Skip to main content

Feature: Actress Paola Lavini from "Anime Nere" and the new comedy "All Roads Lead to Rome"

Born in Calabria but raised in the northern region of Emilia Romagna, Paola Lavini is making her mark in Italian cinema and television as a diverse actress whose passion is telling real stories through sincere, carefully-developed characters. 

Lavini is no stranger to American audiences. If you followed the HBO series Rome, you saw her in the very first episode in 2005 portraying a snobby, ill-mannered trophy wife named Phyllis. When I interviewed Lavini back in October, she told me about one scene in particular in which her character was feasting on the Roman delicacy, porchetta. Since Phyllis was rich, spoiled and uncouth, she ferociously ate the porchetta, throwing any class right out the window. The American producers weren’t expecting this beautiful, petite woman to eat with such gusto and authority. They were thoroughly impressed and later remarked on how brilliant she was while doing that scene. 

More recently, Americans watched Lavini on the big screen in Francesco Munzi’s Anime nere (Black Souls). The film was shown at festivals throughout the world and distributed in theaters nationwide. Lavini plays the wife of Antonio Tallura (Sebastiano Filocamo) whose family is entrenched in organized crime. Anime nere is important to Lavini because it exemplifies the organic, raw qualities she loves most about cinema and the direction in which she feels Italian cinema is heading. “Today, Italian films are more like documentaries. Cinema is going in the direction of documentaries because people want to see real stories,” explained Lavini. This statement certainly applies to Anime nere which is based on the novel by Gioacchino Criaco, depicting the presence of the ‘Ndrangheta mafia in his town of Africo, situated in the beautiful Aspromonte area of Calabria. In preparing for the role of this Calabrese wife and mother, Lavini spent time in the village of Africo getting to know the women. “I watched how they moved, how they dressed, how they behaved, how they were silent, how they behaved with their daughters or their sons, and with their husband. I watched how they dealt with their emotions.” The role called on Lavini and her fellow actors to speak in dialect. Since she was born in Calabria, the dialect wasn’t a problem. She actually prefers it because she feels it gives authenticity to the characters and makes the story more real and believable. She told me that the dialect was very import to Munzi, so there was always a dialect coach on the set to assist the actors. The women of “Anime nere” with the exception of Barbora Bobulova’s character from Milan, all share one common thread- their strong silences. Lavini said this quality of the film mirrors the culture of this small village where the women stand gracefully, quietly and above all, strongly by their men. 

Lavini’s next film is due in theaters this coming March. Produced by the prolific AMBI Pictures team, headed by Monika Bacardi and Andrea Iervolino, All Roads Lead to Rome boasts a star-studded international cast that includes Sarah Jessica Parker, Spanish actress Paz Vega, Italian cinema royalty Claudia Cardinale and contemporary Italian favorites Marco Bonini and Raoul Bova. Lavini plays the role of Paz Vega’s assistant. The story centers on Parker’s character Maggie, who in an effort to reconnect with her troubled teen daughter, embarks on a journey to a Tuscan village where she frequented in her younger days. Upon her arrival, Maggie runs into Luca (Raoul Bova), a handsome former lover who is still a bachelor and lives with his eighty-year-old mother Carmen (Claudia Cardinale). Maggie’s daughter steals Luca’s car and runs off to Rome with Carmen. Maggie and Luca follow in pursuit. It’s a complex story of nostalgia, discovery, love, unlikely friendships and tolerance.

Paola Lavini embraces the Italian cinema of yesterday while acknowledging that its lessons have to be applied to the generations of today. We talked about the unforgettable cinema of the Golden Age and how those icons are still with us today. “We must study from our past but we must also tell our own stories. We have this incredible background and it’s still very important and relevant today.”

