Favino to young actors: ‘Show yourselves for what you are’

Pierfrancesco Favino dispensed advice and curiosities about his beginnings to young debutant actors during the meeting at the Campari Lounge moderated by Mauro Gervasini. Talking about Pablo Larrain’s Maria, he dwelled on an improvised card game sequence: “The best scenes, sometimes, are the spontaneous ones’. When asked how to become a great actor: ‘We are all afraid in front of the camera. Learning to act means stripping away fears, inadequacy, and ego-related weaknesses. True actors, like Anthony Hopkins, have abandoned everything commentary or self-exaltation. You must get rid of what is not essential, concentrate on the story, respect it, without worrying of the applause‘. Then, he concluded, addressing a girl who could not look him in the eyes because she was very emotional: ‘Everyone builds up an image of themselves when they leave home, ashamed of what they look like when they wake up in the morning with a swollen face, but maybe at a casting they want someone with a swollen face, and you don’t know it. Have the courage to show yourself for what you are without worrying. You have to audition well, not hoping to be taken but knowing that you have done an excellent job for yourself. I received 14 years of “no” before I got big “yes”, and I often didn’t understand why I wasn’t chosen or why I was.