Mariana Rodriguez He doesn’t like shortcuts. His story is not one of a glossy risebut the result of a long resistance, made up of poverty, separation and difficult choices. Today she is 34 years old, lives in Milan, works as a photomodel and actress and is Checco Zalone’s girlfriend in the film Good Waybut behind this bright present there is a harsh Caracas, which does not grant discounts.
Chi plays Mariana Rodriguez in Buen Camino
In the film she plays a shrewd girl, who tolerates the protagonist’s exuberance. “Someone who tolerates and takes advantage of the situation: he wants pussy, I want wealth”, he says without filters. On the set, she says, creative chaos reigned: Checco Zalone suggested one direction, the director another, and she sought a balance between the two visions. “Then the solution was found. I am full of gratitude.” Success? He didn’t really expect it, but he experiences it without conditioning: “It’s nice to see Italy united by laughter. At least in this.”
The film is also about a father looking for a daughter, and there fiction is inevitably linked to life. Mariana Rodriguez does not hide a still open wound: an absent father, four children with four womena mother who raised her alone, working tirelessly. “At home we ate rice or chicken, not two dishes. My mother did everything: housekeeper, door-to-door seller, cook in the nursery.” In Caracas he counted cents to take the bus. The father, a former policeman, was seriously injured by a gunshot to the face. “I have a hard time talking about him,” she says.
Childhood is marked by daily violence that makes no noise: the favela, drugs, a cousin killed in a showdown. “I slept with a friend who was worse off than us. Mum told me: now you see the real misery.” On Venezuela she does not mince words: she defines Maduro as the head of a “narco government” and says she was deprived of her passport for four years after a very harsh service carried out for The Hyenas. The accusation: betrayal of the country. “We have become the new Cuba.”
Italy arrived as a dream at 18 years old, built by working as a sales assistant. He learns Italian by listening to Tiziano Ferro. The journey, however, turns into a nightmare: stopped at Madrid airport to have only 50 euros in his pocket, passes three days in an airport cellmen and women together. “They made me feel like Pablo Escobar’s daughter. I was desperate.”
The relationship with Valeria Marini
Then fashion, cinema, reality shows. And the Big Brotherof which he recalls some very specific episodes: “Valeria Marini he mentioned me every week. He insulted me about everything. I couldn’t defend myself, I’d rather be bullied than speak.” Perhaps, he hypothesizes, he feared her.
Mariana today defines herself as a “chameleon”, restless and curious. She dreams of acting for Tim Burton, feels a volcano inside, rejects the word ambition and has sought herself on a spiritual journey to India. She is a mother, and when she is with her son she feels protected. On his wrist he has an eye tattooed, an esoteric symbol: his guardian angel. A perfect synthesis of what she has become: fragile and very strong at the same time.
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