Paolo Sorrentino

“On Sunday mornings my mother would cook gnocchi. From my bed I could hear her knife cutting the pasta into strips. We would eat it with ragu for lunch with the whole family; I have a brother and a sister who are both older than me.

Today I love it when my wife makes pasta. Like me, she is from Naples; she comes from a family of restaurateurs and is a wonderful cook. I love dinners and good company but I have to say that it’s a recent thing. I used to be solitary and dark but my wife has forged me.

She makes a dish I like called pesto alla trapanese – it’s not pesto but it is made with pine nuts. I never ask for the recipe because I truly could not care less; I am only interested in eating it. I am constantly begging for pasta but my wife is cautious because she says that I am getting fat.

Everyone eats a lot if they work a lot; it depends on where you are. I remember I shot a film in the US and we were in godforsaken places so we ate terribly. When I came back my wife was shocked when she saw me. I had been away for months and I was monstrous: I weighed almost 100kg. Thankfully I lost it.

On set I work while I eat but at night we go our for dinner and relax. I went for dinner in Washington with Sean Penn. I was chasing him everywhere and I needed to convince him to be in the film [This Must be the Place, 2011]. We met at a hotel and he arrived very late. When we finally had dinner my assistant director was translating as I didn’t speak such good English and I remember this state of enormous tension between us.

In the film he needed to be in drag and the character is quite elusive so I had to ask him whether he understood. We had a lot to drink and then he had a strange reaction: he said, ‘Yes, I understand perfectly,’ and just started playing the part. That was very beautiful. I remember another crazy meal with him in a hotel in New York. He was having a steak at 9 o’clock in the morning [laughs]. He drinks at night so the steak in the morning helps his metabolism.

I cook very little. I started when I moved to Rome eight years ago. On my balcony there’s a wood-burning oven so I learned to make pizza. I have decided that when I age I want to cook. It is my resolution but my wife and my kids make fun of me for it.

I was right when I thought that this interview would be sombre. I know we’re joking but I would be scared of my last meal. Before making Youth [2015] I was obsessed with mortality. How many years have I lived already, how many years do I have left; it’s something that seizes you.

I never put food in my films unless I’m making a point because the act of eating isn’t beautiful to me. Eating, like sex, is a source of pleasure but it can be pathetic and grotesque – and so can life. In The Great Beauty [2013] I staged a boring scene of a meal with a nun to represent it.

If this was really my last meal I would share it with my wife and kids and have a dessert: tiramisu. I am addicted to sweets. With age it’s got better but when I was young I was ready to kill for chocolate. My sister was beautiful and had a lot of admirers; she’s 60 now but at that time courtship happened through chocolates. My brother and I always took the ones she received. She would hide them but we always found them.”