FOTINÌ PELUSO: MY JOB? WANTING TO BE HAPPY

Fotinì Peluso is the typical example of a person you cite when discussions break out between boomers on topics such as “the young people of today who are lazy, who are fanatical, who are ignorant compared to us at their age“. Because she is none of this, to an impressive extent: born in Rome in 1999, she has a degree in Economics, moved to Paris, has had a series of important roles, including that of Irene, complicated sister in Francesca Archibugi’s The Hummingbird (based on the book by Sandro Veronesi) and that of Nina in the Netflix TV series Everything Calls for Salvation by Francesco Bruni, based on the novel by Daniele Mencarelli, a story of life and encounters inside a psychiatric ward.

As well as films with sacred maestros such as Cédric Klapisch (Greek Salad, 2022) and Delphine Lehericey (Les Indociles, 2022), she speaks four languages fluently and correctly and she jokes: «Well, if you like, you could add ten years of piano, and then artistic gymnastics, skating, skiing and horseback riding».

Fotinì Peluso. Total look Chanel
Total look CHANEL: black cashmere and silk jumpsuit embellished with jeweled buttons, white alpaca perforated sweater, gold-effect metal and rhinestone ring

Fotinì Peluso: a “luminous” talent

She is so overworked that she calls us, all parties still rather sleepy, one Sunday morning while she is in Anzio filming the second season of Everything Calls for Salvation. Yet she slyly plays shy and tells us she «suffers from impostor syndrome, because I never feel up to the parts that they call me to play, then I don’t think about it and everything goes as it should, very naturally, organically». Meaning, it’s all okay, Fotinì. «Yeah, sure». More than sure. She won the Biraghi Award as a revelation actress at the 2023 Nastri D’Argento for Everything Calls for Salvation: «Yeah, they fell for it». And we laugh. Of course, no one believes it.  

I ask her for the thousandth time if it has been, unlike the roles for which she has been chosen, a real burden to have a name that lends itself in Italian to all sorts of name-calling and sad puns: «Not really. My dad is Roman, my mum is from Thebes and her name is Paraskevi, which means “Friday”: our family has a certain sense of humour. At least my name means “luminous” and it’s that of a saint, so I have always been fine with it».

Both her mother and her famous name come from Greece, of which she has fond memories of the very long summers on the islands Chios and Skyros. «There was no electricity, no hot water, no roads. We washed in basins, Dad fishing, always and only grilled octopus, every night. Since there was nothing to do, my sister and I would make everything up: stories, adventures. I think they were the happiest moments we’ve all had together».

Total look CHANEL
Total look CHANEL: perforated dress in white alpaca, jeweled belt made of metal, glass beads, resin and rhinestones Black and white, printed leather heeled boots, black and white plexiglass minaudière; Les Beiges Touche de Teint in B30 CHANEL MAKE UP

Fotinì Peluso opens her acting career with a hard “no”.

Fotinì’s adolescent path is that of an intelligent radical chic Roman girl – it’s clear from the tone with which she responds that it’s not the moment to discuss the topic of ‘beauty’: she is and knows she is, but no, now is not the time. Classic secondary school at Virgilio, good grades, beers in Trastevere, the Cinema America social club. And then the encounter with acting, which all started with a “no“: that from Ivan Cotroneo when looking for the protagonist of One Kiss, for which he chose Valentina Romani, «but only because he wanted an older girl» (bye bye impostor syndrome!). Cotroneo would then seek her out for the TV show La compagnia del cigno (2018 and 2020).

« As a person, I’m not defined by my work, my interests or my professional position. I am much more than the sum of every single recognisable part of me»

So here it is: having achieved such widespread hype and visibility at the age of 24 doesn’t inflate you a bit, when you’re so young? What if all this recognition randomly disappeared tomorrow, even if that’s not even remotely possible? «Well, look: I don’t know. It’s that as a person, I’m not defined by my job, my interests, or my professional position.

It bothers me when I see colleagues, even older than me, who depend too much on this life in the eyes of others, and I wonder how much they’ve actually had to give up themselves, their roots, their essence. I don’t think that would happen to me, because I’m so much more than the sum of every single recognisable part of me. For me the important thing is to be happy, and if you want to, you almost always find a way to be happy. I strive to be an extremely positive person, and I think I can always appreciate the things that make me happy every day. Acting is part of me, but not success: if I no longer acted on TV or in the cinema, well: I’d do it in front of the mirror. It wouldn’t be a problem, really».

