Interview: As the Effervescent Claude on ‘The Four Seasons,’ Marco Calvani is Back and He’s Still the One
“I should start singing?”
As Marco Calvani and I sit down at The Terrace, the restaurant in The Maybourne in Beverly Hills, he knows that I have to ask about his vocal performance of “You’re the Still the One” in the Netflix comedy series The Four Seasons, “Oh, we’re definitely going to talk about that, yes,” I say. That moment in the series is indeed a high point, of comedy and of vulnerability both for Calvani and his character Claude, the effervescent and flamboyant husband of Colman Domingo’s Danny, the pair in a friend group of three couples that includes Tina Fey, Will Forte, Steve Carell and Kerri Kenney.
If you’re unfamiliar with Calvani (his last television work was Showtime’s bodice-ripper The Borgia nearly 15 years ago), you might have seen his work as a director with the 2024 film High Tide, starring Oscar winner Marisa Tomei and Calvani’s husband, Marco Pigossi. He’s also an accomplished stage director and playwright with nearly 20 original works under his belt, including the celebrated Beautiful Day Without You, which was commissioned by the Off-Broadway Origin Theatre Company and had its world premiere at the West End Theatre of New York in November 2018. But with The Four Seasons, inspired by Alan Alda’s 1981 movie of the same name, Calvani is back in a big way. Giving a big heart to Claude, and with Domingo, offering a version of a gay couple we don’t see much in films or television. Exploring an open marriage matter of factly or the dynamic of two people on opposite ends of a personality spectrum and in moments of potential crisis, Claude and Danny bring comedy without being the joke.
I spoke to Domingo recently, who told me the story of Calvani’s casting. “I was at a dinner party at the Marcos’ while we were still casting. Raúl said, ‘What if Marco auditioned?’ So my actual husband chose my television husband. We were already friends and now I have two husbands. Isn’t that great?”
During our long lunch we went deep on the representation of gay couples on television and how The Four Seasons is opening that up, bonded over having husbands with the same name, his next project and much more.
Erik Anderson: When you were young and growing up in Italy, did you know that you wanted to write, act, direct, be in this industry, or did your personality lead you there?
Marco Calvani: I think both. I think I knew that I wanted to be working in entertainment, whatever that means, especially when you are five years old. But yes, from an early age. And I think my personality also, I think I was born with that kind of calling. I didn’t know any of the titles or roles. I didn’t… you know, when you’re five years old, there were almost no boundaries between music and TV. Everything seemed like a giant park of beautiful things happening in and out. And I was reading them all.
I mean, I can’t say that my family was quite artistic, low middle class, trying to make ends meet, but my mom used to draw and loved theater. So I was always going to the theater at quite a young age, but also we spent a lot of time in front of the television. And I was listening to a lot of music too, because I’m the last one of four. So my oldest secrets were, you know, being in the music or not so… I was born, no wonder that I’m gay. I was born listening to “Like a Virgin.” That was my lullaby.
And I remember, Erik, that probably around the age of eight, nine, after spending a long afternoon with my cousins, putting up plays. I mean, very silly, you can imagine, with puppets, but I remember starting saying, “I want to be a director one day.” And maybe because somebody had told me, oh, a director is the guy who puts together things and people and makes something happen. And that’s quite a magical feeling for a child to hear that.
So I started to say I want to be a director. And then my mom died at 14. I’m not saying it just to draw the conversation into different kinds of temperature, but that was a pivotal moment when I decided, okay, if this is a dream, I need to start to make it come true. And I was looking for a way to express everything that was going on or try to understand it or maybe honor my mother because I started to go to after-school theatre. That’s how I started.
EA: What did you watch when you were young? What were the shows that you loved?
MC: I wish I was Godard now and saying I was watching Renoir and Max, but no, again, very messy, loud, beautifully chaotic family with TV always on, drenched in the American dream. So we were watching all the soap operas. My mom was obsessed with Dynasty and Dallas, and so all of us. And it wasn’t that queer back then. Nobody knew. Now if you see, it was like, of course I wanted to be Alexis, but back then, so… and all the soap operas, I don’t even know the English titles, but I remember… maybe we can look them up later.
EA: Oh yeah. Dynasty, Dallas, Knots Landing, Falcon Crest.
