Will there be a Professor 3? Rai's decision on the third season of the series with Alessandro Gassmann, Nicolas Maupas, Damiano Gavino, Domenico Cuomo and Claudia Pandolfi is awaited. However, the release of six new episodes after the finale of “A Professor 2” seems obvious. On Fanpage.it, screenwriter Sandro Petraglia revealed previews of Simone, Manuel and Mimmo, secrets and a look behind the scenes of the fiction.
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A Professor 3 with Alessandro Gassmann, Damiano Gavino, Domenico Cuomo and Nicolas Maupas
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A Professor 3 will be formed? The extraordinary success of the Rai1 series Alessandro Gassmann, Nicolas Maupas, Damiano Gavino, Dominic Cuomo And Claudia Pandolfi makes it very likely third season. We are waiting for confirmation from Rai, but according to our knowledge from qualified sources, it has not yet arrived. The screenwriter Sandro PetragliaIn an interview with Fanpage.it he spoke about the future he imagines for the series co-produced by Rai Fiction and Banijay Studios Italy: “We focus a lot on the characters of Simone, Manuel and Mimmo.” Then he reacted to a few of the questions raised by viewers on social media: the alleged ones Manuel's bisexualitythe few scenes in between Manuel and Simonethe reaction of Dante to the homophobic aggression of his son, who was born on paper the love between Simone and Mimmo. Meanwhile, the final episode of A Professor 2 will air on Thursday, December 21st, making it the most intense and highly anticipated Season finale: “There are people who are worried about Dante and write to me: 'Isn't he dying? But you're crazy! You can't cause us this pain'. As if he were her friend, as if he really existed.”
A Professor 3, we are waiting for the OK from Rai for the third season: the previews
Will there be a Professor 3? Has writing for the third season already begun?
We haven't started writing yet. Given its success, I am sure it will be implemented, but we are waiting for confirmation from Rai.
A Professor 2, preview of the fourth episode December 12th: Manuel's discovery, Mimmo kisses Simone
Two years passed between the broadcast of the first and second seasons. Do we have to wait until 2025 to see the six new episodes?
Let's try to go a little faster, but it's twelve 50-minute episodes. There are two philosophers per evening. The construction takes some time. There are many characters. We're hoping to move forward, but I don't think we'll be on the air much sooner.
Will we see Manuel Ferro, played by Damiano Gavino, Simone Balestra, played by Nicolas Maupas, and Mimmo, played by Domenico Cuomo again?
Yes, I really believe that. Unless there are issues on their part, we'll focus a lot of our writing on these guys. They're some of the best things about the series.
How do you imagine the third season? Can you give me some previews?
I can't say too much, but Nicolas Maupas, Damiano Gavino and Domenico Cuomo are certainly three actors that we are very focused on. So Simone and Manuel will be there and Mimmo will come back. A relationship between Simone and Manuel? You never know. We are now becoming masters of fluidity.
Simuel Canon? The relationship between Simone and Manuel according to Petraglia
A Professor 2, Simone and Manuel, played by Nicolas Maupas and Damiano Gavino
I imagine that you know that the characters of Simone and Manuel are particularly popular with audiences. The hashtag #SimuelCanon is very popular on X. Many would like to see them together.
This is due to the skill of actors Nicolas Maupas and Damiano Gavino. I'm really very smart. A beautiful couple. I think it is also thanks to them that the age of viewers who usually watch Rai1 has decreased. We didn't let ourselves be influenced. We went our own way.
In the second season, viewers would have liked to see more scenes of the two together.
Let's not make a big deal about the scales. We don't count or measure when we write. We indulge a little in the narrative vein of the moment. It seemed like a very good idea to put them in the same old, dilapidated house. Although the love stories are different because Manuel is engaged to Nina and Simone has a new love story with Mimmo, I think the balance of the scenes was good. Every time the two boys are together it is a joy. They are always successful scenes.
Some of the public expected Manuel's bisexuality to be explored after he had a relationship with Simone in the first season.
Manuel says from the beginning that he is heterosexual, and we thought he was a heterosexual having a semi-affair with Simone. It also hurts Simone that for Manuel it is an experience, but for him it is an important love story. It's a pain that makes him grow. Simone is much more careful with Mimmo. He understands that he is falling in love, but tries to proceed cautiously. I think Manuel is heterosexual. It's written like that, he says it all the time. Manuel is a creative, original character and as part of his creativity and intelligence, he also wants to explore everything he can explore.
A Professor 2, the love between Simone and Mimmo
A Professor 2, Simone and Mimmo, played by Nicolas Maupas and Domenico Cuomo Photo: Anna Camerlingo
How did the idea of the relationship between Simone and Mimmo come about in the script?
