[VENICE] It’s Saturday afternoon at the Tennis Club on the Lido, and American director Abel Ferrara chats on camera to an Italian television host before some of his customary swearing sets in, courtesy of a few brave souls wanting a photo with him next to the courts. He’s hungry. “The Bad Lieutenant” director wolfs down a white bread sandwich while flapping that he needs an ATM and some water before his next interview begins.
Somewhere between the momentary, swirling commotion of multi-tasking, eating, and the fatigue of doing rounds of interviews about his latest film, “Padre Pio,” which is premiering here at the Venice International Film Festival, he regains his composure.
In a state of relative calm and complete focus, he opens up about his latest film, starring Shia LaBeouf as an iconic Italian saint who also got a bit of a reputation while doing saintly things during a pivotal moment in Italian history.
LaBeouf is often in the headlines for bad behavior, most recently for alleged assault and sexual battery against his ex-girlfriend, FKA Twigs. However, Ferrara, who lives in Rome, says he had not heard of him until the film’s producer, Alex Lebovici, mentioned LaBeouf.
“I needed a kid,” says Ferrara. “I live in Europe. I read. I don’t watch movies. I didn’t know who he was. I look him up. I get the whole thing. I zoomed him up.”
LaBeouf was already treading a spiritual path, says Ferrara, setting him on course to film the part.
“He had a religious conversion. He’s a Catholic. He already had that spiritual change. I don’t want to out the dude. But he spoke about it publicly,” says Ferrara.
Ferrara likewise converted to Buddhism from Catholicism as part of his own rebirth. “I’m a recovering drug addict and alcoholic,” says Ferrara. “I’ve got ten years sober. He has just begun his journey into sobriety, so we connected.”
Not that he offered LaBeouf any outright advice, and it seems he didn’t judge the former child star either.
“How long do you need to speak to him before you know this guy is a special dude?” he says. “My advice is just the life I’m living. I’ve been on it for ten years. It’s not a matter of advice. It’s by example. I was addicted for 44 years. I’m sober, but I’ve got my problems, bro. This guy is 32. I wish I was 32. But I was just hitting the gas until I was 61. I got there.”
Equally accepting, he says, were the Capuchin monks who LaBeouf lived with for three months in Los Angeles to prepare for the role and others in Italy who helped with the film.
“The Italians are big-time positive about the film,” says Ferrara. “The monks didn’t know who I was. From the beginning with, the monks, they welcomed us. If they looked me up, they would have burned the church down. But there was nothing but putting their arms around us and welcoming us. No cynicism. No, nothing but arms around us. When he went to the monastery in LA, they accepted him. They were supportive. These cats are coming with love. It’s what spirituality is about. They live it. They don’t talk it.”
LaBeouf’s current journey colliding with that of the character he plays is a crucial ingredient in the film, says Ferrara.
“We didn’t make a film about a saint,” says Ferrara. “We made a film about a kid coming to terms with things in a seminal moment in Italian history. He was questioning his spirituality. His life. His commitment to the service. Pio wasn’t born a saint. He went through that at that moment. When you’ve got an actor in the same mindset or journey, then you’ve got a movie because you are not filming Padre Pio. You are filming Shia.”
Ferrara has been through his own redemptive journey and has, he says, changed how he sees the world.
“Like 180 degrees,” he says. “It’s a whole different perspective to look at life sober. I don’t have no regrets because it’s part of my recovery.”
He adds: “It’s a delusion that you need drugs and alcohol to do what you do. Somehow I had that delusion from the age of 17 to 61. Somehow all the guys I worked with saw through that delusion and became sober.”
More from this interview on page two.