How about love? «Of course, that too. But I admit that I don’t go overboard when I’m in a relationship either, also because my boyfriend, who’s French, lives in Rome. In short, we traded nationalities, and so we see each other as often as we can». 

In terms of brightness, Fotinì Peluso seems to be surrounded more by that of Voltaire and Diderot’s Enlightenment than by that of her own travelling neon sign. Isn’t that a touch too rational? «Being stubborn and convinced of what you do is not equivalent to cultivating cynicism or sentimental aridity: on the contrary, it’s quite the opposite. You protect them, you put them in a greenhouse to avoid exposing them to the bad weather of a world that lives above all in the two-dimensional image of social media».

Total look CHANEL
Total look CHANEL: black and pink patterned wool tweed short jacket and bermuda shorts embellished with jeweled buttons, metal and rhinestone jeweled bel, pink and black tweed and metal bag, shiny black fabric and grosgrain slingbacks embellished with white camellias ; Coco Crush necklace in 18 k BEIGE GOLD and diamonds CHANEL FINE JEWELRY Ombre Première Libre in Sycomore CHANEL MAKE UP

«I think my generation is struggling to have a little more visibility, but I also think there’s still a long way to go»

Is there enough room for a new generation of young actors? «I really think so… Or at least there’s much more than there was for the generation before mine. The problem in Italian cinema is that unfortunately there’s a rather small niche of professionals from which the main characters of a new project are chosen, but now there’s also a whole new wave of very young directors with whom we are teaming up. And that’s the point: the concept of group, of team, accompanies all young people working in cinema, without too much competitiveness».

So it’s even more pointless to ask you if, with such an idyllic situation, there are enough roles, plots, scripts for women… «No». A rather concise answer. What did you say? «No. But this happens everywhere, not only in Italy. The presence of women in cinema is extremely limited in terms of those who work there, from directors to actresses, from operators to screenwriters. But have you ever noticed that, in every event in which an award is given, the women receiving them have always been a minority? And it’s not true that roles and scripts are only lacking for older female artists. They’re lacking for women in general. There’s a breadth of the male role in every field of the film industry that is overflowing, excessive, incomparable».

Shall we end our interview with something a bit more positive, Fotinì? «I think my generation is struggling to have a little more visibility, but I also think there’s still a long way to go, in every field of creative or artistic expression».

«Every rejection leaves me disappointed. Fortunately, it doesn’t last long. I go out, I take a walk, I look up and I tell myself that I can’t be influenced by a part I haven’t been given. There will be more»

Last question: once there was a big difference between “busy” actors and those of “TV” or “popular” actors. Do you, who have worked with very intellectual directors and widespread series, still suffer from this subdivision? «Honestly, no. I believe that the release of author-created series even on extremely “democratic” platforms like Netflix or Amazon have helped to break down certain pseudo-intellectual walls and to give precedence to the skill of individuals».
Be honest: when Cotroneo said “no” to you at the beginning of your career, were you upset? How do you handle professional rejection? «Um… Not well. But since I’m always a victim of the famous impostor syndrome, let’s say that I have a harder time not so much accepting a “no”, but in explaining why they said “yes”. But it’s useless: every rejection leaves me disappointed. Fortunately it doesn’t last long. I go out, I take a walk, I look up and I tell myself that I can’t be influenced by a part I haven’t been given. There will be more. Here’s the happy ending you were looking for. Satisfied?». And she laughs. 

 

Fotinì Peluso
Total look CHANEL: black and white cashmere sweater embellished with feathers; Rouge Coco Bloom in Ease CHANEL MAKE UP
Fotinì Peluso. Total look CHANEL
Total look CHANEL: black and pink patterned wool tweed short jacket embellished with jeweled buttons
Coco Crush necklace in 18 k BEIGE GOLD and diamonds CHANEL FINE JEWELRY; Les Beiges Crème Belle Mine Ensoleillée in 392 Soleil Tan Medium Bronzer CHANEL MAKE UP
Fotinì Peluso
Total look CHANEL: coat and cardigan in burgundy tweed, gray and black embellished with camellia and jeweled buttons, gold and ruthenium-effect metal necklace Black patent leather heeled boots; Les Beiges Poudre Belle Mine Naturelle in B30 CHANEL MAKE UP

