Luca Guadagnino
The Italian maestro is feeling peachy…
Having made waves with his so-called ‘desire trilogy’ I Am Love, A Bigger Splash and Call Me By Your Name, 49-year-old auteur Luca Guadagnino surprised with Suspiria and will be remaking Scarface next. For now he’s toying with TV in ravishing limited series We Are Who We Are and exec-producing epicurean doc, The Truffle Hunters. Teasers caught up with him at the Toronto International Film Festival...
Your international breakthrough came with
I Am Love...
My life changed through I Am Love. We went through a lot of difficulties in making it – in funding and doing it. We were truly, truly in deep trouble. No sales agent wanted to sell the movie. They thought it was a failure. We went to the Venice Film Festival and 300 walked out, and there were massive boos. It was a disaster. And then when we arrived in Toronto [International Film Festival], it became the opposite experience. And
I Am Love started to become a wonderful arthouse sensation.
How do you prepare for a film before you get to set?
Well, if you have a group of people that work with you that are open and
enthusiastic to share ideas and to find things without applying a specific recipe, you’re already in a good place. The second thing is to prepare yourself very much. In the case of We Are Who We Are, you need to understand if you want to tell the story of a 14-year-old AfricanAmerican girl living in a military base – what is the world of a girl like that in the time you are setting your story? It cannot be generic. You have to be specific. And then, having done all this, you forget everything and start again when you meet your actors, you know?
‘I DON’T THINK A REMAKE IS ANY DIFFERENT FROM AN ORIGINAL IDEA’