In the life of an actor there is plenty of competition, plenty of rejection, plenty of obstacles to overcome. Even more so when you are a foreigner. Going to auditions may seem tough; but if one really loves the craft, it should be seen as a good thing, because that is a day you get the chance to act. Massi Furlan, who left Treviso, Italy more than twenty years ago, gives an insight look into the life of an actor, into advocating for one self, into working on different accents and finally seeing all the hard work pay off. He has two high profile movies scheduled to be released this year, Keeping Up with the Joneses with Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher and Trafficked with Ashley Judd on the sensitive subject of human trafficking. And he just wrapped Live by Night, directed by Ben Affleck and produced by Leonardo DiCaprio.
Let’s start with Trafficked, which I know is a project very close to your heart.
You are right, most of the times the greatest reward is not the paycheck, but the satisfaction from doing something that enriches you as a person. The movie is about human trafficking; I play the bad guy, the Mexican who abducts young girls and brings them to Texas where they are enslaved. There is a lot of buzz around it because of the delicate subject. The White House wants to screen the movie and the United Nations is organizing the premiere in Geneva. The screenwriter Siddharth Kara is a teacher at Harvard and he has worked in the past with CNN. He’s considered the leading expert on human trafficking and contemporary slavery. It was a pleasure to be part of a project that brings awareness to this serious problem. I transformed myself for this role, I shaved my head, I have a mustache and I have a scar on my face.
Did you have to audition for the role?
I didn’t audition for this. How I got the part is an interesting story. I knew they were looking for a bad guy named Cesar so I sent an email to the producer Conroy Kanter. I introduced myself and I said, ‘I read about your project and I noticed the role of Cesar which is normally what I eat for breakfast.’ She found it clever. She replied back, we met for lunch and she offered me the part. Now we are friends, she invited me to her ranch in Malibu; I went there for Christmas, she invited me two weeks ago to ride one of her horses and we might do a second film together.
What about Keeping Up with the Joneses, which is directed by the Italian American director Gregg Mottola, who, to my knowledge, is very proud of his heritage.
He asked me where I was from, I wasn’t sure what to say because I was auditioning for a Russian role. If you say you are Italian the automatic question is can he play Russian? Of course I can play Russian, 80% of the roles I play are Russian. We did a lot of improv on this film. Galifianakis and Isla Fisher are monsters of comedy. Galifianakis was doing something different every take and everything that he was doing was brilliant. In the editing room I don’t know how they are going to choose. I was trying to be funny; I told Zach a joke, which I thought was very funny, he came up with something funnier than mine in half a second!
Let’s move onto Live By Night, which is Ben Affleck’s highly anticipated follow up to his Oscar winner Argo. Between him and DiCaprio producing, it looks like this film can be a contender at the next Academy Awards.
Not just them. Also Bob Richardson, the DP won three Oscars, he did movies for Tarantino. The costume designer Jackie West was nominated three times, including The Revenant. It was a long process to get this part. I read they were looking for the Italian mobster in Boston. It was a great role but I wasn’t sure about the age range. They were looking for a 60 to 70 and I’m not that old. I contacted the casting director directly saying, ‘I’m sure my agent already submitted me but I also want to offer my services to help for the casting auditions.’ The requirement was being native Italian and I wondered, who’s gonna be in the room to make sure the Italian is authentic? ‘You need an Italian in the room to make sure. Let’s be honest, there is gonna be a lot of Americans that speak Italian or Argentines, I’ll be there for you to catch all these impostors!’ That’s exactly what I said.
Live by Night is based on the novel by Dennis Lehane and is set during the prohibition era. What was your preparation for that period of time, the 1920s.
I auditioned for the lead role, they gave us four scenes, we had to pick two and I pick scene #3 and scene #4. Scene #3 was seven pages long. That’s a lot of dialogue to memorize. She told me that I was the only actor to pick that scene and I replied, ‘Of course, because most of actors are lazy, they don’t want to do the work, they just want to get the job and be famous. There’s a scene with only three pages, they go for that. Scene #3 was so beautiful, I was happy to prepare that.’ Before leaving the room I told them I knew they were going to get a big name or someone older for that part, but in case there was a smaller role I would have said yes. Remo Girone got that role and I play his right-hand man.
How was the shooting?
I auditioned in August and worked in February. They added an extra scene with me; I was there on the last day. I came up with some ideas like the toothpick in my mouth. I asked around first. Because of Johnny Stecchino I wanted to make sure there wasn’t another actor with the toothpick. Everybody loved it; every five minutes they were giving me a refill, a new toothpick. There was somebody in charge of toothpicks on set. And then one lucky day the producer, DiCaprio, the biggest star on the planet, showed up on set. I congratulated him for his Italian when he met the Pope, I had seen the video. I had a chance to tell him that when I worked with Christian Bale on The Dark Knight Rises I told him he was gonna win an Oscar and he did, he won for The Fighter. So I told Leonardo, ‘now it’s your turn’ and he said, thank you brother. Now I have a new fratello.
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