Rocco Siffredi (Ortona, Italy, 59 years old) shows an absolute lack of modesty, an enormous self-confidence that seems directly related to his step and also the fatigue that is usually evident on the faces of those who have worked hard, unemployed and tiring . After all, he will be 60 years old in May. “I thought they would never arrive, but here they are. I am quiet. “My sexuality is still OK, but it's no longer out of control,” he said in February during a meeting with international journalists at the Berlinale, where Supersex premiered, the series inspired by his life, which will be released this Wednesday on Netflix becomes. He will celebrate with a family trip to the Congo to visit his favorite animal, the gorilla (!), a gift from his wife of 30 years, Rozsa Tassi, a porn actress and former Miss Hungary.
The series is fiction, although “98%” is real, says Siffredi. “The remaining 2% was left out to protect my family.” It all begins in his hometown of Ortona, a small coastal town in Abruzzo that was known as “little Stalingrad” during World War II: it was destroyed because the famous Gustav- Line that outlined the Nazi fortifications ran through them. Supersex tells how the son of this carpenter, who could have ended up as a seminarian like his mother – described as Mater Doloro, to whom this Mammone, as his mother's children are called in Italy, was particularly attached – ended up in Paris, the Olympus of, Porn triumphed in the eighties and later in the Hollywood industry. The title is an allusion to the name of his favorite superhero, the protagonist of an erotic photo novel that he was addicted to in his youth: “I discovered it when I was 11 or 12 years old and I wanted to be like him.” “This is what I was born for.”
Italian actor Alessandro Borghi in the role of Siffredi in the series “Supersex”. Lucia Iuorio / Netflix
Siffredi is believed to have changed the discipline forever. He was the master of gonzo porn and normalized rough sex on screen, but he also psychologized his characters, who were no longer just phalluses with legs, which led Catherine Breillat to cast him as the protagonist in two of her films. “She puts her whole heart and soul into her films, you can see that,” said the French director. Siffredi accepted immediately, he said, because he wanted to understand what it felt like to be considered a serious actor. “Supersex wants to reflect the cost of choosing this life, which is not so easy, although people keep the fun,” replies Siffredi, who seems to have doubts about knowing what would have happened to him if his penis had been measured a few centimeters less in length or width. In reality, no one knows its exact measurements. According to the interview, its owner stated values between 23 and 26 centimeters. Mystery, Buñuel said, is the key element in every work of art.
It's a sign of the times: Netflix had the audacity to sell the series as an almost feminist project. The creator of Supersex is a woman, Francesca Manieri, previously known as the screenwriter of L'immensità with Penélope Cruz or the series We Are Who We Are by Luca Guadagnino. “The mission was to examine masculinity and observe the level of toxicity in relationships between men and women and the possibility of a new encounter between the two in this historical moment,” says Manieri, sitting next to her study subject and the actor whom He is played by Alessandro Borghi, with whom he bears an unreasonable resemblance. Siffredi himself said in 2016 that the perfect candidate was Michael Fassbender (for more details, see his film Shame).
“I have often been described as an actor who resorted to violent sex, but I never felt like I was abusing anyone. I always worked in collaboration with everyone.”
The series is a deliberate mix of gentle neorealism – the miserable post-war Italy, the kind-hearted prostitute, the violent brother – and the trashy images of Paolo Sorrentino, who, as Manieri suggests, strives to deconstruct Siffredi's masculinity. Has the interested party also deconstructed themselves? Do you feel like you have mistreated women at some point? “I don’t think I treated her badly. Maybe I understand them better, but I've never felt like I was doing anything wrong,” he replies. “I was often described as a violent performer, an actor who resorted to violent sex. But that was never a problem: I always did it with people who agreed. I've never felt like I was abusing anyone. I've always worked with others.” He believes that this was his most important innovation in the pornographic genre: giving women subjectivity. “The funny thing is that women in porn have become like men. “In today’s porn, women are the strongest, not men,” she says.
Rocco Siffredi with actresses Jade Laroche, Tarra White and Anna Polina at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Toni Anne Barson (WireImage)
When asked why he got into porn, he always replies that it was to have sex “with as many women as possible.” But there is a second factor. “I wanted to live my life as a free being,” he claims. He wants this to be his legacy: that his corpus – the attention to polysemy – be understood as a song to freedom, which he sees as synonymous with debauchery. “The world is becoming more and more strict. “We are losing the freedom we had gained,” he says. “And at the same time, admirers write to me from all over the world, from Iran, from the Arab world, from Africa, who want to become porn stars. You strive for the freedom to be and do what makes you happy. That’s why I love my job.”
The actor has built a small empire in Budapest, where he lives with his wife and two children and, in addition to his production company, also runs the Siffredi Hard Academy, a kind of porn university that trains the stars of the future with extensive teachings. which offers a filmography of around 1,700 titles. Although he assures that, unlike other actors, he will never take up his work again. “I have never masturbated to one of my films. It's impossible, I can't do it. I can look at the passages with dialogue and find them funny, but nothing more. That would be too much.” In the first few chapters, Supersex talks about the difficulties he had combining love and sex; When I was young, I saw them as antagonistic things. Over the years he has changed his mind. “Sex with love, with feelings is the best. “It’s something insurmountable,” he says. “But I am also capable of doing it without love.” He refers to the facts.
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