My First Seven Years (Plus a Few More)

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What I propose to tell is not the story of my life as an actor, author and director, but rather a fragment of my childhood. To be more exact, only the early part of it: the prologue to my adventure, starting from the time when it would never have entered my head that I would end up plying my trade as a performer.

I remember Bruno Bettelheim, author of a revolutionary theory on the formation of the character and intellect of the individual, saying: ‘All I ask is that you give me the first seven years of the life of a man. It’s all there; you can keep the rest.’

I have gone over the score a bit: I am offering you ten, plus a couple of pointers towards the years of my maturity … take my word for it, it’s already too much!

Everything depends on where you are born, a wise man once said. I have to say that in my case he got it absolutely right.

First of all, I have to say thank you to my mother, who chose to give birth to me in San Giano, on the shores of Lake Maggiore. Odd metamorphosis of a name: double-faced Janus, or Giano, one of the gods of ancient Rome, transformed into a completely invented Christian saint who was, into the bargain, the alleged protector of the fabulatores-comicos. To be truthful, the choice was made not by my mother but by the Italian State Railway, who decided to dispatch my father to perform his duties in that station. Yes, my father was station-master, even if he was not a native of the place. The San Giano stop was of such negligible importance that all too often engine drivers swept by without so much as noticing. One day a traveller, tired of having to get off at the next station, pulled the emergency cord. It took some time for the brakes to engage, and the train drew up right in the middle of a tunnel.

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