When I sat down for lunch in Bryant Park, Manhattan, with “The Four Seasons” star Marco Calvani, I asked him if anyone had recognized him on the street during the press tour for the Netflix series.
“I’m learning to enjoy this time until it lasts. Those billboards on Santa Monica Boulevard, in three months, there’s going to be another face. Sunset Boulevard, we’re assuming, everywhere, my big, giant face. I didn’t know any of this, so I can’t say I didn’t know, but I didn’t know what to expect. Yesterday, I was driving around New York and then I didn’t know that I didn’t know that I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t know that …
Toward the end of our lunch, our waiter stopped by and asked if Calvani, the eloquent and delightfully charismatic Italian gay actor and filmmaker now living in Los Angeles, was in fact the guy from “The Four Seasons.” Calvani, of course, is now an Emmy contender for best supporting actor in a comedy series for the hit show. And at a time when gay representation off our screens seems at risk.
Inspired by Alan Alda’s 1981 film of the same name, the series follows a group of friends made up of three couples (Fey and Will Forete; Steve Carell and Kerri Kenney-Silver; and Colman Domingo and Calvani, in a rare healthy gay marriage on any screen) as seasons of coming and going and reunions test their bonds. Calvani plays Claude, the latest addition to the group and who occasionally feels like the extra wheel as a proudly flamboyant, neck-wearing gay Italian whose presentation on the surface seems like a caricature but is one Calvani imbues with depth and feeling.
It was Calvani’s new friend, Colman Domingo, who plays Claude’s more measured husband, who brought him in for the role. “He called and said, ‘Hey, are you still an actor?’ I said no,” recalled Calvani, who got his start in Italian theater before emigrating to the United States. He is now primarily a director and screenwriter, including on his debut last year, the slick Provincetown-set “High Tide,” a gay romance starring his real-life partner, the Brazilian actor Marco Pigossi.
“Ele estava tipo, caramba, porque meu marido Raul teve uma visão. ‘Você se importaria de se colocar em fita?’ Eu realmente pensei que ele precisava de alguém italiano, barman ou garçom, que diz ‘pizza e lasanha’. Perguntei o que era, e ele não me disse, e graças a Deus não, porque eu teria assustado ”, disse Calvani sobre o elenco de” Four Seasons “.
Calvani disse que se sentia livre “o suficiente para fazê -lo, e foi divertido, mas não era fácil experimentar um nível mais prático e profissional”, disse ele sobre seu retorno à atuação. “On the page, the character was close to stereotypical, and I didn’t want to do that. It would have been boring for me because it’s too easy. It was quite a challenge to bring pockets of depth into the role, into those moments. The script gave me enough to show some intricacy and layers, but I didn’t want to play the stereotype, the Italian man who screams, who’s theatrical, the middle-aged gay man who’s flamboyant. It was um grande risco, mas ao mesmo tempo, estamos fazendo uma comédia … eu acho que quando [my character is] Irritado, mesmo que eu jogue roupas e diga coisas que são, talvez de uma perspectiva americana, um estereótipo italiano, espero me ancorar à verdade do que estava sentindo. ”
Claude é casado com o arquiteto de Domingo Danny na série, com Calvani em um papel que foi adaptado aos tempos modernos, mas foi originalmente construído para Rita Moreno no filme Alda. Calvani nunca viu o filme original, que agora está transmitindo pela primeira vez, e na Netflix. “Este foi um dos filmes favoritos de Tina. Eu não estava familiarizado com isso. Nasci quando o filme foi feito. Quando fui escalado, tentei assistir ao filme e não estava disponível em nenhum lugar. Talvez seja um sinal de que eu tenho que fazer minha própria versão de Rita Moreno”, disse Calvani.
A recente amizade de Calvani com Domingo ajudou a contribuir com um relacionamento vivido-Claude e Danny têm seus problemas cotidianos, como qualquer casal, mas você tem o sentido do show de duas pessoas realmente passando por ciúmes e traição (especialmente quando o relacionamento deles começa a se abrir).
“Esses dois personagens se amam profundamente, mesmo que estejam passando por uma crise. Há uma enorme quantidade de respeito e paixão entre eles”, disse Calvani sobre seu trabalho na série, que filmou em locais que variam do norte de Nova York em Beacon a Puerto Rico. “Colman e eu somos amigos, mas apenas por – nem mesmo – dois anos. Há um ano, quando começamos a filmar, ainda estávamos nessa fase em que há uma espécie de paixão. Você quer saber mais sobre o outro, por isso estávamos realmente animados para passar muito tempo juntos. Essa emoção … foi o ingrediente principal.
Calvani said that early experiences in Italy, as painful as they were filled with struggle, made starring in something like “Four Seasons” possible and empowered him to feel a little braver about deconstructing the possibly stereotypical side of Claude.
“I left Italy 12, 15 years ago,” he said. “I think I was carrying a lot of homophobia. Everyone knew I was gay, but I wasn’t out there publicizing my homosexuality. I never put that in my work. I don’t think I would have been able to be as free as an actor playing Claude if I hadn’t gone through ‘High Tide’ and also if I [didn’t have] the other career, the writer/director. The fact that I was asked to play this role and act in it is kind of a side game. It gave me a lot of freedom, even though I was so flamboyant, so theatrical, so much gayer in the show than in real life, I just went along with it. I wouldn’t have been able to do that 20 years ago, not just because of Italy, but because of the way I was.”
“The Four Seasons” is now streaming on Netflix.
