Lundini, between sold out at the theater and a film with Castellitto

"The anxiety of being 'one who makes you laugh' is terrible. Because then, as soon as you're in a moment down, people say 'ah, and this should be nice?' Here I don't want to have this performance anxiety. To paraphrase the Boris series, 'I want to be Gifuni.'" Listening to Valerio Lundini who tells himself is to be flooded by a river of words, quotes, jokes hidden among the words, not surreal sense but hilarious, self-irony and sudden turns. A bit like we met him on Rai2 in Una pezza di Lundini, a cult program (also on the web) conducted with Emanuela Fanelli. And how it is in the theater, in these weeks, in his one man show Il mansplaining spiegato a mia figlia" (next dates, from 31 May to 4 June at Franco Parenti in Milan, 5 at Arcimboldi always in Milan and 14 June at the Cavea of the Auditorium Paco della musica in Rome). A show that has been running for three seasons now and continues to record sold out.
"Doing it so many times helps to improve it - he tells ANSA - The problem, if anything, will be the new show. I'd have to do dozens of replicas secretly to make it work so well, but how do you do it?"
From the debut to today, many things have changed. "On a social level, yes: wars, famines, the pandemic. But I hope I don't have to hold myself responsible for those. I don't have all this power - he says seriously - In the show, instead, I removed, added. It's a theatrical version of what might happen in a concert: a succession of situations, gags, gimmicks, monologues and even a couple of songs. They are various stories, linked together by a surreal madness. This summer I should also do some dates with VazzaNikki, a band we've been playing with for 15 years."
Raised on bread and Adriano Celentano paired with Renato Pozzetto, but also Totò and Nino Manfredi, "it is with Leslie Neilsen and Una pallottola spuntata that in elementary school I discovered what was the kind of comedy I loved", he says. He, instead, at the cinema preferred to choose a different role alongside Sergio Castellitto in Il più bel secolo della mia vita, a film directed by Alessandro Bardani. A "bittersweet comedy", distributed in the next season by Lucky Red, which in a trip Bassano Del Grappa-Rome brings to the big screen the all-Italian law that prevents unrecognized children from knowing the identity of natural parents until they turn 100. Just Castellitto's age in the film. "After four hours of makeup a day, it didn't even seem to act next to him - says Lundini - If it had been a comic role I don't know if I would have accepted. I don't trust how they make other people laugh. Popularity? If I really achieved it, I was lucky that it happened when I was already older. Today, unfortunately, I live the strangest things. Once a bee entered my mouth while I was on the scooter. I started spitting to throw it out and I didn't notice that in front of me there was a gentleman who had recognized me and stared at me horrified. Here, some fools, once, when no one knew me, I would have done them more serenely". But TV? "I will be back, but it is not planned with the same program - he replies - Of many guests welcomed no one has ever told me 'no'. When it occurred to me that it would be interesting to have Roberto Saviano, he came. J-Ax, who had quoted me in one of his songs, replied 'sure, I want to come'. Of course, the Pope did not come, but I never even asked him - he continues - I always thought of doing something that we would have seen in five, but it was not so. But I preferred to stop, so as not to fall into the monotony of 'already seen'. Better to come back with something different. And I'm already writing some things."