Roberto Benigni
Roberto Benigni
Roberto Remigio Benigni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRIis an Italian actor, comedian, screenwriter and director. He co-wrote, directed and acted in the 1997 film, Life Is Beautiful, which garnered him the Academy Award for Best Actor and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He also portrayed Inspector Clouseau's son in Son of the Pink Pantherand has collaborated with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch in three of his films: Down by Law, Night on Earthand Coffee and Cigarettes...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth27 October 1952
CountryItaly
I am like a cartoon strip; I am like Donald Duck; everybody knows me in Italy.
It's me, it's my habit to perform live onstage every four, five years. In Italy, it's my habit.
Fellini belongs to nature.
To be in front of an audience and pretending, and to lie, this is the principle of acting.
My father was a farmer and my mother was a farmer, but, my childhood was very good. I am very grateful for my childhood, because it was full of gladness and good humanity.
I do not think the American peoples are idiots. They are a very playful and sensitive people! I know them!
I would like to be Jupiter, and lie down in the firmament and make love to everybody.
Only comedians can talk about death, life, God and Virgin Mary. If I was a tragic actor, I couldn't allow myself. But with this accent I can do it. I can talk with death in person because I am a clown. Yes. And I am proud to be a clown - very much.
I thank my parents for the greatest gift of all: poverty
I remember in the circus learning that the clown was the prince, the high prince. I always thought that the high prince was the lion or the magician, but the clown is the most important.
In Italy, the country where fascism was born, we have a particular relation with the Holocaust, but as a turning point in history it belongs to everybody in the world. It is a part of humanity.
Fellini and Bunuel changed my life for me, they are my favourites. If it is true that movies are dreams, both of them, Fellini and Bunuel were shooting in a dream way.
My mother brought me magicians and witches, because I was very ugly, really revolting. So she thought somebody had put a spell on me - this is the truth - so she made me drink some horrible terrifying potions, for year.
The Divine Comedy' is very sophisticated but also very popular.