MC: Falcon Crest! Capital. All of them were like my childhood. And then a lot of movies as well… wonderful great films. Everything. Everything. We were all… I remember the first day that we got a VHS.
You know, those magical moments. But so more American movies came our way. And then I was watching in my teenage years, I was watching, I remember Beverly Hills, 90210. I know maybe it’s very cheesy here. I don’t know how but in Italy it was the thing. It was like, I don’t know the hacks of today for kids. And it was just… I also was talking about what everyone was dreaming of, which was California, Beverly Hills, but also was talking about topics that no one, it was quite edgy for us-
EA: Sure.
MC: Nobody was telling, I mean, still was missing a gay character, but at least they were talking about conflicts with parents and at schools and jealousy, little dramas and early sexuality with the whole beautiful California sunset. So I remember those two things very well.
But my life really changed when I started to, of course, do theater and I discovered playwriting, the playwriting of others from all over the world. And then when I started to write myself and then when I discovered the cinema from all over the world, I fell in love with French movies. That was it.
EA: Where does your journey as an actor cross with your journey as a director, or are they parallel? Or playwright? Do they exist differently or do they-
MC: They existed differently, but they were parallel for a couple of years only. So I started to write plays. I became a professional actor right away, the youngest in the company when I was back in Tuscany where I was born and raised. Then I moved to Rome immediately as soon as it was legal for me to go, to leave everything. I went to Rome thinking that it was the center of the world. It wasn’t, of course, but it was for me. And then I started to also become an actor for cinema and TV. And then in my early 20s, I started to write plays. I went back to the old dream of being a storyteller, also the fantasy of a kid, of putting things and ideas together. And the first two things that I wrote were plays and were for myself as well and my friends that we built a company.
But the third play I wrote, I decided to direct it. And that was, I would say, the end of my acting career. Sounds so sad now considering that… I mean, it was kind of an end, but it was a very happy ending for me. I was happy that everything I learned from acting drove me to writing and then directing and then filmmaking ultimately. And now we can call this a resurrection kind of, if that was an ending in the half of the career. Now it’s a little complete out of the blue.
EA: Exactly. You’re back now.
MC: I’m back. Now they are parallel again.
EA: It had been a really long time since you had acted, so-
MC: 15 years.
EA: Yes, The Borgias.
MC: The Borgias, but it was the first season that I was in and it was shot in 2009. So I would say, yeah, 15, 16 years. Oh, my God.
EA: That’s wild. So I mean, I know the story of Colman [Domingo] and Raúl [Domingo] and how we got there, but after all this time, why did you say yes? Why did you come back to acting?
MC: Well, if you know the story, you also probably know already that it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t like, “Oh my God, I want to do this, This is amazing.” So I decided, it took me a long time. And the time also was given to me by the fact that I did an audition and then I had to wait for the call back and then I waited for, had to wait for the offering. Then all the legal part and all those weeks helped me trying to understand what I was getting into because the fear wasn’t really, well, it wasn’t about the future, “What am I getting into?” It was mainly what I was living beyond. I was afraid that that was again the end of what I built for myself until then.
And put this in context, I had just premiered my first feature film [High Tide] at South by Southwest. We were about to premiere in Frameline. We were closing a deal with Strand. Life was already great for me, and the gods were already amazingly generous for me. And that was all that I had dreamed for myself. Of course, I hope to make more movies. And after years of playwriting and theater making and then finally making films, which was really my first love.
Being in this show felt like a mistake that it wasn’t directed to me. I couldn’t… but then I received the first script. I mean, of course I had to say yes. And then I received the first script and I was like, “Oh, the character is nice. Oh, it’s not just punch lines. There’s room for depth here.” And after the first script, after they received it, and we did this Zoom and I met everybody. I mean, I read it in Martina, but in the creative space. And I was like, “Oh, it’s fun,” and I don’t want to sound pathetic or horrible, but I felt like even in the first Zoom, I was like, oh, I was still trembling like a leaf and not knowing what to do, afraid of not knowing what to do. But at the same time I was like, “Oh, I think I belong here.”