Credits

Editor in Chief Federico Poletti

Photographer Luisa Carcavale

Stylist Andreas Mercante

Make-up Martina D’Andrea using Chanel Beauty 

Hair Lorenzo – Contestarockhair

Location Nero Studio

Nicolas Maupas, a delightful oxymoron

Congratulations! Are you happy to have come so far at your age? “Well, I don’t know… Even when I was a child, every birthday went hand in hand with the fear of growing old too quickly. I’ve always been aware of how and how quickly time passes, and I’ve been afraid of not having enough time to do everything I want to do, satisfy all my curiosities, and carry out all my projects. Call me Peter Pan, but if I had to decide, I’d prefer to stay at this age...”.

In an Italy where the word ‘old’ has been deleted from dictionaries, 40-year-olds have no intention of moving out of their parents’ houses, and those blowing out 50 candles on their birthday cake consider themselves ‘young’, Nicolas Maupas is a wonderful exception.

Nicolas Maupas
Look CHB-Christian Boaro, boots Sonora

If we were to condense his personality into two words, we’d have to resort to baroque oxymoron-type tricks (such as heavenly hell, hot ice, infinite instant, bitter sweetness and so on). And this is not because he’s full of contradictions, or worse, irritating hypocrisies, but because he’s a dreamer with his feet firmly anchored to the ground, an ancient soul in an agile body, a potential star who would never abandon his old friends, a person who totally fits within his time but is simultaneously unlikely to passively suffer all its manifestations: firstly the mad use of social networks which he sees as preventing him from enjoying the moment and which make time, indeed that time which passes and flows away with rude impertinence, used more to add filters, captions and hashtags when it should simply be lived.

“My goal is not easy fame or instant success: I would like to build a path which makes me better and better and more and more capable”

Polite and sharp, tender and sarcastic, cultured but not a know-all, kind and crafty, MANINTOWN has given him the Next Generation Award, an initiative created with the MI HUB Agency that rewards and promotes the names of talented young people in the acting and creative scene.

I am very happy, even if my goal is not easy fame or instant success: I would like to build a path which, film after film, character after character, makes me better and better and more and more capable. But I would never want my career to turn me into a different person than I am, one who perhaps rejects those dearest to him, sacrificing them at the altar of glory. I expect, no, I demand to remain myself, with my habits, my delicate touches and my bad moods, which I am granted precisely by the love of those who are close to me.

Originally from Milan and currently living in Rome for two years now, he is the son of a French father and an Italian mother – both engaged in highly cultured professions: he is an graphic designer, she is a journalist. He acknowledges that he owes much of his visual and book culture to them: “Especially to my mother, who showed me neorealist films, masterpieces by great directors of the past, memorable theatrical performances. With the result that now I admire both the blockbusters with superheroes and more engaging films, as well as those of the past that are evergreen like Barefoot in the Park”.

More duplicity, more doubleness? No, merely endless curiosity, which is the foundation of my work. Work that also sees us as ‘thieves’, in the best sense of the word: actors have the right/duty to ‘steal’ from their more adult, better, more capable colleagues.

“Actors have the right/duty to ‘steal’ from their more adult, better, more capable colleagues”

Nicolas became famous for the TV series Mare fuori with which he debuted in 2019 and has now reached the third season, followed by another series, Un professore, in which he stars as Simone, son of Dante, played by Alessandro Gassmann. For Netfix, he has played Hans in the teen movie Under the Amalf Sun and in the series Odio il Natale where he plays Davide (a student who Anna, played by Pilar Fogliati, will fall in love with), up to Sopravvissuti in the role of Roberto, a friend of one of the survivors. He is currently filming the umpteenth series: “If I tell you the title they’ll kill me, let’s just say that it is mysterious, dealing with the paranormal”, produced by RAI with Amazon.

Nicolas Maupas serie
Suit CHB-Christian Boaro, silver collier Giovanni Raspini, boots Sonora

“On occasions that require elegant clothing, clothes are like armor, a sort of protection, soft armor”

Although it is already a remarkable curriculum, he sees it as “The natural and organic development of what for me was like a ‘call to arms’, a vocation, a bit like what happens to priests: for me people are born actors, they don’t become them. Although of course I learned a lot in the technical and stage classes at fACTORy 32 in Milan with Michael Rogers and then at Academy09”.

