«Be creative. Be open, generous, empathetic, kind.” She dedicates it to her children, her 12-year-old twins, Giovanna Mezzogiorno her book I’ll tell you about my cinema (Mondadori) which was the protagonist of the last day of the Book Fair. This diva, so talented and at the same time “normal”, to the point of having chosen a “normal” city like Turin to live, writes that she trembled at the publishing house’s request to share her experience of life as well as work in the cinema. A magic that will seduce all readers, but which is dedicated to the youngest.
Giovanna Mezzogiorno, she grew up on bread and cinema. Was undertaking this career a decision taken independently regardless of DNA?
«A sacred fire has never pervaded me. My parents were very strict and, although I was a photogenic little girl with blue eyes and they often wanted me for advertisements, they always said no, that I would choose them when I became of age.”
And when he became an adult, what did he decide?
«Unfortunately, almost immediately, my father died. I was 19 years old. I went to Paris. For me at that moment it was important to move away from Milan. And I enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Art, just to try.”
Did it go well?
«I met many people. I did an internship with Peter Brook who, among a hundred other guys, took me into his company. At the end of that internship, which lasted a year, he asked me if I wanted to be his Ophelia. Obviously I told him yes.”
When did your adventure with Italian cinema begin?
«That tour took us everywhere in Europe. Then Italy started calling me. In the 90s cinema had many more means. We used to work for 19 weeks, now you do everything in 5 and there’s no longer even a promotion.”
Is there a role that you loved the most? What would you like to do today?
«There are many projects, but I won’t say anything because they are not closed yet. I feel very lucky because I have played roles in films that I consider to be great films. Perhaps, on my podium, at an acting level, it isWIN by Marco Bellocchio. I had prepared a lot, I had studied, studied, studied… The interrogation scene is the one with which I auditioned.”
You made your directorial debut with the short Unfitting in which your experience of bullying and body shaming emerges. Is your future directing?
“Partly. Because I still want to continue acting. But I have to say that I had fun.”
It is a very bitter and intimate theme.
«I remember that I wrote the screenplay under the hairdresser’s helmet, straight away, in 20 minutes. I managed to do it after overcoming the discouragement and it is important as a transition, because otherwise the resentment and the sense of revenge remain. They don’t interest me.”
How did you experience those moments?
«At first I was dismayed. But what is happening? I wondered. I didn’t think it was possible. Everyone knew me since I was born. Everyone knew what I was capable of giving at work. Then I became aware. Ok, that’s how the world works. Things don’t necessarily go the way we want.”
Do you continue to live in Turin?
«Undaunted. Immovable.” (Laughs).
Why?
«When I go to the South, to Rome, I think that Turin is really far away… The first years with the twins were very hard. The father, who makes films, was always away. I still remember walking with the stroller in the freezing fog at 7 in the morning, when they were asleep. And I don’t. I felt alone, and very small. But I wanted the children to have solid foundations of relationships and friendships, which in a city like Rome today are too difficult. I’m a big fan of Turin. I love her”.
