Into the spotlight

Lorenzo Zurzolo is optimistic that Italian cinema is entering a new golden age. The Rome-born actor has just come off the set of his latest TV series, which chronicles the early political career of Benito Mussolini. What has made him so hopeful isn’t his character in the show – after all, he portrays a fascist leader called Italo Balbo – but the time that he has spent filming at Rome’s Cinecittà, Europe’s largest and longest-operating film studio. The experience has left him with the sense that the country is finally reclaiming its status as a global filmmaking hub. “The place is buzzing with activity,” he says, noting that international stars such as Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins and US actor-producer Denzel Washington were working there at the same time.

In the 20th century, Italy’s film industry gave the world masters such as Bernardo Bertolucci, Federico Fellini and Roberto Rossellini but it initially failed to carry this prestige into the 21st. The industry’s current moment of renewal can partially be attributed to state investment. The government recently allocated €300m to make Cinecittà a more appealing destination for both domestic and foreign projects. The plan, due for completion by 2026, includes upgrading infrastructure and building new studios to increase production capacity by 60 per cent.

This coincides with recent films that have helped to put Italian cinema back on the map. “We are gaining more recognition,” says Zurzolo, citing homegrown talent such as Alice Rohrwacher, director of 2023’s acclaimed La chimera, and the resurgence of Italian films receiving Academy Award nominations. Since the late 1990s, few Italian submissions for the best international feature film category had been accepted – a notable exception being the triumph of Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty in 2013. But in recent years films such as Io capitano by Rome-born director Matteo Garrone and Sorrentino’s The Hand of God have been up for the prize.

Despite his youth, Zurzolo already has plenty of experience. He discovered theatre as a child and made his on-screen debut at the age of seven in a Vodafone ad featuring footballer Francesco Totti. A year later he was cast in Don Matteo, a TV series about a crime-solving Catholic priest, one of Italy’s longest-running shows. It was there that he discovered his passion for being on set. “There’s this strong sense of community and togetherness that remains one of my favourite parts of the job,” he says.

In 2018, Zurzolo joined the cast of one of Italy’s first big Netflix productions, Baby, loosely based on the 2014 “Baby Squillo” scandal involving underage prostitution in Rome.

Its success led to more TV roles (as a working-class outcast in Prisma and an anarchic Jewish student who joins the Italian resistance movement in La Storia) but a defining moment came in 2022 with Zurzolo’s international film debut. Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski approached him for a role in EO, which tells the story of a donkey that has been forcibly taken from its owner. “I never thought that I could play a 30-year-old with a monologue in English,” he says. The film won the Jury Prize at Cannes that year and was nominated for the best international picture Oscar.

As his star rises, Zurzolo is spending some time this year in Los Angeles and taking a course to perfect his English. Meeting industry professionals in the US has confirmed his belief in Italian cinema’s status as a global player. “We tend to undervalue ourselves in Italy,” he says, reflecting on his childhood, when he looked up to Hollywood as the sole path to a successful acting career. “When I am abroad, I see so much respect for our cinema and actors. We have the talent to live up to our reputation. We just need to believe in ourselves a bit more.” –– L