Just like Michelangelo Buonarroti wrote in one of his sonnets, Nicolas also “does nothing without joy”, including discovering that he loves fashion and clothes: “I dress like a runaway when I’m not working, but on occasions that require elegant clothing, like when I was on the red carpet in Venice, clothes are like armor, a sort of protection, soft armor. My mother is a fashion journalist, so the world of appearance has always intrigued me as a social phenomenon. Even then, in everyday life, I honestly don’t think about it and I put on the first clean thing I find”.

Nicolas Maupas film
Kimono Angelos Frentzos, silver collier Giovanni Raspini

“Our culture is mixed, with influences from different geographies and stimuli that are as fast as they are different” 

Nicolas affirms that if Italy, alas, is a country for the old, it is equally true that his peers belong to a generation, “Accustomed first of all to carrying out projects without budgets because we were still born in an era of rather relative economic well-being but which, precisely for this reason, makes minds shine richer with ideas, favoring not the expansion of individualism, but of teamwork. And I’m not only referring to the actors, but also to the musicians, the artists, the writers. This makes us very different from those in their 30s and 40s who instead generally feel betrayed by a society that had promised them money and employment and today find themselves fighting against a thousand obstacles. Moreover, although undoubtedly expressed more with images than with consistency, our culture is mixed, with influences from different geographies and stimuli that are as fast as they are different. Surely this is offered by the period in which we were born: in acting we talk about ‘given circumstances’, or facts and situations that influence the story of the character and become elements of action even if they took place in a past that does not concern or does not involve the plot on stage“.

Already born in complex years, we find ourselves almost spontaneously refuting the almost 19th-century aspiration of finding workmarrying-buying a house, because none of this is possible today. From this contingency, as one of my favorite philosophers Umberto Galimberti also says, derives the difference between us and the Millennials who perhaps have much more in common with my parents’ generation than with ours. Moreover, we are fighting several battles: for civil rights, for restoring an economic balance, and struggling to save the planet”.

“I love beauty, but personally I find it more relevant to have regular traits, because this will allow me to play roles that are always different”

Nicolas Maupas Netflix
Total look Zegna

With a calm fighting spirit, Nicolas also responds with great practicality when we ask him how he manages to be objectively pleasing both to the eyes and the ears (he has a beautiful voice). Here’s a story: once when walking with his mother, he was surrounded by girls throwing piercing stares with eyes full of hearts his way, stares far more powerful than mere ‘like’.

And he asked his mom who was so important behind them, or if there was a stain on his jacket, without the slightest idea that they were fawning over him: is this story true? (Laughs, ed) “Yes, but I’m a bit slow. Being considered physically pleasing has its own value. I love beauty, but personally I find it more relevant to have regular traits, because this will allow me to play roles that are always different, so I can become uglier, grow old, and give life to many characters. The more I change my aesthetic, the happier I am. Also because with this clean, goody-two-shoes face that I’ve got, I’ll likely have a hard time getting roles as the bad mafia guy, or the killer…”

Nicolas Maupas Instagram
Total look Zegna

You can do them later, right? “Well, let’s hope…” And in the meantime, who would you like to play? “A historical character. I adore reconstructing the world in which a person lived in the past, a world I can make a reality with my emotional reactions if I think about how I would have behaved if I had lived in his era”. And who would you like to be directed by? “My dream would be Paolo Sorrentino, Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, Giuseppe Tornatore, Luca Guadagnino, Matteo Garrone”. It’ll happen, right? There’s time, you’re so young… “Well no, not so much: time is inexorable and passes too quickly. Don’t make me anxious, I already told you I’m afraid”.

Nicolas Maupas social
Leather trench Prada

Credits

Talent Nicolas Maupas

Editor in Chief Federico Poletti

Text Antonio Mancinelli

Photographer Davide Musto

Fashion Editor Rosamaria Coniglio

Stylist assistant Antonietta Ragusa

Hair Antonio Navoni

Grooming Chiara Viola

Location Teatro Zelig

Opening image: Nicolas Maupas wears look CHB-Christian Boaro, boots Sonora

Fashion meets Music. Behind the image, a frenzy of emotions

In fashion and the industry that produces, distributes and communicates it, there is a great deal of debate about trans- parency, traceability, awareness of sustainability issues and environmental impact. What if it was also the moment to apply such requirements not only to the material features of eco-friendly clothing, but also to the intangible – and no less important – facets of creativity, in the name of an ecology of ideas, or better yet, the protection of utopias?

