Maria Grazia Cucinotta , born in Messina 53 years ago, retraces the best years of her career from the time of Il Postino through 007 - The world is not enough .
The climb to success began when she was 16 and enrolled in Miss Italy : “I didn't win but I made it to the final. I was noticed by an agency in Milan ". But the journey, he tells the Corriere della Sera, was still long: “I moved to Brescia from my brother Gaetano who found me a job as a secretary. To round out he was a photographer, he composed the first book for me, but as a model I had no hopes, too much breast. I called up that agency in Milan and got my first audition ”.
Thus she entered the cast of “Back all the way”, Raidue's cult : “I was a goofy. My heart was in my throat and my ears were purple. In the end they chose me perhaps out of compassion, luckily I was photogenic ”.
“ Il Postino ”, the 1994 film with Massimo Troisi by Michael Redford who definitively launched it, was almost in his DNA: “My father was a postman, as was my brother, my sister, my brother-in-law and my niece. In fact, I too had won the competition and a three-month contract, but I gave up, by now I had gone my own way. Dad held my nose for years, until the film with Troisi: somehow I had made his dream come true ”.
Of that set he recalls " Massimo's infinite patience with me , a semi-unknown in a stellar cast". It was Nathaly Caldonazzo , then Troisi's girlfriend, who understood that she would be perfect for the part: “She convinced him. She and Massimo loved each other very much, his death was the greatest pain of his life. I have been grateful for 28 years, even if now we are lost ”.
In 1997 he turned down a part in for a very specific reason: “I was tempted, a film with Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves, no, I mean, Keanu Reeves, when you see him you fall silent. I thought: and when does it happen again? But in the script there was a continuous nude and I ".
