The Italian star shows little of the Sicilian detective\u2019s reassuring charm in the new eight-part series. By contrast, his character Bruno Testori, chief warden at one of Italy\u2019s harshest jails, is a cruel, cocaine-snorting control freak.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, Zingaretti is very much in benign Salvo Montalbano mode when he speaks to Radio Times<\/strong>\u00a0via Zoom from Rome, the city of his birth.<\/p>\n Radio Times\u2019 Patrick Mulkern:<\/strong> Hello, Luca. I understand The King is very much a passion project for you. Can you tell us what inspired the series?<\/p>\n Luca Zingaretti:<\/strong> It started as an idea of mine, which four years ago I brought to the producer Lorenzo Mieli at the Apartment [a TV production company]. We wanted to work together for a long time. The subject evolved and changed over time. I also worked alongside the writers, following the creative process up to the start of shooting.<\/p>\n RT:<\/strong> What made you choose this darker character and the setting within a prison?<\/p>\n Luca:<\/strong> I wanted to tell the story of a man who, in a crisis, loses his direction and points of reference. I love characters with light and shadow, inner conflicts that an actor can come to grips with. In real life you don\u2019t have this clear-cut situation where it\u2019s either good or evil \u2013 even a murderer has certainly done something good in his life.<\/p>\n And the idea of setting it in a prison is because we wanted an enclosed space like a boxing ring where everything has to happen here and now and, because of the poor conditions, it\u2019s also where conflicts are heightened. It\u2019s a bit like a reality show where people are all locked in one place and explode.<\/p>\n RT:<\/strong> How closely does The King reflect conditions in the real Italian prison system?<\/p>\n Luca:<\/strong> Clearly what we describe in the series is exaggerated, but Italian prisons are not famous for being places with the best conditions. Evidence of this is that while we were shooting the series, a scandal emerged in Italy after some convicts were beaten by prison guards, and these guards had to undergo a trial. A lot of effort has been made to improve conditions in Italian prisons but we still have a long way to go.<\/p>\n RT:<\/strong> Do you think prisons in Italy should do more to rehabilitate criminals, and should there be a separate system for the Mafia or jihadists, as seen in The King?<\/p>\n Luca:<\/strong> I do believe that prison should offer more rehabilitation for convicts. Italy has been sanctioned by the EU community because of the system of \u201c41 bis\u201d [an emergency measure to deal with prison unrest], which is a specific provision for mafia mobsters and members of organised crime. It\u2019s clear that once in prison these people should not be able to order or govern their Mafia families from inside, and maybe different systems should be put in place to prevent that.<\/p> RT:<\/strong> And what we see on screen \u2013 is that a set or did you go to a real prison?<\/p>\n Luca:<\/strong> It is a real prison from the 1800s, Carcere le Nuove in Turin, which has been turned into a museum. We took a wing of it which is not used so much as a museum and repainted it and took it back to look like a prison. It\u2019s extremely important for us to film in a real location \u2013 not only from a visual standpoint, but for the actors, physically, to perceive and feel the burden of being in prison.<\/p>\n RT:<\/strong> Did you visit any active prisons for research?<\/p>\n Luca:<\/strong> I talked with many non-profit-making organisations that work with convicts, and in the series there are actually some ex-convicts.<\/p>\n RT:<\/strong> Bruno Testori\u2019s best friend, who gets killed early on, is called Nicola. Is he named after your brother [Nicola Zingaretti, a famous Italian politician]?<\/p>\n Luca:<\/strong> No, truly. I was not involved in choosing my best friend\u2019s name. My own character Bruno, though, is named after one of my best friends who died tragically a couple of years ago. I thought it would be a nice thing to do \u2013 to wear that name.<\/p>\n RT:<\/strong> What would you say are the differences and similarities between Bruno Testori and Salvo Montalbano? They have a strong but very different sense of justice and morality.<\/p>\n Luca: <\/strong>I have to say that these two characters Salvo and Bruno have come from a completely different framework and background. Salvo comes from literature, the books of Andrea Camilleri, and is Camilleri\u2019s alibi to express his vision of the world \u2013 a kind of timeless world where you see very few people, very few cars or mobile phones. The character of [Montalbano police officer] Catarella is very weird, like he\u2019s from commedia dell\u2019arte \u2013 a kind of Harlequin. Bruno is much tougher and used to talking about direct reality.