MATILDA DE ANGELIS

IS TAKING WING

Recipient of a ‘Shooting Star’ award at 2018’s Berlin International Film Festival, Italian singer and actress Matilda De Angelis had a successful end to 2020, starring in Netflix comedy drama Rose Island and opposite Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman in The Undoing. She’s now filming Hemingway’s Across The River Into The Trees with Liev Schreiber, and is fielding phone calls from Hollywood…

Your character in Rose Island takes zero shit…

The position of women in the ’60s was very different. Gabriella is really ahead of her time. She studies, she’s a teacher, she’s educated, she works. She’s independent.

It’s a film about standing up to corrupt leaders. Is now a good time to land?

Our politics are really polarised nowadays. It’s very hard to imagine living based on human rights and freedom and brotherhood. We need this kind of revolutionary act.

How did you find working in America

on The Undoing?

It was big deal for me. It’s really rare for Italian actors to work abroad. I want to work with as many directors and actors as possible, on whatever projects I feel: ‘I want to tell this story.’

Was it weird being nude just two feet away from Nicole Kidman?

It was actually hugely fun. I really felt comfortable with myself. Nudity and your body is just another tool to express yourself. Sometimes, I feel that emotional nudity is way more difficult to sustain and to feel.

Some people have said the nudity was gratuitous…

It was important for the character. I don’t like nudity when it’s taken for granted. But in this specific case, it was perfect, and it was necessary for Nicole’s character to feel that awkwardness around Elena.

After The Undoing, are you now getting sent Hollywood scripts?

Yes. It’s going well! I have recently found an American agent, so we’ll see.

ETA | OUT NOW / ROSE ISLAND IS NOW ON NETFLIX. THE UNDOING IS AVAILABLE ON DIGITAL HD.