After Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God” debuted at the 2021 Venice Film Festival, media and attendees were buzzing about the film’s star, newcommer Filippo Scotti. The 21-year-old actor portrays Sorrentino at a crucial moment in the filmmaker’s life and has a natural charisma that had many referring to him as the “Italian Timothée Chalamet.” Speaking partially through a translator last month, Scotti appreciates the sentiment but is hoping the world takes him on his own merits.
“I think it’s wrong just because I’m not good as Timothee,” Scotti says. “He’s a fantastic actor and I think really it’s great. It’s so how to say flexible, you know? You can do lots of things. That’s my opinion. If a director is coming and he’s telling me, ‘I want you to do something completely different that you compare to the things that you’ve done before.’ I’m like, ‘O.K., I want to do this.’ And let’s see if I’m able to do this, but you know, it’s something that’s fun. But at the same time, I’m different person and I’m not as good as Timothée Chalamet.”
Like Sorrentino, Scotti is a native of Naples, Italy where he participated in theater productions growing up. After some roles in a few short films his agent got him a role in the Netflix series “Luna Nero,” but Sorrentino’s autobiographical drama is his first leading role. Wrapping his head around the fact he was playing a character, Fabietto, and not Sorrentino was important as he grew more comfortable with the part.
“I had not a lot of time to understand it because it was Paolo chose me one month before the beginning of the shooting. And even though seems a long time, it’s not because it was a long script, a lot of things to think about,” Scotti says. “So, I was like, ‘O.K., let’s make it simple. Let’s think just about it as a character.’ So, I built all the world environment of Naples of the ’80s, so staying at my place while my parents were in vacation. And yeah, I started listening ’80s music that Paolo recommended to me, The Cure, U2, and Tom Waits, his album of the ’80s. And I tried, as I said, to build that environment, and to build also that passion for Maradona, because I’m a soccer fan, a football fan, but not as Fabietto is. Fabietto was, so specifically, specifically for Maradona I was very lucky because I’m Neapolitan and basically Maradona is like a figure, a sacred figure that is everywhere. And I said sacred because there is Maradona everywhere. Even next to the Saints figure there is Jesus Christ and then there is Maradona with Neapolitan as this is way to think about religion in this way on these lines. So. I watched documentaries, I tried to understand deeper is the personality of this incredible man that Maradona was and incredible man and incredible football player of course soccer player, of course.”
Scotti also admits he was scared on the first day of filming, but he wasn’t the only one. Sorrentino’s cinematographer, Daria D’Antonio, who lit his Oscar-winning “The Grand Beauty,” was also nervous about tackling her friend’s life story.
“Daria told me something like, ‘I’m scared too.’ Cause also for Daria, it was like a new beginning because she worked with Paolo lots [but this was different],” Scotti recalls. “It’s nice because you kind of balance, and you understand that you have something in common with the crew. And this helped me a lot.”
While “The Hand of God” focuses on one key moment of Sorrentino’s adulthood, it’s also a window into the large extended family that surrounded him as he grew up. Characters depicting his parents, brother, aunts, uncles, and cousins all have key roles in the film, but Sorrentino’s sister is notably absent. Well, to clarify, in an extended comic bit she’s heard, but the actress who plays her is almost never seen.
“All the movie, she’s always in the bathroom,” Scotti says. “And can be strange at the beginning, I thought, ‘Wow. That’s, that’s not so cool. I mean, you can’t forget her face because the audience, in my opinion, maybe will be curious to see her.’ Then when finally she’s going out, you are like breathing, you are like, ‘Ah, finally I see her.'”
Scotti has spent a good amount of time living in Paris recently and also finished another Italian film, “Io e spotty,” in Bologna. He’s not sure what’s next but admits the theater is calling to him again.
“What I like is like to go in theater and to meet other actor and to put my energy on stage,” Scotti says. “As for the cinema, two months of shooting ‘The Hand of God’ are giving you the possibility to know other people and to understand better the dynamic of [working on a] set, you know what I mean? I think that’s when I’m connected to other people in general, I’m coming back home. And When I compare myself to others and I’m going back home and I’m putting my head on my pillow and I’m sleeping good. And every time that this happens, I think, ‘O.K. That’s what I want to do.'”
“The Hand of God” arrives in theaters on Dec. 1. It will debut on Netflix on Dec. 15.