Let me explain: in the last two or three years, not surprisingly affected by a great sociocultural and health revolution, that is to say the pandemic, we have argued as never before that how we dress, when it comes to a self-representation, is not the result of a single designer struck by a sudden burst of inspiration, nor the result of a narcissistic selection by those who choose how to be seen by the world. We have finally valued the professional figure of a globular corpus that is the team consisting of different people whose brains and souls work together to decide on the definition of a given image or how a garment can be interpreted, worn, experienced.

Mahmood portrait
Italian singer-songwriter Mahmood, Susanna Ausoni’s client

The stylist, a fundamental figure that has been in the shadows for a long time

At last we have removed the veil shielding the stylist – whether editorial, committed exclusively to the image of celebrities, or allied with the fashion designer – as someone in charge of a group of people who refine, enhance and celebrate a specific clothing language of which the brand’s creative director is the flagbearer and bishop, though surrounded by a series of professional figures who have supported the process in the shadows until now.

They have been in the shadows for so long – in the 1980s, 1990s and even in the early 2000s – at fashion shows as well as at major events, that the name of he or she who had given that particular idea or added that aesthetic touch within the realm of avant-garde clothing, joining worlds apart and drawing inspiration from art or street life (the term streetstyle didn’t exist yet) was barely expressed in whispers by fashion operators. Yet their names couldn’t and mustn’t have been said aloud due to a nebulous and suffocating mutual silence.
This was also true for newspapers, where the term stylist officially appeared in print in 1985 in reference to the meticulous work of aesthetic-emotional puzzles, namely models dressed by a true artist who died too soon from AIDS, Ray Petri, for a remarkable magazine as The Face.

Michelle Hunziker style
Italian showgirl and actress Michelle Hunziker (styling Susanna Ausoni)

Susanna Ausoni, the best-known and oldest living Italian celebrity stylist

I found evidence of this atypical situation when I decided to study this phenomenon and classify it systematically in my book “L’arte dello styling” for Vallardi, which I wrote with Susanna Ausoni, the best-known and oldest living Italian celebrity stylist. That’s how it went: apart from a few American handbooks and biographies of great stylist-muses of the past, there were no scientific or reliable cultural sources.

The research turned out to be much more complicated and challenging than expected since we lacked essential records, which we could only find by speaking with those directly involved, as well as by reading papers, students’ essays and dissertations. We tried to fill the gap that hadn’t been bridged for a very long time, because we were (once) prisoners of a nineteenth-century misconception that regarded the fashion designer as a lonely hero or heroine who got up every morning to prophesy how we would dress: although quite romantic in its own way, it is yet unfaithful to the truth.

Noemi sanremo
Italian singer Noemi attends the 72nd Sanremo Music Festival, styling Susanna Ausoni ((ph. Daniele Venturelli/Getty Images)

Today, as we call for greater transparency in the clothing production process, we should also demand it while questioning who participated in making a trend as a symbol and symptom of Zeitgeist, and what’s more, a transitional object (“clothes are machines used for communication”, argued the great epistemologist Eleonora Fiorani) supporting the desire to express one’s identity. Or better yet, to literally step into the shoes of the character we want to be on that day in that particular situation.

Elisa Sanremo 2022
Italian singer Elisa at 72 Sanremo Music Festival, styling Susanna Ausoni (ph. LaPresse)

Super-famous stylists: Petra Flannery, Zadrian Smith and Sarah Edmiston

Petra Flannery, who curates the image of several celebrities including Emma Stone, Zoe Saldana and Renee Zellweger, in fact stresses how she wants her clients to impose their own personality. “I love it when someone wears something and says: “That is it. That is exactly what I want to wear.” She adds, “And you can get that on the red carpet”.

The stylist duo Zadrian Smith and Sarah Edmiston claims that if a client starts dancing while wearing a certain look, they know they’ve made it. Smith explained: “I end every session by asking: ‘Are you comfortable, confident and happy’? And if the answer is ‘no’, then we don’t have the look. If the answer to all of that is ‘yes’, then we’ve got it. Our priority, and thus the most important thing for us, is the comfort of our customers. As long as they are comfortable, confident and happy, you’ve done a good job.”

Mahmood style
 Mahmood at 72 Sanremo Music Festival

Opening image: the Italian actress Valentina Bellè poses for a shoot (stylist Susanna Ausoni)