Of
Renato Franco
Since January 2, the actor has been the protagonist of “Gigolo per Accident – The Sex Guru”, the second season of the Prime Video comedy series
«The character I play is clumsy, generous and unreliable. He’s the average Italian. And I’m like him in everything, except my profession and my hair.” The virtue of Pietro Sermonti is that he always jokes and doesn’t put on the mask of a busy actor. Since January 2nd he has been the protagonist of Accidental gigolo – The sex guruthe second season of the Prime Video comedy series where he plays a toy boy for women much older than him, encouraged by his father (Christian De Sica), also in the profession. Now their business is thrown into crisis by the arrival of a feminist guru (Sabrina Ferilli) who teaches women to do without men.
How are you a backward male?
«For the simple fact of being born in the second half of the 20th century in the West, I am necessarily a backward male but without reaching the levels of Andrew Tate or Vannacci. In today’s kids I see a marked amount of sensitivity that we didn’t have at the time: we were beasts, we didn’t ask ourselves if what we said could cause pain or discomfort. We called Il Duca someone who had little hair – Duca stood for Du Capelli – or Er Tazzina someone who had lost an ear”.
What did your father Vittorio, a scholar and Dante scholar, foresee for you?
«Above all, he was a die-hard football fan and claimed without joking that the only truly erudite book he had ever written was the one on the ’82 World Cup. He dreamed of having a footballer son, he was my first fan, since I was nine he took me around all the crunchy fields of the Roman outskirts. I was one of the pillars of the Tor di Quinto in Rome, I played with Materazzi: then he won the World Cup, while I did the Doctor in the family».
What player was he?
«An attacking midfielder with a gin and tonic, I was inspired by Platini. I was as good as I was lazy. Football at a certain level is a job that starts very early and if you are not psychologically equipped you can’t do it. I led a very unruly life, I didn’t have the rigor or the head.”
The first successes with «Elisa di Rivombrosa».
«I remember exciting moments. I had broken my ankle, I had a cast and I was acting behind a table to hide it: the script was all jump and run, hurry up and don’t stop, while I was sitting. I looked crazy.”
The extreme popularity of «A doctor in the family»?
«A blow. Before, I lived in another world, I was a kind of misfit, I didn’t have a television, I didn’t even know what fiction it was: I asked for some video cassettes to understand.”
A crazy time.
«I discovered the existence of human beings called paparazzi, I was hugged by girls who were shaking and screaming, from one moment to the next I couldn’t leave the house anymore. But I remained humble.”
What did «Boris» represent?
«The best gift. It was created by my childhood friends, authors such as Mattia Torre and Giacomo Ciarrapico who had been my classmate. At the time I was the actor with wide eyes, I played love stories: no one – except them who knew I was a dick – would have offered me a role like that.”
Have you ever acted as badly as your Stanis in «Eyes of the Heart»?
«No come on, not that bad. Stanis is unique. Due to narcissism, ignorance, stupidity and pride I thought he was unattainable. But then I saw Trump and raised my hands.”
How many dogs and “cursed bitches” did you meet on set?
«I have two sensational Stanis that perhaps I will write on my tombstone and a female Stanis: a magnificent trio whose names I won’t mention».
How narcissistic is he?
«In reality I didn’t speak until I was twenty. Harold — by Harold e Maude — compared to me it was Fiorello. However, the narcissism of actors is also a commonplace, I have met anesthesiologists and accountants with an out-of-control narcissism.”
Why do you maintain that “if we were healthy people we wouldn’t be actors”?
“Because deep down we are bruised people, with air gaps, with an enormous need to be loved, to make ourselves seen or to hide behind a mask.”
What was your adolescence like?
«I was very sad, angry, resentful. I was angry with the world like many teenagers, I went through great pain with my family (mourning for the death of his sister at 4 years old, he was 5, ndr) and I didn’t have the tools to handle it. At 15 I was arrogant, arrogant, an asshole. With the aggravating circumstance that I was ignorant. I think it was the reason my father lost his last hair. He tormented himself: look who I brought into the world.”
Didn’t he study?
«They failed me four times. I also did the double, the duplete, in the same year because at the French school I attended I also had to pass the Italian exam. I was desperate and my father consoled me: in 20 years you won’t even remember it. He was wrong, because I still remember it after 40 years.”
But then he enrolled in university.
«I had 5 exams left but I didn’t graduate. This is the perfection of narcissism. Historical-political address in Political Science, I was a Marxist to the core: I don’t need your piece of paper! I thought I would do something else with my life, it was true, but while I was at it I could finish it.”
Why isn’t he on social media?
“It’s not a form of misoneism.”
A form of what?
«Misoneism: the aversion to what is new. It’s a word that I learned last week, I say it three, four times a day, even alone… The fact is that I don’t like social media: they dedicate either veneration or hatred to a public figure like me, which are still two sides of the same coin. I’m not interested in these excesses.”
An unfulfilled purpose?
«At a certain point I wanted to learn Chinese. My dad was perplexed, he said to me: But who makes you do it? Forget it: so one and a half billion Chinese won’t know that you’re an idiot.”
December 29, 2025
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