Artist Series: Carolina de’ Castiglioni
Carolina de’ Castiglioni is an award-winning actor and writer now based in New York. Carolina and I both grew up in Milan, Italy and met again in the U.S. after a long path of self-discovery. Carolina also lived in several cities such as Paris, Buenos Aires, Geneva, and Hervey Bay (Australia). After graduating with Honors at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, she won four Best Actress Awards for her work in short films “BARRACUDA” and “Getting A Scholarship.” In December 2019, she premiered Sýrma, a contemporary tale inspired by Greek mythology, which she wrote, produced and starred in. The play has been selected for The New York Theater Festival in June 2020.
Tommaso Babucci: Hello, hello, hello.
Carolina de' Castiglioni: Welcome back to New York. What day is it?
T: December 15th. And you just finished your play!
C: Yes, on Friday.
T: This was quite the milestone for you! You just graduated from NYU Tisch and you’ve been working a lot.
C: Yes, I graduated in May. I realized soon that the entertainment industry is difficult to access, especially if you are an immigrant. Typically, someone will notice your talent and present you with job opportunities or auditions. But I am very impatient and didn’t want to wait for someone else’s permission to work. I wanted to work right away. I was lucky enough to get cast in a play in September. But that wasn’t enough for me. I decided to take advantage of that time to perfect Sýrma, the play I started writing in July.
T: How long will the entire process take?
C: We started production on November 1st and we opened on December 11th. So a month and 10 days. Yes, crazy. Everyone I met told me that I couldn’t possibly open a show in such a short time. Yet, I don't think you know what you can do and the length you can go to until you do it.
I thought that was a good opportunity to show everyone that young people can be determined and professional. Many young artists produce exquisite work on low-budgets, Off-Off-Broadway, so I thought it would be nice to give more visibility to talented people that don't necessarily have the right connections to showcase their skill.
T: It can be very hard for young creators to work with older people. I feel ageism is a big factor in the creative world.
C: Man, that is so true. Most of us are aware that sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia are deep issues in our society, but almost nobody talks about ageism. Sometimes I am not taken seriously because I am a woman, but most of the time, it is because I am 23. There is this widespread conception that youth is unreliable, inexperienced, lazy and unable to deal with “grown-up” responsibilities, like producing a play. When talking about Sýrma, the most frequent comment I heard was: “Aren’t you too young to produce?” But I feel like I must start when I'm young. Part of my aim was to expose the audience to art created by young people.
T: Since you just finished writing and working on your play, looking back, tell me about the journey that got you to this point. How did you work on your craft?
C: I had curiosity, which I think is important. I first discovered acting when I was 10 years old. From then on, this passion evolved. Taking courses after school wasn’t enough anymore; I wanted to go deeper in the craft, to learn a technique and become really good. This is what brought me to apply to NYU. I believed, and still do, that its training is exquisite. I knew I was getting into an extremely competitive field and I wanted to acquire all the tools I needed to make my way in it. And from there on? Energy, training, and dedication.
T: I was watching your short movie "Getting a Scholarship." There are so many layers to that short; it approaches sexual harassment, gender, what it can mean to be a victim and the struggle of international students in the U.S. How hard is it to go to a college in the United States, from Italy, and pursue art?
C: The process was complex. The Italian public school system doesn’t offer a lot of information on how to apply to a U.S. college. I did not know how to write a good essay in English, or get recommendation letters from my Italian professors, whose English vocabulary is obviously not the same as an American high school professor. I also had to translate all of my grades, since the grading system is different, and prepare for the SAT and Subject Tests by myself. Monologues and auditions can also be frustrating since theater is not a school subject in Italy. What is more difficult, however, is coming out of a U.S. college, working here as an immigrant and trying to prove to people that I can stay.
T: It's almost like you don't have the right to stay here until you prove that you have enough to be here in the first place.
C: Which is very similar to what my character in “Getting A Scholarship” goes through. She has to decide whether to report her professor, who assaulted her, or leverage the situation to get a scholarship and stay in the U.S. What makes this character so controversial — and the reason why I adored playing her — is that she decides to prioritize her career.
T: It's remarkable how you take on these roles, showing situations, characters and stories that are not often seen in the media. When I reached out to you, you asked me if I was ready to interview a feminist actress. What does the intersection of feminism and acting mean for you?
C: Feminism aims for the inclusion of all human beings, which is fundamental from an artistic point of view.. To exclude the representation of certain groups is a waste of creativity for me. The way I conceive it, art aims to portray every side of the human psyche. To achieve that, we must include everybody, because the world is multi-faceted, people are different, and therefore, experiences will always vary. Which is amazing, because it means movies will never die and plays will never end! There's always going to be something new to learn, a constant flow of inspiration. If you don't allow for universal representation in your work, you're just doing yourself harm. You're not reaching that level of creativity that you could if you had a more inclusive mind.
T: In a business that is so insistent on putting people into boxes, how do you get casted? Are you seen as Italian, Italian-American, or do you just play the "American"?
C: Funny enough, I have always been casted as American.
T: I noticed in your work you always have a perfect American accent.
C: Well, I still work on it, because it needs to be perfect, or else I am going to have fewer job opportunities. When I was first told I had to lose my accent, I was taken aback. It took me a long time to realize that if I can do an American accent, it doesn't necessarily follow that my identity as an Italian is going to be compromised. The American accent is simply a necessary skill. If I am portraying an American character, then my accent needs to be on point to do that character justice. Of course, I would expect the same kind of commitment from American actors that play Italians, and yet...
T: It is definitely interesting. It's funny because I recently rewatched all the Godfather movies, and the entire time I was asking myself: are these actors supposed to be Italian? Italian-American? Why are they speaking this way? Why do I need subtitles to understand my own language?
C:I think accents can be a powerful tool, especially if there is space to integrate it in your character. For example, in Sýrma, one of the actresses, Ekin Naz Demirok, is Turkish, and she kept her accent for her character. The audience loved it. A lot of people came up to me later and kept saying they were bewitched by her voice. They didn't want to stop listening to her.
This event made me think a lot: the world is becoming more globalized and the exchange of cultures is increasing. Perhaps people will grow accustomed to different accents and languages. This topic also goes back to inclusivity. Isn't it more interesting to hear the different ways common words can be pronounced? Just think of Sofia Vergara or Jameela Jamil; their characters are so iconic because of their accents. We need more actors like them. And, at the same time, we have to be careful of the tendency to cast them in the same comedic role simply because their voices make us laugh.
T: I hate questions like these, but where do you see yourself in five years? Maybe ten? What do you want?
C: I want to be surrounded by interesting and loving people and opportunities. I would like to still be in New York, my home. In terms of career, I want to do something that speaks to people, something that can change them and maybe help them. Successas fame doesn’t interest me. Success, to me, is to have somebody come up to me and genuinely tell me that my work changed them. The other day, for example, Sýrma ended and I felt bad because my preparation was off and I thought I gave a terrible performance. I was leaving the theater when I saw this girl crying. I thought maybe something happened, so I asked her if she needed help. “No, it’s the play,”she said. “You have pushed buttons in myself that I didn't even know were there. Thank you.” This is the type of work I want to do in my life, in the next five, ten years, forever.
