TORONTO – One of Italy’s rising international stars, Michele Morrone, is making headlines after his interview with Francesca Fagnani aired five days ago. Fagnani’s talk show, “Belve”, has been on television since 2018, but only in the last few years has it reached cult tv status. If you’re not familiar with the show, you might’ve come across some of her viral clips on TikTok or Instagram from popular interviews.
She has openly stated to would-be guests that if they have a movie or a book out, “Don’t come. Or if you come, we won’t talk about it, because otherwise, this would already put you in a position to receive compliments”. Her goal instead, “is to delve deeper into the personality, capturing its nuances, perhaps unpublished – since all the [movie’s] characters have already been extensively interviewed”.
Fagnani “does her homework”, and literally brings her notebook to the interviews – which looks like a very old recipe book with loose pages and excess book marks. Her questions are personalized, and have never seemed more so than on her show the other night when hosting actor/model Michele Morrone. Visibly stirred by his looks, she seemed just as excited to see how much he loved himself.
With questions like, “do you feel envied?”, “who’s a better actor than you in Italy”, “who’s worse than you?”, “how much do you drink?”, the traps were set. And Morrone didn’t pull punches. He perceives himself an outsider in Italy, unaccepted by what he calls the “clique”, the notables within Italy’s Cinema world. “I never imagined myself in the Italian clique…better than me in Italy, there’s only Borghi. My colleagues are very envious of me”.
The interview sparked debate among viewers, and while many castigated Morrone for what they viewed as hubris or unprofessionalism, some have praised him for his willingness to hit back at his critics. He took the conversation further on his Instagram account, calling out his colleagues as ideologues and posers.
“If you don’t think with your heart on the left, you’re just a fascist. if you don’t wear Clark shoes and don’t give the idea of being shabby, you’re not a real actor”. He continued, “Prejudices of actors who pretend to be exclusive democrats, leftists who, after winning a David, feel like gods on earth and indulge in leftist moralizing not because they truly care about their country, but simply because it’s cool to be an actor engaged in social and political issues”.
He didn’t stop there. It appears that Morrone has a lot to say about the Italian film circles, of which he claims to be excluded. “If you really want to be revolutionaries, the Che Guevara 2.0 of us, stop being actors, leave cinema and enter politics, run for office and really try to change something in this country, because we’re fed up with post-promotion speeches at the David di Donatello”. Point taken, Michele.
(Images courtesy of Rai)
Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix