Arghavan Ashtari; Franco Nero the famous Italian actor who has acted in more than 200 movies and teles is one of the guests of 36th FIFF. Nero has the experience of cooperating with filmmakers like John Huston, Luis Bunuel, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Claude Chabrol and Franco Zifferelli. With playing in leading role of “Django” (Sergio corbucci) in Spaghetti Western he came to fame in 1960s, then many years after, he acted a short role in “Django Unchained” (2012, Quentin Tarantino) which was under the high influence of Spaghetti Western. Nero has won the Art Lifetime Achievement Award from Milano, Moscow, Transylvania, and Taormina.
In “The Bible; In the Beginning”(1966) directed by John Huston you acted. How was the cooperation was happened?
-I was so young, I guess I was 22, and I had no money, I was the assistant of a photographer who took photos in photographers’ local from paintings. One day, a photographer from De Laurentiis Studio came, stared at me and said; can I take some photos of you? I told him: “yes, go ahead” these photos were put one the desk of Mr. John Huston that he wanted to make “The Bible; In the Beginning”. I hadn’t phone, they called my photographer friend and told him, that John Huston wants to meet me in Grand Hotel of Rome. I went to Rome and entered to a room full of people who were his coworkers. John Huston told me: “Come here young man!” I sat in front of him and he looked at me very punctual, then after he asked me to walk and said: “No walk and make a round” he looked at me again and went out. After two-three days, they called again to my friend and told him that “John Huston selected your friend for the role”. I owed everything to John Huston not only for the short role but also for advertisement that happened for me worldwide. They said, “John Huston had a new discover! I owed everything to John Huston. Because during the cinematography of “The Bible” he asked me to learn English language very well. You cannot believe that John Huston was himself my English Teacher. I myself with the help of records, listened to some plays of Shakespeare with performances pf great English actors like John Gillwood, Laurence Olivier ,…and I learned English language with listening to the Shakespeare plays. I owed to John Huston. I explain the reason. At night in London John Huston was eating dinner with Joshua Logan (director of Kemlouth). Logan told John Huston that I’m looking for a new actor and I don’t want to work with some famous actors like Julie Andrews, Richard Breton, and Richard Gullit. John Huston answered him that I -in my movie- have two heroes, which one of them is Richard Breton, and another one is Franco Nero. Joshua said; “I don’t know him” John Huston advised him: “you should do that”. Joshua called me and I went to London to see him. As soon as he saw me Joshua told me: “John Huston was right, you are physically proper.” However, he insisted me to talk English. I wasn’t really good in speaking English. Joshua Logan told me “Unfortunately, I cannot select an actor who is not fluent in English speaking.” I answered: “Mr. Logan, I can perform Shakespeare’s plays in English.” Logan told me: “You cannot speak English, how do you want to perform Shakespeare plays in English, play for me! (Laughing). When I played some sentences of the Shakespeare’s plays, he became mad and said: “so, if you can read and play Shakespeare then you can act and say some dialogues too.”
In “Tristana” you worked with Bunuel and Catherine Donovan, do you have any special memory to tell us about those days?
When I met Catherine Donovan in make-up room for the first time she sat was French women. I told her if you want to behave like this, we cannot have fun on the scene! So, during that time we became friend and had long walks at nights.
You told that television spoiled cinema, why?
Going to the movies is the audiences’ choice to watch what kind of movie. He buys ticket and watches film but finally he can decide whether he likes the movie or not because he sees it in darkness. In TV, the story is different. He can do everything when he watches TV, he eats food, play with his cellphone and watches film beside of it too! So, there is no respect to what has been made! One day, one of my best friends Fernando Rey (Spanish Actor) told me do you know the Don Quixote I’ve played has had 15 million audience, I told him maybe not! Maybe were 200 thousands ones. The others watched film part by part. In Italy, I’ve tested it. A friend said, I’ve watched one of your works in TV. I told him could you tell me the story of it. He could just tell me a part of it. The only advantage of watching films in TV is to loose watch it in cinema! Then you can watch it in TV some months later.
How did you cooperate with Quentin Tarantino in Unchained Django?
Tarantino was a big cinephille when he wasn’t started to direct. When he was working in a video-club, he watched some of my movies and he became interested in them. In the time that there wasn’t internet, he searched and found all of my movies in USA and watched the,. The first time we met each other was in Roma and this is the way that we started to cooperate.
*How much are you familiar with Iranian Cinema?
I wasn’t really familiar with Iranian Cinema but I’ve watched works of Abbas Kiarostami and Asghar Farhadi, also one of my closest friends Vittorio Storaro has been the director of photography of one of the Iranian filmmakers named Majid Majidi in Muhammad(PBUH) and he was content of the result.
I wasn’t really familiar with Iranian Cinema but I’ve watched works of Abbas Kiarostami and Asghar Farhadi
Tarantino was a big cinephille when he wasn’t started to direct. When he was working in a video-club he watched some of my movies and he became interested in them
Going to the movies is the audiences’ choice to watch what kind of movie. He buys ticket and watches film but finally he can decide whether he likes the movie or not because he sees it in darkness. In TV, the story is different. He can do everything when he watches TV, he eats food, play with his cellphone and watches film beside of it too! So, there is no respect to what has been made!