<\/p>\n RT:<\/strong> Inspector Montalbano is popular in the UK \u2013 the books and the films \u2013 but the author Camilleri died in July 2019. Are there more stories to be filmed? When do you think you\u2019ll say goodbye to Salvo?<\/p>\n Luca:<\/strong> There are still two novels left which Camilleri published before his death, and some short stories but most of them have been used up. In 2019 we not only bid goodbye to Camilleri, but the series director Alberto Sironi died and Luciano Ricceri, the production designer, who had chosen all those places we filmed in. Montalbano\u2019s last novel has been published in Italy. It\u2019s called Riccardino, like a \u201csmall Richard\u201d, and it\u2019s one of the two novels that hasn\u2019t been adapted into a TV film yet.<\/p>\n RT:<\/strong> So did Camilleri discuss with you at all how the story might come to an end?<\/p>\n Luca:<\/strong> Actually, he told me that he had written the novel as a kind of game where the literary character would question the writer and ask him something about me playing him on screen.<\/p>\n RT:<\/strong> You\u2019ve directed the last three Montalbano films \u2013 do you enjoy directing and will you direct more projects?<\/p>\n Luca:<\/strong> Yes, very much. I\u2019m developing my first movie and my first series as a director. The film will be a story of rebirth, about a young man with many problems who is getting himself out of that tunnel. And the series is the story of a lawyer in Milan, a woman who is going through a series of events and adventures.<\/p>\n RT:<\/strong> What hopes do you have for more seasons of The King?<\/p>\n Luca:<\/strong> It\u2019s been a huge success in Italy already and was a triumph at the TV series festival in Lille, so we\u2019re going to start the second season soon.<\/p>\n RT:<\/strong> You\u2019re recognised all round the world. Any plans to come to the UK soon?<\/p>\n Luca:<\/strong> For all of us actors, especially my generation, England has always been the homeland of theatre. I am a stage actor. I was there four years ago to do a reading and it was extremely moving and touching, so I come back to England every time I can with a lot of pleasure.<\/p>\n The King is available to watch on Sky<\/a> and NOW from today (Tuesday 19th April). <\/strong>For all the latest news, visit our dedicated Drama<\/a>\u00a0hub, or find out what else to watch with our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n The latest issue of Radio Times is on sale now \u2013\u00a0subscribe now<\/a>\u00a0to get each issue delivered to your door. For more from the biggest stars in TV, l<\/strong>isten to the\u00a0Radio Times podcast<\/a>\u00a0with Jane Garvey.<\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Patrick Mulkern Published: Tuesday, 19 April 2022 at 12:00 am Fans of BBC Four\u2019s Inspector Montalbano are in for a jolt when they catch Luca Zingaretti\u2019s performance in Sky Atlantic drama The King. The Italian star shows little of the Sicilian detective\u2019s reassuring charm in the new eight-part series. By contrast, his character Bruno […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":14095,"template":"","categories":[1,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/04\/luca-zingaretti-on-gritty-prison-drama-the-king-and-future-of-inspector-montalbano-scaled.jpg",2560,1282,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/04\/luca-zingaretti-on-gritty-prison-drama-the-king-and-future-of-inspector-montalbano-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/04\/luca-zingaretti-on-gritty-prison-drama-the-king-and-future-of-inspector-montalbano-300x150.jpg",300,150,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/04\/luca-zingaretti-on-gritty-prison-drama-the-king-and-future-of-inspector-montalbano-768x385.jpg",768,385,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/04\/luca-zingaretti-on-gritty-prison-drama-the-king-and-future-of-inspector-montalbano-1024x513.jpg",800,401,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/04\/luca-zingaretti-on-gritty-prison-drama-the-king-and-future-of-inspector-montalbano-1536x769.jpg",1536,769,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/04\/luca-zingaretti-on-gritty-prison-drama-the-king-and-future-of-inspector-montalbano-2048x1026.jpg",2048,1026,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Patrick Mulkern Published: Tuesday, 19 April 2022 at 12:00 am Fans of BBC Four\u2019s Inspector Montalbano are in for a jolt when they catch Luca Zingaretti\u2019s performance in Sky Atlantic drama The King. The Italian star shows little of the Sicilian detective\u2019s reassuring charm in the new eight-part series. By contrast, his character Bruno…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/14094"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2022\/04\/The-King-Sky-Atlantic-ff7d0c3.jpg?quality=90&crop=32px%2C190px%2C7678px%2C5114px&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
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