He shuttles between Montepulciano and Guatemala, the set of “In the fire”, the Conor Allyn film that sees him alongside Hamber Heard, Eduardo Noriega and twelve-year-old Lorenzo Mcgovern Zaini. Yari Gugliucci is happy for the return to the big screen with an international production, but even more so for the role that he will soon play, in real life, that of dad. He hugs the belly of his partner, Silvia Mazzieri, or the Alba di Doc beloved by the television audience, smiles: “I live this situation with great serenity, I’m 47 years old, it was time to start a family, even if my friend Pierfrancesco Favino was looking for to dissuade me with a “now it is not convenient for you, they are only fatigue and breakdowns”. Instead he really wanted us ».
Gugliucci, but how will he manage to reconcile overwork with a baby on the way?
“Silvia and I are both actors, for us the work is sacred and working far away is implicit. Gery Oldman, as a Brit says that the first thing is to go home for tea time, it would be nice but unfortunately I was in San Salvador, impossible to get away; luckily, the shooting ended earlier because there are the final stages of the trial between Hamber and ex-husband Johnny Depp. I was successful in Guatemala, I will soon be shooting another film there. What can I say … in my future a Cinecittà of Central America is looming, fingers crossed ».
Speaking of Depp vs Heard, how did you experience the situation on set?
“She’s a great professional, we had a great time, and I’m not the gossip type. Do you think that when I auditioned in connection with Hamber, thanks to my agent Simone Santercole who, knowing my good knowledge of English had managed to get me in touch with the production of the film, I was completely unaware of this media hurricane. Nor had I caught the signs of her conversing with her. I did the audition in English and Spanish, I was in my hometown, Salerno, in via Carmine, locked up for ten days in my father’s bedroom, telling it tastes absurd, but it is the “normality” of the pandemic ».
He had a prominent part.
«Yes, the beautiful role of Father Galira, a Dominican type Mission of Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons, a strong priest, with a great spirituality but with an easy gun when it comes to defending his own community. It is an intense film that celebrates magical realism in the style of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, it is suspended between the strong colors of horror and those of psychological drama, film rouge is love, also intended as a salvific element; will thrill audiences for sure, it’s the typical story from Netflix International about whether the devil lives among us or evil is generated by men. I can’t spoil much, it is one of the first psychoanalyses of the late 19th century. The film has already been sold in 13 countries, from America to Europe, except Italy, despite being an Apulian co-production with Dinamo. It will probably be in theaters this fall ».
Your relationship with Allyn?
«Extraordinary, unlike our directors who try to inculcate the joke in the actors, how to move, what to say, like all those of the Anglo-Saxon school, he gives suggestions, energy, energy. Anything I proposed was accepted. Basically I have studied, as a perfectionist as I am, the character of a Dominican who lived at that time, the movements of him from taking up a rifle to riding a horse. The set was a bit like Tarantino, where everyone created his character trying to make him an icon. Between all of us there was a feeling, my key line is Te veo e te I recognize, the troupe to greet me made T-shirts with my face and the phrase I see you and I recognize you ».
Will he return to the theater?
«I will reprise the Dino Valdi of Nicola Canonico’s Good Moon, a text written by Emilia Costantini and directed by Stefano Reali. Next year we will be in the great theaters from Manzoni in Milan to Quirino in Rome ».
And the TV?
«I am proud of the Nastro d’Argento that went to the Bastardi di Pizzofalcone which sees a group that has known each other for years and which I only recently joined with a protagonist episode taken from one of de Giovanni’s most compelling novels, Vuoto; I simply made a small contribution to a winning flow “
Meanwhile, his latest book, Handbook of an Emotional Actor, is up for promotion.
“It’s going well, Terry Gilliam called me a few days ago, after reading that I was working with Heard. Johnny Depp is an amazing actor, but the devilish character, think Fear and Loathing in Los Angeles, was largely created by Terry, a spiritual father to him as he is to me. Gilliam loved Wertmuller, my godmother and mentor; he read my book and wanted to review it; so I find myself, unwittingly, in the center of the ring, both as co-star of Hamber, a definite enemy of Depp, and as a protege of Gilliams ».
Gugliucci, a film with Amber Heard and a baby arriving from her partner Silvia Mazzieri