They did not make me feel I have anything to learn, although I had everything to learn. But there was no power play. Everybody felt that we were there, it was there not to demonstrate anything to anyone else just for the fun. And that helped me a lot because ultimately that’s what we are here for, to have a good time. And the only way to create something memorable and not to break what comes to you is actually to serve it, is to be honest and have a good time and find the goodness. So I’m so happy I said yes.
EA: I am, too. It’s a wonderful show. I’m so glad to hear that because Will and Tina and Kerri and Colman are all very well established in US television, so I guess they really kind of brought you in and-
MC: They brought me in and I didn’t want to say the obvious, obviously Erik, to work, to be given the opportunity to work with these people and to know that, “Oh, they’re also good human beings and I can learn actually something, I don’t need to feel about myself always in a negative way.” But this is a great shortcut and not a detour of anything. It felt like an obstacle at the beginning to my career is that this is my life and this is a gift for me. And also with something else that probably at some point kicked in and for me was very important. The fact that I was playing a gay character and now a year later that also came out to the show, but also that we are in even more disgusting, scary times. I feel like it’s a beautiful opportunity for me to do something for my community, besides of course being on the streets and help people in need, don’t need money, whatever that is, but also putting everything in my body, my voice at the service of that.
EA: Yes.
MC: And I couldn’t really, they know… we think you’re in control, but they know more than we do, and they know everything. I would’ve never been able to say yes and to be so free and honest in playing Claude if I hadn’t had done High Tide because that also liberated me and a lot of feelings about being homosexual and homophobic. I discovered a lot of homophobia within me and by doing that I started to feel liberated. And then when Claude arrived, I was able to play with them. It taught me so much. So I think that was also one of the reasons that conscious and unconscious that I ended up saying yes.
EA: Somebody is going to watch that show, maybe a young person, and feel like they’ve seen something that they’ve never seen before. And I think one of the great things about you and Colman in this is that you are an interracial gay couple. You are an open marriage gay couple, and that is presented on the show in a way that is not-
MC: The problem of the couple.
EA: Yeah, it just is, and it’s not described, detailed, explained. It’s not a lesson because gay characters very, very often, if they are in a group with straight characters, are relegated to the lesson.
MC: Yeah, they have to justify themselves and they have to explain themselves. No, the fact that we exist, we exist the way we are, and we don’t have to explain anything to anybody. I think that was very refreshing, very important. I still felt that reading the script before I could get into the skin of Claude properly, I felt that my character actually was very dangerous and challenging because you know is we tend to be very flamboyant, and theatrical and exuberant, Italian, and that comes with a lot of, to me at least, with a lot of dangers and responsibility because I’m like, “Okay, are they asking me here to be the same in a comedy? The middle-aged man who was gay, who was Italian, who was over the top all the time.”
And so I was like, “Well, I don’t want to play… I know what I am and what I’m doing. And then definitely we are not in a French film, but I didn’t want to play this field. And I also wanted to find that in it. And the fact what you just said, the fact that there was no room in the script, there was no, the scripts never went to a place where I had to explain my sexuality. It was just assumed. There’s so much resistance in the existence that it’s a given. We exist and there’s no, it’s okay. You don’t have to do, to just fight.
EA: Tell me a little bit about just getting to play with Colman, because I know Colman and he is just such an incredibly generous person, but in the context of a relationship and a comedy and just getting to play with him.
MC: We just flew in together. We met at the Delta Lounge at 5:00 A.M. both in the quiet area. There was nobody else. And he was like, no, we just walked and was like, I can’t believe it. So we basically flew together and we had breakfast and we laughed. We laughed so much. He’s such an amazing human being, a fantastic artist who loves the craft so much, so generous. He’s so sharp and attentive. Besides the fact that I owe him a lot right now.
But since the first day we met, we became immediate friends because we share this joy of being in the company of others, and we are both multi-ethnic. We do it all. So we also understand each other from that perspective. We are not the same age. I’m younger, but we both know struggle, not just as artists, but also as young men and different kinds of course, but we have so much in common and that formed our friendship and bonded us even more during the shooting.
