Actresses From Italy

"I think the best of Renato. I think he's full of imagination. It's not true that he imitates ambiguous British singers, as they say. He's been like that for 10 years, he's always dressed in a certain crazy way, he doesn't imitate anyone. He's a hybrid, but his real strength lies in the fact that he was born in the suburbs of Rome, among real people. And he has remained a “suburbanite”, with the sincerity and humanity of those people. More than ambiguous, he is one of them. For kids, he is a fairy tale, he is Disneyland, with dreams and hopes. Even for kids, he is one of them. That's why he's successful."

"All my life I have been a passer-by and have always sought out secondary paths. I am always fascinated by what I do not know, and those are the secondary paths. And that is my goal."

"I rule out Mina reappearing, because it would be a mistake and she doesn't make mistakes in this sense. Mina is a legend because we can only imagine her. We don't know what she is anymore. She is a memory, and that is her strength. If she did appear, it would be a huge success, people would kill to get a ticket. But she would lose her depth. In short, Mina must not be seen, otherwise she is not a legend. And she knows this very well. Legends either die young or disappear."

"Acting means telling the truth about things, about the world, even if it may seem like a contradiction. Because fiction is one thing, acting is another."

"[Marchesini:] 'We have always been very close. There is always respect, friendship and professionalism. We still keep in touch even now that our paths on stage have separated. When Massimo told us he wanted to do other things on his own, we were sorry, but it also seemed like the most natural and right thing to do.‘ [Interviewer] ’What was it like being between two men?" [Marchesini:] 'I always felt like a fusilli inside a packet of macaroni, but that's fine with me. All in all, when I think about what we did, I feel that we had a sense of success, yes, we did, and in the end, perhaps the responsibility of always having to live up to expectations weighed on us a little."

"I have always read a lot, ever since I was a young girl. [...] Later, I started writing, but only for myself. The stimulus came after reading Proust's Recherche in its entirety. When I decided to submit something to a publishing house and was told that no, it wasn't good enough, I was very satisfied."

"Comedy comes from a very deep background: I went down deep, collected my shells and when I came up, I made sure that everything I had brought back did a somersault. Humour does not come only from ridicule; on the contrary, we laugh not at someone but thanks to someone: this is its greatness."

"Dance is poetry because its ultimate goal is to express feelings, even if through a rigid technique. Our task is to convey words through movement."

"There was once a word that I am proud of and that is part of my childhood: proletariat. Unfortunately, no one uses it anymore. [...] It is the proletariat that has always sustained the nation. There should be more respect. If this social class stops, the nation falls. Today, however, everyone has turned against the tram drivers, but they only noticed them when they stopped working."

"When Alicia Markova came to dance at La Scala, she must have been 45 years old. The other girls called her the old lady. To me, she was fantastic. Such nobility, such enchanting little feet."

"I danced in marquees, churches and squares. I was a pioneer of decentralisation. I didn't want my work to be elitist, relegated to the golden boxes of opera theatres. And even when I was busy on the world's most important stages, I always came back to Italy to perform in the most forgotten and unimaginable places. Rudolf Nureyev would scold me: why are you doing this, you're getting too tired, you come from New York and you have to go to, I don't know, Budrio... But I liked it that way, and the audience always rewarded me."

"I had extraordinary encounters, such as Visconti, gruff and very sweet. Like Herbert Ross, for whom I played Karsavina in the film Nijinsky. Or like Peter Ustinov, with whom I filmed Le ballerine (The Ballerinas). And Cederna, and Manzù. And the magnificent Eduardo. At a gala in his honour in Viareggio, I played Filumena Marturano, Titina's role, and he sent me a note saying, “Now I can call you sister”. I remember the charm and irony of Vittorio De Sica. He wanted to give me the role in La vacanza that Bolkan ended up playing. And I remember the summers with Montale in Forte dei Marmi. Every day we would meet people like Henry Moore, Marino Marini, Guttuso. Montale was always drawing: the sea, the Apuan Alps... He used everything, from wine to lipstick. He dedicated a beautiful poem to me: La danzatrice stanca (The Tired Dancer). No, at seventy I don't feel tired at all. And I am who I am thanks to them."

