NEW YORK (AP) — You possibly can’t maintain Stanley Tucci from his beloved Italy identical to you possibly can’t maintain cheese from lasagna.
The Golden Globe- and Emmy-winning actor is as soon as once more elegantly roaming by way of the land of his heritage in Nationwide Geographic’s new food-travel sequence “Tucci in Italy,” lower than three years after the same present was axed.
“I think that visually it’s more interesting this time around, and I think that we try to go more in depth into the stories as much as you can, given the format,” he says.
Tucci goes from a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Milan the place the employees develop their very own greens — “Stop it!” he half-heartedly begs a chef including salmon eggs to a pesto risotto — to cooking fish for anglers on the banks of the Sarca River.
“I’m exploring the complex connections between the land, the people and the food they eat in order to discover the essence of each region in the country I love – Italy,” the “Conclave” and “The Devil Wears Prada” star tells viewers in every installment.
‘The people are great’
Every episode of the primary season of “Tucci in Italy” explores a special area — from Tuscany to Trentino-Alto Adige, Lombardy, Abruzzo and Lazio. It was shot over six months, from January to July in 2024.
“It’s a lot of planning, it is a lot logistics. But ultimately, once you get to where you’re supposed to be, which isn’t always easy in Italy, especially in the mountainous areas, it’s great,” says Tucci. “The people are great, extraordinary.”
In Tuscany, the cradle of the Renaissance, Tucci eats lampredotto, a sandwich made with the cow’s fourth abdomen, and a beef tongue stew. Within the Alpine area of Trentino-Alto Adige, he skis and munches on beef goulash and polenta close to the Austrian border.
Nationwide Geographic greenlit Tucci’s new docuseries a 12 months after CNN canceled his “Searching for Italy” regardless of profitable Emmys for Excellent Hosted Nonfiction Collection or Particular.
A lot of the identical manufacturing employees and crew transferred over with Tucci to his new TV house, they usually embraced using the newest drones, giving the sequence a sweep and majesty.
Government producer Lottie Birmingham, who labored on “Searching for Italy” and jumped aboard “Tucci in Italy,” says the brand new sequence pushes viewers into new components of the European nation.
“I think before we did focus quite a lot on the major cities, whereas this time we’ve kind of gone out into the wider regions,” she says. “In Lazio, for example, we haven’t just focused on Rome or in Tuscany we haven’t just focused on Florence.”
Deeper points below the floor
The sequence additionally stops to have a look at among the social points roiling Italy, like immigration and homosexual rights. Tucci and his crew highlight Punjabi migrants, notably Sikhs, who’ve a major presence within the nation’s dairy business, and the influence that Ethiopian immigrants have had regardless of dealing with racism and being handled as “other.”
“Every country does it, and it’s never a helpful thing,” says Tucci. “And after people assimilate, then they often find others to become ‘others.’ So it’s just this sort of weird, vicious circle.”
The brand new sequence — produced by Salt Productions and BBC Studios — in some ways is extra true to Tucci’s preliminary imaginative and prescient, which was to look rigorously at traits beneath the floor of what seems to be a cheerful, sun-blasted land.
“The original idea of the show that I had almost 20 years ago, at this point, was to show the diversity of Italy. But also to, in a weird way, dispel the myth that it’s sunny all the time and everybody’s eating pizza and pasta and everybody is happy and smiling all the time. Yeah, that exists, but that’s not everything.”
It was Tucci who urged a cease in Lombardy after studying an article a couple of homosexual couple who have not been capable of legally undertake their child boy because the authorities would not acknowledge adoptions by same-sex {couples}.
“There’s a darker side, as there are with every country,” says Birmingham. “Italians are so focused on food and family, but what does family mean? That was what we wanted to look at in that story.”
Tucci’s particular contact
Tucci is a part of a crowded subject of celeb journey hosts, which incorporates Rainn Wilson, Eugene Levy, Zac Efron, José Andrés, Chris Hemsworth, Will Smith, Macaulay Culkin and Ewan McGregor. Birmingham believes her host has one thing particular to supply.
“I think he’s particularly good at putting people at ease,” she says. “He is genuinely interested, and it is a real passion for him. He’s not hosting this series just to host it. He loves Italy more than any of us, and I think that’s really apparent.”
One of many sequence’ highlights is when Tucci visits Siena, a metropolis in central Italy’s Tuscany area, and watches its medieval-era horse race run across the Piazza del Campo. Afterward, every metropolis ward hosts a cocktail party within the streets the place hundreds sing and toast their neighborhood.
“I didn’t know about that and I just think it’s incredible,” says Tucci, who first visited Siena when he was about 12. “Italy was a very different place and yet still is very much the same.”
It is that push and pull of modernity and custom that the present highlights, like a restaurant in Florence that brought on a stir when conventional regional delicacies have been carried out with Japanese kinds and elements.
Tucci discovered the meals scrumptious and nervous that Italians should embrace change. “They maintain their traditions, they maintain the quality. But it also stops them from growing,” says Tucci. “There’s no reason why you can’t have both.”