Probably everybody would’ve been more terrified to play with Colman Domingo than Tina Fey, not that Tina, I mean, she’s an icon, but Colman carries all this, at least for me, my filmmaker, carries all this, mature, actor and persona to be… like he comes with a lot of history, with huge theater background, he brings so much beautiful intensity to everything he does. And I don’t know, I would’ve been, the fact that we were friends and we were a couple, it was just so, so fun. Our friendship really played along. It was very helpful for us to build the bond, the friendship that Tony and Claude have.
EA: Absolutely.
MC: And so passionate for each other. They play a lot.
EA: That’s kind of one of the great things about them as a couple. All of the couples on the show have such a great dynamic, but your dynamic feels more real and grounded than even what we normally get to see. It’s 2025, and obviously there are gay characters and gay couples on every type of show. But I don’t know, I feel like I’m repeating myself. It’s just that part of them just is, because it’s everything else that’s happening that is just the normal drama and the normal sadness and the normal fun and happiness. It’s really unlike a lot of anyone that’s on TV.
MC: To be honest, this is Lang [Fisher] and Tracey [Wigfield] and Tina and the writers of course, that they gave us those words and those characters. I think it’s also, I think we have to create a moment of myself as well, and I don’t want to sound… but I think we both made the decision because we were preparing together. We had a lot of scenes together, so it was also a way to have fun with it. That’s what you do, and it’s TV. Sometimes you don’t have much time.
So we created that time together and we really decided to pour a lot of honesty and truth into our characters. Because if you look quickly at the scripts, you just see punch lines and beautiful dialogues, but then there is a lot of subtext that is written and a lot of room for us to play with it if you play right and if you play with truth. So I think that was always our guiding light. I mean, I think for everybody, but I know that Colman and I, we really spoke about this a lot. Everything needed to feel real, authentic, and on our skin because ultimately what they’re going through, it’s very universal. And we both also are in long relationship. We are both married, we know about that.
EA: Yes.
MC: I wanted to say something else that I thought, I can’t remember. Yeah. I think there was a lot of that. And then I remember we were like, hey, we had a kind of a structure in our mind that we shared, which was, okay, let’s, because the show starts in a very mainstream way, right?
EA: Yes.
MC: In terms of structure and narrative and rhythm. And then it goes deeper and deeper and deeper. So for us, that was the guiding light also. Okay, let’s remember every time we have an opportunity with the script, with the beautiful script they got, when we perceive there is room for depth, let’s put it in. Let’s not forget to inject it, even at the beginning, it just drops here and there. So that helped us build until the end. Does it make sense?
EA: No, absolutely. Because it is a comedy, but a comedy cannot be just all punchlines and jokes. That’s just not how it works. So everything you have together dramatically builds to a really beautiful place. I love the dynamic of you, Claude, being very kind of like pushy-pushy about-
MC: Everything.
EA: The medical diagnosis stuff. My husband had a heart attack two years ago.
MC: Is he okay now?
EA: He is, but it is kind of going through something different right now. But I was watching and just feeling like, “Okay, I’m very Claude right now. I’m very Claude right now.” And this is completely just separate from any of this. But it was-
MC: I’m glad you shared because-
EA: There’s just also a really yin and yang dynamic between you two. That’s what my marriage is. My husband could not be more opposite than me, could not be more opposite.
MC: Same with my husband and I.
EA: But we’ve been together for 30 years. And that’s why, because I can’t imagine it any other way.
MC: It’s the most difficult job, marriage.
EA: It is very funny when somebody says, “I married my best friend.” I get it. It’s a little precious of a statement because I wouldn’t marry my friends. My friends are the people that we do like the same thing, like the same things. I don’t know. A marriage is built on those uncomfortable moments, too. And I think that’s what you have here.
MC: It’s a bit of a crisis I think, I believe, also when it comes to marriages. I mean, once the honeymoon phase ends, you know that, whatever that means. Also, it’s, God, we are a creature, creatures in constant transformation. And again, I don’t want to sound too spiritual of what I am, but I believe we are not here, we are not ending here. And I believe there’s someone else, something else that keeps track of everything. And as an individual, when you are in the marriage, it’s two people, two people who are going through their own journey by themselves first.
EA: Yes.
MC: And they decide to be guardians of each other’s solace, like we can say and to have fun of course, and to support each other. But ultimately we protect one another. We don’t want to interfere. And life itself, the way it’s created in our societies, it’s all about, it’s a huge interference.