"At last I have found that which I desired, that which I have always sought, the love long sighed for, the love beheld in my dreams! A maiden of perfect beauty, of grace which is natural and not acquired; a maiden learned in Greek and Latin, excellent in the dance, skilled in music, in which qualities, veiled by her modesty, she is the rival of the Graces. I have found her! But what doth it profit me, if I, who burn for her, can see her scarce once a year?"

"An admirable Electra was the youthful Alessandra; admirable for the manner in which she, an Italian, pronounced the speech of Athens; in the just intonations of her voice, in preserving the illusion of the scene, in faithfully portraying the character, and regulating the expression, gestures and movements, proper to her part; in keeping the language of passion within the bounds of decorum, in awakening the pity of the audience by the sight of her tearful face. All were deeply moved, but oh! what envy did I feel within my heart when she clasped Orestes to her breast and cried, 'Do I hold thee in mine arms?' and he replied, 'Oh, mayest thou ever hold me thus!'"

"She doesn’t realize the seriousness of her actions. She understands she has a problem, says she wants to get help, but I have to make sure she actually does."

"I say it for the first time today … I lost a baby spontaneously and then I never got pregnant again. It was a great pain in my life, which I never spoke about …"

"There was a period when I was bulimic."

"Drugs are changing her, she is sliding towards the abyss. To save her, the only way is to hospitalize her."

"I couldn’t sleep anymore because I felt she was in danger."

"I wanted to be her."

"Life is about overcoming obstacles, especially for women, so it's a constant battle and you have to remind yourself that if you do nothing, then things will go wrong, but you have to keep acting, you have to keep doing the right things for things to go right."

"I don’t like the word ‘boundaries’ […]. I wish they didn’t exist."

"When I look back, she never took no for an answer, and sometimes by repeating the story, I lost the meaning of it. Now that I am talking to you, I do remember again what it meant. It meant that she believed in her thoughts and she had self‑confidence, self‑love, and she respected herself and others."

"I thought, ‘If I don't get the part, I'll be the most miserable person in my life because she's wonderful.’"

"How many times have I asked myself whether it was possible to tie oneself to a mass without ever having loved anyone .. whether one could love a collectivity if one hadn’t deeply loved some single human beings . . . Wouldn’t this have made barren my qualities as a revolutionary, wouldn’t it have reduced them to a pure intellectual fact, a pure mathematical calculation?"

"I had a lot of red carpet treatment at Mediaset even though I was the last wheel on the bus. They even gave me better food in the canteen. The guys from Gialappa's tormented me: sing, talk, is it true or isn't it true?"

"At the age of nineteen, after my first sexual encounter, I became pregnant. I decided to have an abortion, a difficult choice that I would never make again in my life. It was a traumatic experience that happened just a few months before my final exams. My father still does not know, and the father of that child will never know."

"The Isola dei famosi where I invested my passion, blood, work and sweat has become something else, a kind of "Grande Fratello on the beach”."

"(About the Sanremo Music Festival 2004) The record companies wanted to destroy the event [...]. They didn't send any singers, they were all young people, almost all unknown or not signed to record companies. Marco Masini, who won with “Uomo volante”, was not signed to a record label at the time. [...] It was a precursor to today's talent shows, and with hindsight it is recognised as very innovative. [...] It was a train that passed by and I jumped on with my eyes closed. I knew there wouldn't be many opportunities. Sanremo gives you your presenter's licence, even if it was a very difficult, extremely difficult Sanremo."

"I would give up beauty. But then no one would want me anymore."

"If you're not smart, how can you survive in this world?"

"I've always been distant from politics. I'm extremely apolitical."

"There's no point in worrying. Every time the government changes, the Rai changes."

"Ours is a satirical programme. The important thing is that satire attacks power wherever it comes from. In Rome they say: whoever's turn it is, doesn't sulk. (talking about Quelli che il calcio)"

"[...] I am the most impartial person in the world. I have intrinsic, automatic equality."

"I want to work and live in peace. Does my product work? I'm here. Does my product not work? I'll open a pizzeria. That's it."

"My life is a diet. I should weigh around 60 kilos, size 42. If I go down to 59 kilos, my face falls. If I go up to 63 kilos, I look like a whale on TV. My problem is my bottom. And then my clothes."

"I am a showgirl, I have to be spectacular. I hate women who play it minimalist on television."

