

Absolutely yes, actually maybe! I find it a very fun program!

Really? Today again?

Certain. I know it bothers you because you want me to talk badly about it. But I don’t do it not because I feel like it’s not for me or anything, I just think it’s really fun. With my children we laughed like crazy.

Oh well, it’s a matter of taste. Anyway, Unresolved Caucasian Male, it’s 80 euros for the session.

Like hell! Remember that I’m Ligurian, eh!