EA: Yes.
MC: We’ve been raised with the idea of conquering things and prevailing one another and all the patriarchal bull shit that ultimately also infests our marriages. But I think God is insane sometimes. He’s very pushy, he feels everything too much. He says it all, he screams, but ultimately he’s kind, more evolved than me. Their relationship also, no matter what, this is something that I appreciated a lot about our character, the show, then in Claude, they feel no matter what, even if they’re going through a huge crisis and the show makes us believe that they don’t know if they will grow together, all together, because of that. But we made that choice, Colman and I, and I think we played it that way. You can say, no, you didn’t. Sorry, go away.
But I think their love is so strong. Ultimately, we felt that we were never going to be apart, even if the plot made us believe in moments where our love, our passion, and the playfulness are so alive. Then now cut to Season 2, Open Swiss. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know anything. It’s not a spoiler.
EA: Oh, no, no, I don’t. I don’t know anything. Yeah.
MC: Can you imagine? Boom. And my coca money goes away. I had to go, too.
EA: Well, I mean the show is predicated on a breakup and a split, and so it made it feel like anything was possible with these couples. Anything could have been possible. There could have been just a bridge too far for you two. And that would be that. It would be over.
MC: It’s true.
EA: I do want to talk about the wedding song.
MC: Well, tell me everything you think.
EA: Are you kidding, I loved it. Tell me how you prepared to, not just to sing that song, but to sing it like Claude does, which he’s not a professional singer. So this is a moment where for everybody else it’s funny. And for you it’s extremely vulnerable, both as an actor and Claude as a character.
MC: That was the first day, truly the very, very first day. And it was towards the end of the third week of the shoot, the very first day that I was like, “Oh, I can do this again.” And not because I was thinking high of myself actually. I thought that after four hours I was shooting and singing that scene. And it wasn’t about how I have resistance, it was because it was extremely intricate. You see, it feels so light and easy, but to convey, to be happy for your friend to be singing. And so as an artist and an actor to take care of that aspect, to keep the balance between joy and betrayal, it was very, very hard. And I’m not a professional singer, so I think the fact is, I rehearsed, I prepared. It was complicated because I had to first of all prepare and we did, I even recorded the dance. I went to record work with the music team, the musical team that Tina usually works with, just so that I could hear it in advance.
So there’s a song and then there’s a preparation of the character for the role. And it was a mix of instinct and truth. I think truth was really the biggest ingredient. I don’t know. I mean, I am sure that it wasn’t that hard for me to tap into betrayal. I’ve been betrayed several times like many of us. I think it is a human trait. But the difficult thing was how do you also make people laugh because you are playing into a genre here. I wish I had a mathematical calculation, say the equation. “Oh, you put a little bit of this or that.” Like a recipe, right?
Also, you have to go with the moment a lot. That is also my philosophy of life, but it’s also truly a huge ingredient for an actor. The fact that there were a lot of fresh faces in the audience, too, because there were a lot of extras. That not just galvanized me at some point when I was singing for two hours, but they were really enjoying it. But the fact that there were strangers that helped me feeling the shame and the difficulty, for example, again, to access that betrayal zone, betrayed zone of Claude. Does it make sense?
EA: Yeah. I mean, I think you mentioned instinct too, and Claude is somebody who doesn’t, he’s so free that you almost have to then tap into Claude for yourself, just to do that performance because he has no fear at all. Just none.
MC: And probably at some point, as a preparation, it was exactly that. I had to explode as a Claude and then find the Marco in Claude to contain when I cannot explode, like during the wedding song. Absolutely. Were you an actor? You understand so much about it.
EA: No! I tried and it was terrible. It was terrible. Have you taken anything from Claude as a character into Marco now?
MC: Well, I tend to think maybe twice to speak twice too long. It speaks up immediately. So that also, that could be one thing, but it’s mainly the relationship with Danny, not just Claude himself, that taught me a lot. It didn’t teach me anything I didn’t know, but it was a huge reminder because I tend to be… I’m not Claude, I’m not that needy. I’m more independent. I have a job. Me and my husband have a more healthy, in that thing that we are still young, but it’s more balanced. We are also not that, probably not that privileged. Danny and Claude, they seem like they have a very good life. Well, that’s a word that I was looking for.
