At Paola Perego we didn’t hug much. “Dad was a carpenter, mother was a housewife. They were not people used to expressing feelings through physical gestures. It seems like a detail, but it is one of those that can explain many things.
Celebrating 40 years of career: The most common criticism is that it is a bit cold.
“At first I was really a block of ice. For years they told me that I was cold and distant and that I did my TV homework well. In reality, I was taking psychotropic medication. And back then, it wasn’t like I could say, “I’m sorry, since I took the Tavor, I can’t express my feelings anymore.”
She said she had suffered from panic attacks since she was a teenager and had finally recovered from them.
“It was like breathing again, a relief.” I managed it thanks to many years of pharmacological treatments and psychotherapy. But if I were a cold person, I certainly wouldn’t have suffered from it. There was a world of feelings inside me that I couldn’t express. Back then, panic attacks were simply “nervous exhaustion.” You went to the doctors and they told you there was nothing, which made you even more broken: my self-esteem was destroyed.”
Years?
“I was 16. I ended up in the emergency room convinced I was dying because I was no longer breathing. The drugs gave me a life, but it was subdued: I remember the situations of my past, but not the feelings I felt. Not to mention all the justifications I had to make up over time. For example, I once had a panic attack in the car and didn’t drive for four years. But I couldn’t tell, so I made up imaginative reasons. I was the queen of excuses.
Meanwhile, she also started her modeling career.
“Just because I had to work. As a child there were no games, I made shapes from my father’s leftover sawdust. He once made tennis rackets for my sister and I…but they weighed too much. As I got older, I started studying and working: I was a bartender, then a babysitter, until they asked me to become a model. To me it was absurd.
Don’t say it: she looked ugly.
“Ah yes, absolutely. The beauty in the house was my sister, two years older than me. Also, I never had any ambition to do entertainment, partly because I didn’t think I would ever be able to do it. It didn’t occur to me.
Wasn’t she one of those little girls who watched TV and dreamed of being there?
“No no. My thought was to find a stable job, have a salary and help at home. I would never have thought of doing this job in my life and it was a bit luck, I admit. The debut took place live on Antenna 3 Lombardia with Ric and Gian. I was there like a silent valley. But suddenly, during a TV commercial for an iron, Ric said to me: You’re talking. And instead of reading “Steam Breakout,” I got “Erection.” My first faux pas.
It was good, you would say.
“The truth is that I don’t know how I got there after 40 years of work. Obviously, I prepared, I tried, I spent hours watching the good ones to learn how to steal the profession. But honestly, it’s a miracle I’m still here since I’ve never experienced the sacred fire of art.
Who should you say thank you to?
“The first person to believe in me was Marco Columbro. They called me to sing the theme song for one of his shows, Autostop, and at the end of the day he asked me to co-host with him. He had infinite patience, he read all my scripts, he made me feel like I could say things. He was my first great teacher and I will be grateful to him all my life. Maybe he didn’t have the career he deserved because Marco is truly an exceptional professional. It’s a world that can be cynical.”
Did you have the career you deserved?
“For what I was able to give, I received the right thing. It is true that with today’s awareness I might have given more, but I did what I could. I was the first to do infotainment as a non-journalist, the first woman to moderate a quiz, I led innovative projects. Today, without the fear of having to please everyone, I am finally convinced that I am very good at presenting. It’s what I do better than anything I’ve tried.
Guy?
«The cappuccino foam: When I worked as a barista, I never managed to make it. Seriously, today I consider myself to be very good, especially at interviews, because I care about the lives of others.”
You know that one in particular is ingrained in the collective imagination, right?
“Andreotti – he smiles –. How scary, I was convinced he was dead. I had never seen a dead person in my life. Furthermore, because of my imprint, I couldn’t touch him, I couldn’t. I just said to him, “President, President,” in fear. Then I looked at the authors and they all panicked, so I started the ad. Behind the scenes, as he recovered, he called his doctor: it was a temporary stroke, a paralysis that he hadn’t noticed. We decided to let him back into the studio to show he was okay, but he decided to sit on my stool and was ready for the next block. But I’m 1.76 meters tall without heels, so he had to climb up: I held him from behind, afraid that he would fall, his feet couldn’t reach the ground. So the backstory is that I panicked for another five minutes. The next day there was also an article in Le Monde.
A program that surprised you?
“The Mole. At Italia 1 we achieved a market share of 60%, an absolute record. People keep asking me to do it again, but it’s not up to me. But I think it would be nice. Of course it would be a shock to see it presented by another person, but I understand that it could happen, especially if it wasn’t passed on to Rai.
There she now hosts “Citofonare Rai2” and is engaged as a dancer on “Dancing with the Stars”.
“Dancing is a gift I give myself to celebrate the “here and now,” which I also have tattooed on my arm. Today I live in the present. And I can allow myself to go along with this show: I give myself my full potential, but I don’t have to prove that I’m a dancer. I know I’m a piece of wood… I can only improve.”
Her husband Lucio Presta, a great television agent, used to be a dancer. Can’t he give you tutoring?
“Nothing, there is no way. When he stopped dancing, he hung up his shoes: he didn’t even want to do it at our wedding.
An awkward marriage for someone doing a job like yours, right?
“It’s been 26 years now, but at the beginning this thing hurt. After all the training I’ve done, it hurts to be told, “You’re working because he’s there.” Plus, he’s never done anything to favor me, which makes me doubly angry.
Would you ever have bet that you would still be together after 26 years?
“No, but actually I’ve never believed so much in my entire life. I had failed in my first marriage in my twenties, when I still believed it. And no, I never thought it would last a lifetime… but then we were so different in the beginning. Over time, a really strange mechanism happened: we renewed ourselves, we grew together. Then it’s not always easy, there are arguments, there are crises, that’s normal. But today we really achieved a nice balance, which I’m happy about. And if others talk, I don’t care.
What was it like becoming a mother when you were still suffering from panic attacks?
“It was hard. Meanwhile, the pregnancy without medication was difficult, especially the first one because I was still in the middle of it. And I had a seizure during birth that scared me. But then the feeling of protection arises and somehow you get by. With my children I learned physical contact that I never knew existed. I separated when they were very young and even though it was a difficult time, today I say that I’m fine: my boys are two really good people.”
He said he has faced harassment during his 40 years of work.
“On my first modeling gig at 16, I went in with my mother to try on clothes and the person in charge said to me, ‘Shall we go to bed?'” It was the first of quite a long series of harassment that I quickly dealt with learned to defend myself. Years later, an important television executive pinned me to the wall: I kneed him and slammed the door in his face. I even lost a few contracts because of it, but I’m proud of it.”
Have you ever thought about reporting?
“Sometimes the idea of making a book with first and last names frustrates me. If something even worse had happened, I would have reported it: I always ended up with a shove or at most a knee. So I didn’t do it.
Dreams for the future?
“I would like to dedicate myself to dealing with violence against women with a program. It is a topic that is very close to my heart. By the way, I imagine that I am an author. I wrote “Citofonare” and I enjoy it so much that I consider it my future.”
Would you like to win “Dancing”?
“No, no, I’m not interested in winning, I’m not competitive at all. Even when I play Burraco with my husband, I am interested in playing a good game. If he loses, he won’t play with me again for two months.
Isn’t he the star of the couple?
“Be very rigid, a creature of habit and always do the same things, in the same places, with the same people.” But not me. I am the exact opposite. Once again.