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00:00Hi, this is Anthony D'Alessandro of Deadline Hollywood and this is our TIFF
00:15studio interview with the director and the executive producer of the Fremantle
00:20series M, Son of the Century, Mr. Joe Wright, and the star of the show as
00:28Il Duce Benito Mussolini himself, Luca Marinelli.
00:32Buona sera.
00:33Welcome, welcome.
00:35So, the first question I have to ask you is, this is somewhat soon after
00:41darkest hour and I'm curious, you know, just as you analyzed and assessed
00:49Winston Churchill, I'm just curious about what you found out about Mussolini.
00:56Are both of these guys, are they somewhat flawed as world leaders?
01:03Did you find any kind of interesting similarities or ironies?
01:09You know, Mussolini was really in the shadows as far as British awareness of
01:16the Second World War goes.
01:18And the period of the show, as you know, goes from 1919 to 1925.
01:25Churchill, I guess what I learned making Darkest Hour was that the historical
01:30narrative is not enough.
01:32It has to be about something deeper.
01:35So, for me, Darkest Hour really was a movie about doubt,
01:39about how one can overcome self-doubt to lead a nation.
01:50But I've made, this is the third piece I've made set in this period.
01:53If you consider Atonement and then Darkest Hour and now this.
01:57And I'm fascinated by that period because it's defined where we are now.
02:02Also, it defines who I am because my dad was born in 1906.
02:06And so, he was a man during this period.
02:09And so, for me to try and get as many perspectives of that period and to try
02:14and understand the world in which he was living and the world that they created
02:19for us.
02:20And then tell us about finding Luca to play the role and what struck you.
02:27It was quite simple, actually.
02:29I'd like to say that I went on an exhaustive search.
02:33I didn't.
02:33Luca's, you know, quite famous in Italy.
02:37And Lorenzo Miele, our mutual friend, suggested that I look at Luca's work.
02:47I did so.
02:48I watched as much of his work as I could and discovered an actor of sheer
02:55luminosity and brilliance, really.
02:59I mean, I genuinely believe that Luca's the greatest actor of his generation
03:04in the world.
03:05And so, for me, it was a total no-brainer once I met and saw Luca's work.
03:14And then, we met in Berlin, where Luca lives, and it was easy, really.
03:23The making of the show was not easy, but the casting of Luca was.
03:27How so?
03:28Because it was a monumental undertaking.
03:32I mean, you know, eight hours is a lot of screen time.
03:36How many atonements is that?
03:38Well, that's four, right?
03:39That's four atonements.
03:40And it was a 127-day shoot, and it was all in a language that I barely
03:49understand, tackling a history, a political history that's very convoluted
03:56and complicated, and so getting my head around that.
04:00But it's really interesting to make a piece of work that one so passionately
04:07believes is more important than you are.
04:11You know, it was...
04:13We were at the service of something far more important than ourselves
04:18as artists or individuals.
04:21So, Luca, it's often said that, you know, when antagonists are painted in cinema
04:32or on TV, they should be made complex.
04:36There should be something there.
04:38They shouldn't be totally evil.
04:40There should be something there to sympathize with them.
04:42And I'm just curious, with someone as notorious as Mussolini,
04:48did you find any kind of humanity in him?
04:54I think that at the beginning, the choices were really important not to use
04:57some kind of objective that were dehumanizing him.
05:04I don't know if that's the right word.
05:07So I really avoid the use of, he's the devil, he's crazy,
05:12because it puts him out of our planet, I think.
05:16It's just a way to defend us, I think, because he's coming
05:21from human society.
05:23And so, of course, he's a human, but he's a criminal.
05:27So that was the thing that I wanted to do at the beginning.
05:33So avoid some kind of objective that were very dangerous, I think.
05:38In the show, what's extremely important for him
05:41is to get the favor of these disenfranchised veterans
05:46of the Great War.
05:47And I'm just curious, was he sincere with that?
05:52Was he genuine?
05:56Was he genuine with that?
05:58I don't think he was sincere about anything.
06:01I think he had an enormous hole in his soul
06:10and a total lack of moral compass.
06:16And everything was about opportunity.
06:21He saw opportunities amongst the disenfranchised veterans
06:30that he could exploit for his own rise.
06:36It's all about the exploitation of legitimate concerns.
06:41I mean, these veterans did have legitimate concerns,
06:44which he then exploited.
06:46And he continued to do so with the general populace.
06:53And we see that happening now with the far right across the world.
06:58That's what he invented.
06:59He invented far right populism.
07:02I was going to say, the show is very much
07:05an echo of what's going on now.
07:08And at first, we thought, oh, we want
07:12to try and find parallels between then and now
07:15so that it can be more relevant for an audience and blah, blah, blah.
07:19In the end, what we realized is that we should actually
07:24take as much of our own opinion out of it.
07:29You don't need to draw those parallels.
07:32All you need to do is present the facts,
07:35tell the story as it happened, really as it happened there
07:38and then, and audiences can draw their own conclusions,
07:43can find their own parallels to respect the audience enough.
07:46There are a couple that made it through
07:50because we couldn't resist them, one in particular
07:53that I think you maybe know what I'm talking about,
07:56the only line in English in the whole show.
07:59However, we tried to avoid kind of being too didactic.
08:08I was going to ask both of you, what
08:10do you hope audiences walk away with after watching this show?
08:18I really hope that they are going to receive our message.
08:24Because as an anti-fascist, I really enjoyed the project
08:30because I felt that my, I don't know if you say that,
08:33I felt really protected in work with Joe and with all the crew
08:38and with the production and everyone.
08:40So I hope that they are going to receive our message.
08:44And as Joe said, that they are going
08:47to make their own thoughts about what was there
08:52and what is it now.
08:55So.
08:56I think I hope that the audience come away
09:01as I did from making the work, understanding
09:06the dangers of sleepwalking into the kind of peril
09:17that Mussolini presented.
09:22But we really set out to make a piece of entertainment.
09:28And I think it is a piece of entertainment.
09:32But we also set out to make something that didn't just
09:35preach to the converted.
09:36There's no point in doing that.
09:38I'm never going to convert a far right fascist
09:44to our side.
09:48Sounds a bit difficult. It's not really side.
09:50But our way of thinking.
09:52However, I think there's a big section in the middle,
09:55possibly of younger people as well.
09:59And I think the show does appeal to younger people who
10:02haven't necessarily thought too much about where
10:09that word fascism comes from.
10:11Where the far right idea started.
10:15And I hope to reach them and to excite them to protest,
10:25excite them to make choices.
10:30Can you tell us what you're working on next?
10:32Yeah, I'm just finishing a pilot for a TV show
10:39with Michael Fassbender and Richard Gere
10:43that comes out later this year.
10:48And I'm figuring out what movie I want to do.
10:52I haven't done a movie for a little while.
10:54So I think I'll do a movie next.
10:58Excellent.
10:59M, Son of the Century, Joe Wright, Luca Marinelli.
11:05Mili grazie.
11:06Ciao a tutti.
11:07Ciao.