Alice in conversation with Elisa Ambrosetti.
The glance is all it takes, perhaps one of the first features grasped and discerned by a director. I thought it was a trivial observation, but meeting Alice Pagani’s deep and magnetic glance as she arrived on set, in Rome, wearing boots and a hoodie in a pure 90’s grunge style, definitely changed my mind.
Those yellow-green eyes of hers, her secret weapon, won over Directors such as Paolo Sorrentino, who chose her for his films Loro 1 and Loro 2, and Andrea De Sica for his Netflix series Baby, and for his upcoming romantic horror film Non mi uccidere.
I listen to her talking to the make-up artist about her freckles, about her “Ludovica” bob that she’d love to soon go back to “because mom always wanted me
this way”, she says as she shows us a picture of herself as a child.
The make-up artist is highlighting her freckles, which are a bit shyer in January than they are in the Summer. She’s smiling at me now, a genuine smile. I think she noticed that I’m observing her, so intensely that she
asks if we’ve met before. I reply that we haven’t, but that we’ll get to know one another better during our long chat…
EA You have disclosed many times that for you playing a character in its entirety is fundamental: you tend to live as the character even offset, you become
the character. You breathe like the character, talk like the character, walk like the character…
how do you achieve this?
AP The transformation is always very subtle, and it starts with the first script reading. Our body resorts
to survival methods when we’re acting. It’s very unnatural to act like something you’re not. Anything can become an inspiration to become that character, starting from ordinary, everyday actions. You could be dressing a salad and you start wondering how the character would do it. The thought of how that character would live their life contaminates everything.
EA Through acting, you can “universalize” an emotion. Once you start communicating it to others, what was only yours becomes everybody’s…
AP Every time I start working on an emotion I try to understand how close it can be to Alice’s emotion,
in an attempt to figure out if my character’s feeling has already been felt by Alice herself. There are only so many emotions, and the deeper you go, the more it all blurs into one single nuance. People can understand
us if we can be sincere about the emotion that we want to convey. It’s a bit like when you fight with your partner: instinctively, you want to understand if the person in front of you is lying to you. Acting is the balance of truth: how real is what you’re feeling?
EA Being on set, on the fine line between what’s real and what’s fake, seems rather complicated. What’s the most difficult thing you have to deal with?
AP Noise. You need silence in order to focus: when the camera’s rolling everyone’s quiet, but up until that moment it’s pure chaos. The crew is fundamental, you must be able to rely on them for everything to go perfectly right. Before shooting a scene I need my music in order to enter my space, leave reality behind, and enter the tunnel of fiction. Even though fiction needs to look real… I realize it’s a rather complicated concept to explain…
throughout the story full looks Louis Vuitton.
EA Indeed on MUSE’s set you’ve asked several times for your music, to focus and loosen up. I’ve noticed you listen to Björk a lot, a singer that often deals with the theme of rebirth. We are and will be seeing you both on the big and the small screen, as well as on many magazine covers, and you are the new, refreshing face of Armani Beauty. Can we consider this moment your rebirth?
AP Music has always been a primary means for me. I think my actual rebirth happened with Andrea De
Sica’s Non mi uccidere. Björk opens the door to freedom, she destroys conventional patterns, she’s extremely emotional, instinctual, also in the way she uses her voice, that comes from deep within her.
EA During the photoshoot, you seemed thrilled to play different roles. You wore several wigs, you jumped in a closet, and even started swinging from the coat rack. You have repeatedly stressed the importance of feeling free: does being on the set of a fashion photoshoot that doesn’t force you to stand still and pose lets you best express what you want to be in that moment?
AP Yes! I felt free, floating, not judged, almost as if I was experimenting with madness. Everything I do is worthwhile, it’s pure energy. Being yourself doesn’t mean being only one thing, but rather many things. Even if you’re wearing a wig that makes you look very different, it doesn’t mean that you can’t still be yourself. You get to know another you, and that’s what happened, at every change of style I met another side of myself. I let the clothes, the music, and the photographer guide me. I was in a space where I wanted to be guided instead of being the one who guides.
EA I’ve seen this free spirit reflected in many of the characters you played, from the resourceful Ludovica
in Baby to the determined Stella in Loro. Is it a coincidence that your characters are always fighting to get something?