Our photo shoot sans photographer

 All Roads Lead to Rome premiered this week at the Dubai International Film Festival. Click here to watch the trailer. We’ll keep you posted its International release dates. In the the meantime, the HBO series “Rome” is available through Amazon.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Sweetness and Genius of Giulietta Masina

Fellini and Masina on the set of "La Strada" As open-hearted and sunny as Federico Fellini was dark and complex, they were perfect counterpoints during a half-century of marriage and professional collaboration.  Nicknamed a  “female Chaplin” and described by Chaplin himself as  the actress who moved him most,  Giulietta Masina confronted the tragedy of her characters with an eternal innocence and enthusiasm that gave Italians hope in the most challenging of times.  Born in 1921 in San Giorgio di Piano, a commune north of Bologna, Masina was the oldest of four children born to a father who was a music professor and violinist and a mother who was a grade-school teacher. Her parents sent her as a child to live in Rome with her widowed aunt while she attended school there. As Masina took an early interest in gymnastics, her aunt saw in her a passion for performing and encouraged her to pursue acting. So after high school, Masina attended Rome’s La...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ornella Muti: Five decades of Acting and Still Going Strong

Ornella Muti was born Francesca Romana Rivelli in Rome in 1955 to a Neapolitan father and an Estonian mother. She began her career as a model during her teenage years and made her film debut in 1970 with “La Moglie più bella” (The Most Beautiful Wife).  Her follow-up role was in the 1971 film, “Sole nella pelle” (Sun on the Skin), in which she played the daughter of wealthy parents who runs off with a hippie they don’t approve of. The film offers a telling journey through Italian society in the seventies, with its political climate, breathtaking seaside, and the styles and cars of that time.  Much of the film is set amid the sunny Italian seaside and captures the innocence and beauty of first love.   Muti made her American film debut in 1980 with "Flash Gordon." She played the role of Princess Aura. She’s appeared in two other American films, including “Oscar,” directed by John Landis and starring Don Ameche, Chazz Palminteri, and Sylvester Stallone. In 1992, she w...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Conversation with Documentary Filmmaker Luigi Di Gianni

His documentary films have given voice to a people who would have otherwise been forgotten while preserving rituals and traditions no longer practiced. Visually stunning and emotionally moving, they reflect an Italy we’re not used to seeing in cinema.   Born in Naples in 1926, Luigi Di Gianni captured a dimension of Italy that people outside the South didn’t even know existed. He began his career working in the region of Basilicata, which back then was referred to as Lucania. He first visited the region with his parents when he was a boy. His father, being from the Lucanian village of Pescopagano, wanted to show his son his homeland.    That trip made an impression on the 9-year-old and created a deep affection that would one day inspire him to return. “I always remained very emotional about returning to this part of my homeland of Lucania,” he says. “It seemed like a different planet compared to Rome, where I lived. The tiring journey, the unpaved roads, the difficulti...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Life and Work of Monica Bellucci

Monica Bellucci as Malèna Born in Umbria in 1964, Monica Bellucci is one of the most recognizable faces of international cinema. But she didn't always have her sights set on the spotlight. She went to college to study law and modeled to pay her tuition. Her success in the fashion world coupled with the offers that were pouring in to appear on the big screen eventually took over, changing her fate. Bellucci made her on-screen debut in the 1990 television movie, " Vita coi figli." Just two years later, she scored her first American role in Francis Ford Coppola's "Dracula."   In addition to her native language, she speaks fluent English and French, which has made for a smooth transition from Italian to international cinema. Stateside, she has acted in blockbusters such as "The Matrix-Reloaded,"     " The Passion of the Christ" and " The Sorcerer's Apprentice." She has also appeared in several French films, a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Alessandro Gassmann: Born to Act

Alessandro Gassmannin his directorial debut "Razzabastarda" Alessandro Gassmann is the son of the iconic Italian actor/director Vittorio Gassman and French actress Juliette Mayniel. He was born in 1965 and grew up around cinema royalty.  He made his cinema debut in 1982 at the age of 17 in his father's autobiographical film, "Di padre in figlio." He went on to study his craft under his father's direction at the Theatre Workshop of Florence.  Vittorio Gassman was very active in theater and seemed just as comfortable on stage as he did in front of the camera. Known for his powerful interpretations of Dante's "Inferno" and "Paradiso," it is no surprise that he nurtured his son's acting aspirations on stage before he launched his career in television and film. One of Gassmann's strong qualities, which he undoubtedly inherited from his father is his incredible range and ease in going from genre to genre. He can play ...
Post a Comment
Read more