It’s not easy to play on stage in a wheelchair for two hours. Massimo Ghini, who plays the role of Philippe in Almost Friends from the film directed by Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, succeeds. The show made its debut at the Teatro Parioli, today at the Metropolitan in Catania, directed by Alberto Ferrari. In the role of Driss, Paolo Ruffini.
«Several times I have interpreted transpositions of films on stage – says the actor – but it is the first time that I embody a paraplegic on the big screen, played by François Cluzet and stand still throughout the performance . I accepted the challenge for one of my quirks as an artist, but it’s a big effort because it’s one thing to play the character on a movie set where there are obviously different stations, another thing in the theater in front of a live audience. For me, who is by nature not a sit still type and as an actor I am very physical, the effort is twice as great. During the whole show I can only move my head, up, down, left and right. However, I am very specialized in diseases: in the past, for example, I also happened to treat an Alzheimer’s patient and recently a person affected by Covid. I enjoy transforming myself, putting myself at risk».
How did he prepare?
“I don’t want to tell lies…I didn’t go to the acting studio to get into the role: I sat down and started acting…it’s a job. However, I felt the real emotion when at the end of the show, with which we have already traveled to some cities to show it, really paralyzed spectators came to congratulate me: they were waiting for me at the exit of the theater to greet me and with I chatted to them for a long time. It was kind of a horrible state, only I pretend, they really live it.
The role of the attendant, who was black actor Omar Sy in the film, is here the white Ruffini…
«Oh yes, because in the true story on which the beautiful film is based, it was not a black African but an Algerian North African. And we have chosen not to reveal the truth of this human story. We focused on its deepest content, namely the encounter between an intellectual and a little snobbish bourgeois, that’s me, and an ignorant delinquent, that’s Paolo. But our production uses harsh language, it is politically incorrect like the film: there is no ecumenical pietism».
And considering that you first felt drawn to the theater when you celebrated Holy Mass…
“Certainly! As a child, to be an acolyte… because when you think about it, the Mass is exactly a real-life representation, complete with a costume to put on, gestures to perform, sacred words to say… More theatrics than that! But then in high school I switched to Molotov cocktails…it was the time of the student protests and they even turned me down».
Also rejected at the Academy of Dramatic Arts…
«Yes, but the revenge took place when Giorgio Strehler chose me, albeit for a small role, in his King Lear … and sorry if it’s not enough. When I told my mother, she thought I made it up… Instead, the great director adored me and liked to call me the “Romanaccio”. But then I was chosen by Vittorio Gassman to play Cassio; Franco Zeffirelli as Mortimer in Maria Stuarda with Rossella Falk and Valentina Cortese… and so on. Some people were angry that I was hired by such personalities because I was too cool, I didn’t have the physique of a young Werther and then I didn’t go to school or even to the avant-garde basements of the 70s: I immediately switched to Serie A. If anything, to earn some money in the summer when the theatrical tours ended, I tried my best to organize shows in the Valtour villages with Rosario Fiorello. In short, I didn’t miss anything.”
Not even political engagement…
«I inherited my passion from my father, a partisan and exponent of the Communist Party. At the time, I promised to take up the position of municipal councilor of the Democratic Party in Lazio for voluntary work, but I would like to emphasize: I have never looked for work through politics.”