"I think cinema has a huge power, in that it can describe many things and awaken much in us.” Those words come from Valentina
Lodovini, one of the brightest stars in Italian cinema today.
Valentina Lodovini was born in 1977 in Umbertide, a small
commune in Umbria . She spent her childhood growing up in San
Sepolcro in Arezzo . Since she was a little girl, she always had
dreams of acting, but didn’t pursue them until she graduated from college and
went on her first audition. Since then,
she’s done more than a dozen a films and is earning respect as one of the most
sought after leading ladies in Italian cinema.
Lodovini has had a very successful career on the big
screen. Her first role was in a film
with some of the biggest names in the business. Ovunque sei was directed by Michele Placido in 2004 and stars Stefano
Accorsi and Barbora Bobulova.
Despite her success
in film, Lodovini continues to go back and forth between television, stage and
the big screen. In a 2008 interview with Luxury
Magazine, she
said that it seems like a switch of language to her; a cinematic language, a
theatrical language and a television language.
She appreciates the challenge of diversity in her career. When she is considering portraying a
character, she always starts from the story, and then assesses how different
that character is from others she’s taken on in the past. She always tries to choose very different
women because it gives her a challenge and let’s her explore the depths of her
own skills. When watching Lodovini at
work, it is obvious that she indeed digs very deep within herself to bring out
her characters. She becomes her characters and creates their own idiosyncrasies
and uniqueness. She acts out, she moves
around, she makes use of the set and props.
There’s never a dull moment when Lodovini is onscreen. When asked if there is still a character out
there that she’d really like to play, she had this to say; “I would definitely
like some edgier, dirtier, more realistic characters. There’s too often a really frightening
superficiality and vulnerability in cinema that ought to be wiped away. To fight that, I always try to convey the
shades of grey within a character, the qualities that we can all relate to. For instance, if I have to play a girl next
door type, I’d also like to show her imperfections and neuroses, making her
more real and authentic.”
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