EA: Oh, okay. Yeah.
MC: Their relationship. In fact, sometimes I feel they taught me not to take anything for granted. They taught me not to, they reminded me not to overstep, not to try to fix my husband, for example, the other person too much, that help and that sometimes trying to help too hard. It might not be about the other person actually, but it’s about you. And that is a problem. And that creates a whole different set of problems that in a marriage, especially, when most intimacy is involved. They became a little bit of my bible actually because these are dangers of every married couple. They’re straight, young or old. They go through the problems they can face. So yeah, I’d say that more than anything.
EA: I love that.
MC: Do you relate as you feel?
EA: Yeah, very much so. Very much so. Without knowing anything for Season 2, what do you want for Claude?
MC: I laugh because yesterday I saw Tina, and she’s like, “Nobody else is asking me about Season 2 as much as you do.” I’m like, “Can we do this? Can we do… what are we doing?” I’m a writer. I think I’d love to see their gay friends that are mentioned in Season 1.
EA: Yes.
MC: Even if it’s just for one episode, for one scene, I would love to see that. I know that it’s not really the structure of the show, but I would love to see them in New York where they live, maybe a holiday, Thanksgiving, Christmas. So one season and still has a flavor of holiday, still can be in their place so that we can also maybe see them planning the holiday because we’ve seen them think about it. They also had the playbook of the film, they had to follow that. But we see them in one holiday that is prepped by Jimmy, the new lover of Steve Carell. The first holidays we don’t see them prepped. How would that feel like Danny and Claude in that holiday completely prepared by Danny and Claude. We didn’t see that in Season 1. And Colman Domingo is so good at throwing parties, I’m sure he threw some parties for us. So I’m sure they can be inspired by that.
EA: Yes, I think so.
MC: And I would love for them to also have Danny and Claude. Obviously I focus on them. I have ideas for the other characters, but I would love for Danny and Claude to really more than I would love. I wonder if they’re going to have a… They’re going to question parenting because we will deal with a kid, I guess, the hook at the end of Season 1. So I wonder if that is something that could be the motif for Season 2. And maybe with twists and turns too. You may think that maybe Claude was very caring. He’s the one who wants to be… maybe not Claude. Even surprised in that sense.
EA: Something unexpected because yeah, once you feel like you know your character too well, you don’t get as much surprise. So yeah, that would be great. And that would be a great use of their relationship of the yin, yang of it. And sometimes the roles reverse. I mean also any long-lasting relationship, those roles reverse. There’s a lot of comfort, obviously, when you feel like it’s an established role. But what that often means is that you have one giver and one taker all the time. And if those don’t alternate-
MC: So true. It’s so true. The way this Season 1 ends, for our end, for us also, the fact that he finds a butterfly that I’ve been talking about it, he made fun of me about, and that is going to soften Danny’s heart. I know it’s not literally a poor thing, he had a stent in his heart, you know what I mean? And I become more, suddenly if he gives me power. And by power I don’t mean the power, the natural power, I mean the power of the light, the power of being recognized and the symbols that we end that equalizes us. So I think there’s room for that surprise in Season 2 to work. Now we can reverse.
EA: Exactly.
MC: Do you want me to text Tina again?
EA: Say, well, yeah, “Erik and I have some ideas for Season 2.”
MC: I’m not this stalky, but yeah, so she made me laugh.
EA: They love her. She’s wonderful.
MC: Have you met her?
EA: Very, very briefly earlier this year, a couple of months ago. So sweet and truly just one of the funniest people in the world. Oh my God.
MC: She’s so down to earth. I mean, she’s shy, and yet she’s so giving, so present all the time. And wow. I mean, I’m so grateful to be in her orbit, in her universe. I hear her speak about us, all of us so high. Then to me too, of course, that we are all pinching ourselves, “Is this real? Are you AI?”
EA: Separate from the show, I love High Tide so much, so much. It’s so unique and it’s so gorgeously shot. I love that film. So I’m really excited that you have something coming up and I’m really intrigued by this story.
MC: I’m so excited, too. It’s a way bigger project. It’s going to be more European.
EA: Yeah.
MC: So it might take some, I mean it’s going to be for next year, so I have to wait another year of course, which is coming up, but… Oh my God.