I’ve been a fighter ever since I was little. Nothing was ever handed to me and I had to fight for everything I have. I had to choose and make decisions. I had to fight with myself more than anything else: I had a battle to win within myself, wanting to grow, feeling at ease in my space, being able to control my reach. It took me some time to do that, to be able to give direction to my character without it taking over me, to go beyond what’s written in the script, and to understand what more I can bring to it.
AP Andrea De Sica’s new project is going to be a goth-horror, in which people die for love. Death doesn’t bring closure, it only torments the characters. It brings them back to life, like some kind of resurrection. It’s a rebirth. And Mirta is fighting precisely to feel alive. In Baby, Ludovica too has fought, but in a completely different field. She fought from within a society that oppressed her and from which she needed to break free. Mirta is fighting for life instead. And it is perhaps this duality between the person and life itself, the most fascinating aspect of it: humans fight to feel alive within society. The fight will always be a part of us…
EA Speaking of battles, you have spoken out many times about different social issues on your social
media accounts, particularly about animal rights. You believe that animals deserve the same respect as
humans, and you have also joined several fights against animal exploitation. Do you feel support when you have such discussions with your followers?
AP Yes, absolutely. I deliberately share this so that I don’t feel alone. I fight every day, I chose not to eat meat, I am careful about the origin of what I eat. But you can’t fight for everything, you have to choose your battles. Bringing awareness and sharing even just one of the many injustices of the world triggers a series of positive energies, and I strongly believe in this. I’ve started to fight for animal rights because I grew up with animals ever since I was little. My grandfather was a farmer his whole life, dedicating his labor to animals. I could never ignore this, it’s what my family
has taught me. Just because animals are less powerful than humans, that doesn’t make them any less important. Quite the opposite: they must be protected and I don’t think it’s necessary for us to feed off them. That’s why I prefer to be environmentally conscious and not to eat any meat, and save some animals in the process. I don’t want to participate in the cause of their death.
EA Isn’t it funny that a passionate vegetarian such as yourself has been assigned the role of a cannibal in Non mi uccidere?
AP Funny, indeed! I, myself, can’t believe it! And I’ll tell you what, I’ve decided to become a vegetarian just a week after we started shooting. Preparing for this film has made me value the “powerless” more.
I have realized that by changing our point of view we can understand so much more. I’ve tried seeing things from the point of view of the animals: there are some creatures, more powerful than them, that are killing them and driving them to extinction, sometimes just for fun. In this film, I play the role of a superior being who has the power of eating human flesh, and I can feel like one of those animals that have always been eaten by humans. Humans see Mirta like those animals see humans. Do you get it?
EA Absolutely! And I can feel your determination. Animals are not your only passion, though. You have
always wanted to experiment with art, ever since your artistic studies in the past. Not surprisingly, then,
you have chosen Opheliamillaiss as the name for your official Instagram account. Why did you choose such
a tragic figure?
AP To me Ophelia has always represented the non-acceptance of society. She’d rather die than stop loving. I find her need to believe in love extremely strong. Sadly, in Hamlet, she doesn’t make it because what surrounds her is not love. That’s why she chooses to die in order to be closer to it. What’s most important for her is to be alive for the sake of love. I find her death sublime: the current of the river cleanses her of the evil, surrounded by flowers that represent all of the positive emotions. She dies free, and not as a prisoner.
EA Now I naturally have to refer to the main claim of the issue, It’s You that Matters, which is about one’s own necessity. What does really matter to you?
AP Definitely holding onto that little girl that I have been. It seems crazy but I always have the need to
feel that that part of me is still alive, where there’s no pain, there’s no awareness. Despite having grown up, that inner child is the part of us that I would like to preserve in all of us, the freest. We wouldn’t be able to survive without it. Humility too is what allows us to be aware of what we have been, what we have done up until now, and that projects us towards the future.
EA And how do you see this future? Is there a dream project to realize?
AP I don’t know why but I’m the kind of person that doesn’t exclude any possibility. I let the events surprise me. All the characters I have played surprised me, they really gave me a lot. I feel as if I were a magnet, picking up the vibrations that karma has to offer. I aim to live my days productively, always looking at the
future but without the need to worry about planning every single detail of it.
EA Before I let you go, tell me: when will your black bob make a comeback?
AP Well… it did briefly come back for the shooting! Anyway, I hope it’ll be back soon because I don’t completely feel like myself with such long hair!