In the first season, Mimmo was in prison. We saw him a few times when the professor visited him. Since he seemed like a good character to me, I thought I would include him in the second season and give him more space. At first we thought about integrating it into the school. With the aim of introducing him to the professor's world of relationships, we finally asked him to help out in the library. It was natural for us to talk about a relationship with Simone. Here, too, we found it very interesting that Mimmo said he had a girlfriend, so he didn't tell the audience right away that something was going to happen to Simone. Mimmo presents himself as a heterosexual boy. As he approaches Simone, he says: “Let’s not think too much,” he lets himself give in to love.
Mimmo saves Simone from a homophobic attack. Many expected Dante to defend his son with greater conviction, even though the attacker fell into a coma at Mimmo's hand.
We try to create coherent characters. Someone like Dante, who is faced with two very bad and serious things – homophobia and the attack on Simone and the reaction that left a boy in a coma – raises the problem of the boy who will soon die. It seems to us well done. There is also a scene where, since Simone doesn't go to the hospital, Dante goes there out of guilt for his son and is attacked by the boy's mother.
A Professor 2, the love between Mimmo and Simone
The series “A Professor” is full of meaning. For many members of the LGBTQIA+ community, it's an opportunity to finally see their love portrayed on television on a par with heterosexual love.
In general, the first impulse for us is to tell stories, not to portray ourselves as carrying an ideological flag. But I'll be very happy if it happens. Compared to what we might think about the LGBTQIA+ community when we read an essay or a newspaper article, the power of cinema and television makes us join not in an ideological way, but from the heart. You develop a passion for a story and realize that love is the most natural thing in the world. In the series we tell how a man and a woman get closer and, with the same naturalness, how two boys get closer. Of course, doing this on Rai, which is also a public service, gives us great pleasure and gives further meaning to all our work. Even though no one has ever given us an award, here they reward everyone except us (laughs, editor's note). I say this especially for the children.
A Professor 2, the success of the second season and the separation from Merlì
A Professor 2, Alessandro Gassmann, Claudia Pandolfi and the screenwriter Sandro Petraglia
What was the emotional weight of returning to work on Serie A Professor after the death of Alessandro D'Alatri?
I didn't know D'Alatri was so sick. We were talking on the phone when they told me he wasn't doing the series because he wasn't feeling well. He told me that he was being treated, that he was in rehab therapy because he had back problems. I don't think it was the real illness he was struggling with. We were all devastated to find out he was gone. It left us disoriented.
The direction of A Professor 2 went to Alessandro Casale.
I didn't know the new director. We spoke to each other before filming began. Casale, who had great respect for D'Alatri's work, took over part of the cast and also the tone of the series, which was the most important thing for me. And then he put his personality at the service of these stories, and did so successfully. After Alessandro's work, it wasn't easy.
In fact, the second season of “A Professor” also achieved excellent ratings and took first place in the ranking of the ten most watched programs on RaiPlay. What do you think were the ultimate success factors of this season?
First of all, I think the tone is the most important thing. We wanted to write a series in the tradition of Italian comedy, but with dramatic elements, with a certain intensity and trying to avoid rhetoric. Playing with feelings, sometimes mocking them, moving the characters back and forth. And then there is the quality of the actors. You can write the best things in the world, but what brings them to life is the actors' bodies, their voices and presence. The cast and direction enriched what we wrote.
It's true, the series features an exceptional cast.
Alessandro Gassmann and Claudia Pandolfi got along, they had fun, they played with the roles, they brought part of their personality into it. And I'm also very happy with the boys. They were well chosen and inserted into the narrative mechanics, enriching them. I think this sense of truth that the series conveys is one of the reasons for its success. Finally, there is the plot. I happen to see stories on TV that drag on tiredly. However, there are many intertwining narrative threads here. I've often told other writers that you could make three seasons with half of these ideas.
The comparison with Merlì, the series on which “A Professor” is based, is immediately drawn. Have you ever felt hostage to this plot that raises public expectations?
Look, the plot of this series doesn't exist for us. We're completely on our own, I haven't seen the second season yet. Not even the third. I don't even see them anymore because we're in our stories now. What we took away from the first Spanish season was the initial idea: a professor with a chaotic life, who has many affairs, is separated and has a gay son. We invented the rest. For example, in this series Anita does not exist. The scenes between Anita and Manuel, between mother and son, are among the things I love most. “A Professor” is undoubtedly much better than the Spanish series.
The cast of the Rai1 series A Professor 2