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For Italian actor and director Valeria Golino, it was a dream come true to play feminist writer Goliarda Sapienza in Mario Martone’s Cannes competition title “Fuori.”
Golino was in Cannes last year as the director of the “The Art of Joy” TV series, based on Sapienza’s posthumous book of the same name. This year, in “Fuori” – the title translates as “Outside” in Italian – she plays Sapienza during the 1980s when, after “The Art of Joy” is rejected by the Italian publishing world, she ends up in a Rome prison for stealing jewelry. Behind bars, she forges a deep bond with a repeat offender and political activist named Roberta, played by Matilda De Angelis (“The Undoing,” “Citadel: Diana”).
Below, Golino speaks with Variety about her passion for Sapienza – whom she met when she was 18 and acted in a film directed by Sapienza’s former husband Citto Maselli – and her chemistry with De Angelis, with whom she says she platonically “fell in love” on set.
You were in Cannes last year with “Art of Joy,” the TV series that you directed based on Sapienza’s highly erotic feminist novel. How was that experience?
I’ve been immersed in Goliarda’s thoughts for years, trying to absorb her. As a director I studied her, but above all I immersed myself in her book which I filtered, let’s say, also through my personality. I had to continually pick out everything that interested me in the book and leave other things out while trying to keep her poetics intact.
How has your relationship with this fascinating character evolved from the “Art of Joy” TV series to “Fuori”?
One of the strings in my bow is the fact of having known her, even though at the time I was very young. Of course, as an adult I would have understood her complexity in a different way. Instead, I just have memories of her when I was a teenager. But these memories include vivid images of how she moved, how she put her hands on her hips. How she dressed. I’m talking to you as an actress, of course. About her exterior aspects. The way she wrinkled her nose when she laughed, her little eyes that darted left and right when she thought of something, her continuous amazement in thinking about things.
What struck you at the time about Sapienza as a person?
I remember her being a very hot-headed person, intellectually intolerant toward things she didn’t like. But at the same time, paradoxically very docile because she was so curious about others, so curious about life. There was never judgment. She let things pass through her unless they offended her. So to me, Goliarda wasn’t the aggressive person she had been known to be. At least that’s what I remember. And I tried to convey this on screen. I wanted her to be welcoming towards everything that happened to her with an almost childish amazement.
Goliarda’s fervent curiosity seems to be what sparks her attraction toward her prison pal, played by an electric Matilda de Angelis. Sparks fly when you are both on screen. Talk to me about working with Matilda.
Let’s say that we were really lucky to fall in love. By saying this, I mean that this could also have not happened. There could have been these two characters, as they were written, who were very similar to what we tried to convey on screen but without the type of inspiration and chemistry between us that we created. Because both myself and Matilda, even though we are two heterosexual women, we are two actresses. And I don’t know how to explain it to you, I fell in love with Matilda. This was my way of working with her. I really fell in love with her. Apart from the fact that, in my opinion, Matilda in the film really stands out on her own. She has a watchability that really…I don’t know what to call it. I mean, only very few people have it. She is a thing of beauty. She has a strength, a potency, so it’s clear that [even as a character] I saw her in that way. And Mario saw that as well of course, and like all very good actors she was shaped under the gaze of her director.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
English (US) ·