«The day I became Don Pietro Savastano»

A windy and sunny day, the sky was clear of clouds, the late afternoon light was dazzling. Base camp had been set up on a patch of land in the middle of a desolate countryside near Varcaturo. From the little window of my dressing room I looked at the row of rusty umbrellas at the edge of the highway, the broken plastic chairs and the sheds made of sheet metal and worn-out sheets of Nigerian prostitutes.
A little later I had spent my adolescence. Riding a Vespa 50 bought with money earned illegally in the local restaurants, I slalomed between the potholes of Via San Nullo and my dreams of redemption. From that little window I could also see a glimpse of the sea. Many times as a boy I had dived into those murky, infected waters, however, it was the only idea of ​​a holiday that my friends and I could afford. What I couldn’t imagine then was that one day I would return to that same sea for a baptism that would change my private and professional life forever. For the first time, that day, I wore Pietro Savastano’s shoes.
They were late on set. I went alone into that arid field to repeat the lines of the scene. Word by word, pause by pause, I stripped my character and myself to expose both to the truth of fiction. A truth that can be omitted in life but which art demands. Savastano was my future if my dreams had betrayed me, but I was Savastano’s future if those dreams, on the contrary, had proven capable of freeing me from the past. I knew the imperturbable normality of Pietro’s illness very well, even as a child. Savastano was the emblem of that ferocious province, of lead, blood, and weakened concrete, in which I had grown up. A prison of anger surrounded by walls that are impassable because they are invisible. Desolate land of diaphanous lives, of an aberrated everyday life, where the scandal was wanting to be alive. Many times I had officiated, as a waiter, at baptisms, communions, weddings, where shouting masses waved napkins stained with blood and sauce to the rancorous notes of neo-melodic songs.
“Here we are!”.
From the set they were ready. My heart began to beat hard in my chest, my hands started to sweat, my head started to spin. Perhaps, in some way, I was aware that I was being asked that day what the angels of God asked Lot before destroying Sodom and Gomorrah: «Run! Your life is at stake! Don’t look back. Don’t stop on the plain! Escape to the mountains, so you won’t be overwhelmed by disaster.” With every step towards the set my heart faltered, and I almost turned back and turned into a pillar of salt, like Lot’s wife. They miked me, fixed the final details of my makeup and hair. I was ready. From that moment on, nothing would ever be the same again. I got into the scene car. The meeting between Pietro Savastano and one of his informers who had infiltrated the police was filmed. The black sedan traveled the few meters necessary to enter the frame. He stopped at the edge of the beach. Pietro and I walked along the stretch of sand that separated us from the corrupt policeman. The sun quickly disappeared beyond the horizon, leaving a golden trail on the surface of the sea. At a small trot, a bridled horse traveled along the shoreline, pulling a racing cart and a slim jockey behind it. Even today I would no longer be able to distinguish with certainty my memories of those moments from those of Pietro Savastano.
That day didn’t just change my life. Gomorrah-The series it represented a watershed for the Italian audiovisual panorama, but we didn’t immediately realize this. We knew we were inspired, humanly and professionally motivated, but we couldn’t have known that it would become one of the best-selling series in the world, a product destined to leave its mark not only in Italy. That day I, Sasà, Marchetiello, Mariapia, Stefano, Paolo, Fabio, Roberto, Stefano, Ludovica, Leonardo, Maddalena, Gina, Giovanni, Riccardo, Sonia, Nils, Marco and all the other wonderful traveling companions who followed one another in the several seasons, we left Gomorrah to tell Gomorrah. So happy tenth anniversary! Happy tenth anniversary to all of us and to all of you, who have held our hands with love and attention over these years.