"A presenter is always a presenter; you must be credible and authoritative. Recording allows you to cut out dead time and give rhythm, but that doesn't mean that anyone can present. The narrator must be at the service of the programme and accompany the viewer."

"I like risky projects, I'm a soldier, not a general. I don't sit around waiting for phone calls, the things I'm given aren't easy. The fear of not being there, no, my past speaks for me and you can't erase it. I like to put myself out there, challenges are won and lost."

"Interviewer: Do you still divide people into two categories: good people and cockroaches? Simona Ventura: I divide them into two categories: good people and bad people. I don't fight people who are not decent, I just watch and move on."

"One hundred years after the first Futurist manifesto, Simona Ventura demonstrates the vitality of that movement. She sets television alight just as Marinetti set theatre evenings alight, sparking fights and taming them at the same time. Thirty seconds of Simona's free-wheeling commentary on air make Carlo Conti's well-mannered phrases and Barbara d'Urso's flirtatious introductions seem cloyingly academic. They become insipid and convoluted, obsolete and unpalatable, like the poems of Pascoli and Carducci."

"‘Absolutely yes’: Simona Ventura is no longer capable of saying “yes” or ‘no’. Like all children, and like Fedro from Grande Fratello, she feels the need to add the reinforcing adverb, even in contexts where it is totally unnecessary. This was pointed out to her yesterday during Quelli che il calcio. In a single evening, she managed to reach record heights; and yesterday she didn't hold back, closing the programme and handing over to q:it:Enrico Varriale with an ‘absolutely yes’."

"The problem with Cuccarini is that she is not as cynical as Maria De Filippi nor as chaotic as Simona Ventura. She truly believes in dancing, commitment and talent. At times, she risks becoming overly emotionally involved in the stories told by the contestants."

"Ventura is the only television star dressed by two designers at the same time. From the neck down to the knees, she wears Dolce & Gabbana, and from the knees down, she wears orthopaedic garments by Mario Gualerzi of Castiglion dei Pepoli."

"To be allowed on television, you have to belong to the new television species created during the Berlusconi years, but which is still in vogue. The figure of the paraculo, yes, write it down, the one who never takes sides, who blends in, who makes indifference his banner. [...] Names and surnames, as I do in show business. Bonolis, who declares that he feels neither right nor left, Fabio Volo, who boasts of being indifferent, Simona Ventura, who defines herself as equidistant, candidly adding that she worked at Mediaset while being pursued by rumours that she was Galliani's lover and that she let him believe it. [...] Gene Gnocchi, Fiorello, Fabio Fazio, Baudo himself. [...] They are the heroes of TV opportunism, the ones with the glossy masks. They work on the condition that they do not disturb, not realising that opportunism is a form of corruption."

"Regarding her stepchild adoption, I was saddened both by how she was treated and, obviously, by the removal of her [from the Cirinnà bill]. I have met wonderful families in America and a couple here, and it is certain that overseas they have a much better chance of living like so-called "normal" families. Even on the "gestation for others", the horrible term uterus for rent, my position is one of great acceptance, even if I would never resort to it or give it to myself. But for me individual freedoms are above everything. Above all, I would like the institution of adoption to be optimized for everyone, including singles."

"I was welcomed very well by the Italians when I arrived, because I was chosen for the role of Valentina. Imagine that the decision to choose me as the protagonist fell on me, after seeing well over five thousand women who auditioned. Of course I was nervous, but the staff and the entire production knew how to put me at ease and I immediately felt integrated. I certainly remember that she was very emotional."

"My life has been, and is, full of experiences, a life that we can define as intense. I could say that perhaps I have lived three lives in one, having done so many things, and there are certainly many that I still want to do."

"I must say that all the things that have happened in my life have happened almost by chance. I was a gymnast, then one day I was seen and chosen by the biggest modeling agent John Casablanca, founder of the Elite Model Management agency, who instantly catapulted me onto catwalks around the world. I immediately had the opportunity to model for the most important fashion designers, until I arrived in Japan. At just 17 years old, after graduating, I was already modeling as a model and was much appreciated in particular for my face which has somewhat Asian facial features, with upturned eyes. From there I did my first important advertising campaign as a testimonial for Shiseido and that was the opportunity for my real launch as a top model."