00:00I speak from my own experience.
00:15James, I really loved how the movie talks about second chances thanks to good action that your character does for
00:24others.
00:25And I would like to ask you if you think that these good actions in life define us as human
00:30beings, does good really generate good for you?
00:36I speak from my own experience.
00:43When I was young, you know, I wanted, if I think about it in hindsight, I wanted very simple things
00:51in my life.
00:52I wanted my life to have meaning.
00:56I wanted to connect to other people.
00:59I wanted, you know, meaningful relationships, important relationships.
01:06And I wanted to, yeah, I wanted to just feel like what I was doing had purpose.
01:12Right.
01:16And so when I was young, I would spend all this kind of energy, like, mostly, like, focused on myself.
01:25Like, how do I get this?
01:27How do I get that?
01:27I got to work, work for me.
01:29You know, this kind of energy, like, you know, trying to pull it to me.
01:34Right.
01:35To try and get those things that I was talking about.
01:40But the way I was doing it, it was like, it was never enough.
01:46In my brain, it was sort of like, well, I need to achieve this.
01:50I need to be considered a great actor.
01:53And that will give my life meaning or something.
01:56But it was like, never enough.
01:58You know, I was, you know, I ended up getting to do these movies, these great movies, and work with
02:05all, you know, so many of my heroes.
02:08I got to work with so many of my favorite directors, so many of my favorite actors.
02:13And it was a great experience.
02:15But there was something going on where it was like, okay, that's over.
02:19Now I need to do more, more, more.
02:21And it was never ending.
02:23And so, and so then what I had to figure out, and this is just my own experience, is I
02:35needed to do a fundamental shift about how I went through my life, which was instead of this kind of
02:43pulling, you know, in kind of energy, it's how do I, how do I contribute kind of in your energy?
02:49How do I add to life rather than take from life?
02:52How do I add to?
02:54And that kind of energy, surprise, surprise, maybe many people know this, I just didn't know it.
03:01But that kind of energy ended up giving me everything that I wanted, right, originally, which was meaning in my
03:09life and connection to other people and, you know, all in a purpose.
03:15Once I started to add to life rather than take from life, then I got all the things that I
03:20was looking for.
03:23I always found really fascinating how art and artists can talk about our present days with a book or a
03:33film.
03:35And I found really interesting how this movie, even if it's set in another time, is really connected with our
03:40time.
03:41I think about the consequences of the war, but also the the idea of the of the future.
03:47I would like to ask you if this is one of the aspects that make you realize you want to
03:54be part of this story.
03:58For sure. I mean, I think I think the message is thank you is is is is is very important,
04:07which is I mean, like you said, there are many, many levels.
04:11You know, you know, you can I think you can access this film from so many different levels, which, you
04:16know, are, you know, father and a child, you know, reconciling.
04:24It can be about the the trauma of war or the effects of war on non soldiers, you know, that
04:32everybody is affected by by war.
04:36You know, not only the soldiers, obviously, and and then it is about, you know, different countries, different cultures, you
04:51know, coming together.
04:52Right. Like I'm my characters coming from America.
04:55This is my you know, my son is Italian raised in Italy.
04:58Like, you know, we're we're we're coming together across, you know, these big divides, not only geographically, but culturally and
05:06and even language, you know, even the language barrier, you know, and all of these things are are so interesting
05:16just as a as an audience member.
05:19But also, you know, to play it is also, you know, very exciting for me.
05:28But I think, yeah, I think the message, you know, or at least one of the message or at least
05:33the experience of the movie is probably timeless, which is, you know, we all do things when we're young.
05:44You know, like my character was, you know, 20 years old, he went to war, he had this affair at
05:51the time, he probably didn't, he didn't, he just didn't understand the circumstances that, you know, his, his lover was
06:02in.
06:02And to him, it was just, okay, one more experience, but there are major consequences.
06:09And he doesn't understand that until much later.
06:13And so the idea that he's going to go back and try and rectify it in some way, I think
06:21is incredibly powerful.
06:24You know, this, this kind of energy of cleaning up the wreckage of his past is a very powerful thing,
06:34and timeless, I think.
06:37Claudio Giovanese has been really influenced a lot by literature for the screenplay.
06:43You also a writer, I would like to ask you, if you had to choose a great writer from the
06:50past, which one do you think could be the one who could write this story?
07:00Good question.
07:01Well, I'll say, let me, let me start here, and then I'll think of your, of your question.
07:06And the, the book that, that was the biggest influence on, on, that helped me the most for this character
07:14was this book called Napoli 44, which was a nonfiction sort of memoir of a, of a soldier that was
07:21stationed in Naples during World War II.
07:24So that gave me a very clear picture of how hard it was at that time.
07:31And then, and then, these are not books, obviously, but the old Italian neorealist films, especially Rossellini, were a big
07:43influence on the style of this film.
07:47Um, and, um, so maybe even, maybe, maybe even that's my answer is like, maybe if, uh, Rossellini wrote the,
08:02the book of this film, you know, someone, or, or Passellini, or, you know, one of these guys, maybe, I
08:09guess Passellini was more of the, the, the writer outside of his, in addition to his filmmaking, uh, um, um,
08:22Or maybe even, like, I guess maybe that makes me think of, uh, uh, Ferrante, maybe, you know, she's writing
08:29about Naples throughout the ages, right? So maybe, you know, maybe Ferrante would, would do something like this. Yeah.
08:37Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Bye. Bye-bye.
08:56Bye-bye.
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