EA: Oh, gosh. Oh, no. Yes. Well, so much for Season 2. You’re the Steve Carell of Season 2. Sorry.
MC: Everybody’s afraid of being that, you know.
EA: Totally.
MC: It was like-
EA: Exactly. Who’s next? Who’s going to die?
MC: So we threaten each other. I want to suggest that actually Ginny should die in this show, because, in this season. Well, back to the new film it’s finally going back to my filmmaking that I need so much. Making a film is a miracle, so it takes time. But this is just such a… it’s not just timely that I’m doing a timely film. I think it’s really an important message throughout there. And people need to be inspired. You know what it’s about, right?
EA: Mm-hmm.
MC: So I don’t want to repeat myself, things you know already, but I think really people need to see a new way of being in the world right now where we can be there for each other and at the times where everything is telling us the opposite. And I couldn’t be more excited. I’ve always been my work versus the playwrights, my work as a writer in general, even my short filming, I’ve always used my voice to give it to, I don’t know, let’s call it platform. But I’ve always been attracted to stories of people who are outside in this world for many reasons. Maybe because I’m an orphan, maybe because I’m a… and also because I love drama as well, if you want.
And I feel that. I feel our political, I think we have political powers as citizens of this world, not even of the specific state of this world and tremendous responsibilities to each other. So for me-
EA: That is great material for being an artist.
MC: So writing Capitana, I mean, even in High Tide, which was a clear more contemporary love story, but there was already, that’s probably the most delicate thing I’ve ever written. And yet you can sense there is a political commentary underneath. But I was trying to do the opposite to cover it up, delicacy or the romance. But with Capitana, Novi was straightforward to that. And that’s what I love to do. And I love directing. I love working with actors. I love telling stories like this. I’m so excited. I still cannot tell you more, but I can’t wait to reveal the actual scene.
EA: I can’t wait to find out more. I’m thrilled for you. But as a performer, don’t act for 15 years and now-
MC: You think actors out there are going to kill me? These actors are out of work. They didn’t really change any of this.
EA: It’s just how things are, whether it is fate or destiny or whatever it is, so much is out of our real control. When we think that we have total control and choice, things just happen when they happen.
MC: And also to feel that we have that control, it actually creates a lot of tension, a lot of sadness. So many expectations that are never met. It never happened the way I imagined it to be. And I am a control freak, and I’ve been a producer of my own plays, of my own movies, and write, so I know all the structure. Things never happen the way you want it to be. That doesn’t mean that I moved too far to places, but did I ever dream of living in the United States? No. But in timing also always in different ways. That is exciting. But I think it’s a harder thing as human being to accept, to just let go sometimes and be content with what you have, because if you honor that to create space for other things and other people too, to come into your life, I think that’s why we’re here, all of us to do work.
EA: Absolutely. And if you live by such a rigid guideline, you’re not leaving anything open for discovery or mistakes that are good mistakes or anything, whether you’re an actor, director, whatever it is. If you’re just by the book, you’re missing magic that happens without your permission.
MC: Even High Tide itself.
MC: I was working on High Tide in fall 2020. I was writing, not even fully projecting the possible production, who was going to produce a movie in 2020 by me? Never done anything before, my first feature film. And that was so free and that freedom opened up. I even manifested my husband, the love of my life. I was writing the script for him when I met him without knowing. I mean, it’s insane.
EA: That’s amazing.
MC: So that is another, I guess, High Tide, reading Four Seasons, four years apart. They are, I keep reading the word dreams there.
EA: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
MC: It’s just like, it’s right there. But I don’t want to call them less, but they’ve been two of the most beautiful divine interventions and milestones in my life artistic-wise, but also that they name, not just the artist, but the man, different one. And they speak about the evolution of an artist, of myself. Yeah. I’m happy.
EA: It’s a romantic way to be. I love that.
MC: There’s so much cynicism. There’s so much ugliness over, so much violence. I hate movies with violence. Maybe you love them. I’m not a PBL. I know there’s a way of saying in English, but I can’t find it. But I’m pretty with my feet on the ground. I’m pretty impractical.
Marco Calvani is Emmy-eligible in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for The Four Seasons.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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