No matter where your family comes from, we can all attest that no matter how much they drive us crazy, at the end of the day we still love each other. Well, most of us can attest. Some of us at least? Fresh off her impactful period courtroom drama Miranda’s Victim, filmmaker Michelle Danner brings us The Italians, the story of the Italian-American Vitali family consisting of fiery matriarch Angelina (Michelle Danner), her oafish husband Vincenzo (Rob Estes), and their charming son Nico (Matthew Daddario). When Nico brings over his girlfriend Lily (Abigail Breslin) to meet his parents, she’s everything Angelina doesn’t want in a wife for her son and the night’s humorous events lead to shocking revelations the next day that threaten to tear both couples apart.
Soon everyone in the Vitalis’ orbit are drawn into the chaos from next door neighbors Min (Perrey Reeves) and Murray (Lan Blayne) to Angelina’s brother Sal (David DeLuise), mother Lucia (Lanie Kazan) as well as Nico’s ex-girlfriend Geena (Olivia Luccardi) and the local priest Father Joe (Luca Riemma). What unfolds is a hilarious story in which this idiosyncratic ensemble learn to accept each other for who they are. “The Italians is a heartfelt comedy about love, forgiveness and the belief that people can change,” says producer, director, and star Michelle Danner. “I firmly believe in the message of this film and I hope people will laugh and be moved by it. They may also want to eat excellent Italian food after they see it, but more importantly I would love for this film to inspire the audience to go home, hug their families, and spend lots of time with them.”
We recently chatted with the director and star of the movie Michelle Danner about making The Italians.
Thank you for talking to me because I really enjoyed The Italians and I’m going to be honest, I teared up at the end. It’s Ave Maria that just kills me every time I hear it and that whole montage scene at the end. Did you actually sing that?
I did a little bit, but it was enhanced. I did what Angelina Jolie did in Maria Callas. I sang a little bit and then it was enhanced.
What was it that appealed about the script for The Italians that made you want to direct it and star?
Well, it pushed a little button in terms of being autobiographical. I would never bring a boyfriend home to my mom because that’s what would happen and worse. I always said we all sat down at the dinner table, and we didn’t exactly know when the spaghetti was going to fly, but we knew it was going to (laughs). We sat there with all that stomach-ache, but I had a lot of this craziness going on as well. I think that even though it’s called The Italians, probably a lot of families can relate to it. But to me, regardless of all that, if there’s love that sustains it, if there’s love at the core of it, that’ll solve everything.
Yeah. Now, because you directed, starred and produced it, how did you find wearing so many hats to make that film? Was it exhausting?
No, it was not. It was actually so much fun. And partly, there’s a deal that I made with myself that if I was going to do it, I was going to have fun. So, I told that to myself and I did have fun. But it’s also because of the group of people that came together. As much as this movie is about a family, there is a whole family that came together to make it. I also so happened to have some wonderful relationships with people behind the camera and in front of the camera. So, everybody came together to tell the story and the mood on the set was always very harmonious and fun. And from the cast, I had worked with Rob Estes many times before. Abigail Breslin, I did a movie with her called Miranda’s Victim. And then there was David DeLuise that came, Lainey Kazan, of course, the incredible Lainey Kazan, love her. And, Perry Reeves, who plays my best friend, Olivia Lucardi, who plays the girlfriend that I’m trying to set up, Matthew Daddario. I so much loved working with Matthew Daddario, who played my son, that we’re working on another feature together, probably a few more features together. He was great and I’m sure I’m forgetting somebody, but I just loved the cast. Behind the camera, I had my director of photography, Federico Ferrardi, I had worked with him before. My first AD, Marco, who I worked with on many movies before. Lori Wilson, my costume designer, Alessandra Manias, my production designer, my wonderful editor, Teferi Seifu, and then all my producers that I’ve worked with before, Valerie Debbler, Brian Drillinger, Alexandra Guarnieri and Nicholas Danner. I was so lucky. I had this incredible team, this wonderful family of collaborators.
Were there any unexpected lessons you took away from working on the film, or how it changed you in any way?
Yes, it’s just so much fun. It was a little independent movie. And before that, I did Miranda’s Victim, which was a much bigger movie, and it was a period piece, and we shot on film. So, you shoot on film versus you shoot on digital. It’s a whole other experience. But I love doing the little movies, the intimate movies. I really do. I hope people watch this one and they laugh, and it moves them. We’re not going to say, but there’s a surprise at the end. There’s a twist.
There is, yeah and I didn’t see it coming. I was emotionally involved in it.
It’s good if you’re involved. It’s good that the characters and the story involved you.
Are there any filmmakers or directors you consider a big influence on you?
Oh, yes. Well, of course, I love Steven Spielberg and Scorsese. Ang Lee is a big inspiration. Mike Lee. Mike Lee, an English filmmaker that works with his actors very improvisationally. He works with characters; he delineates their characters. I love the process of how he works with his actors. I love in the rom-com world, Nancy Meyers is one of my great inspirations. I love her. So yes, and I love the movie that won the Oscar, Anora directed by Sean Baker. I love that. I love that this independent movie won, and that you don’t need $100 million to tell a good story that wins awards, you know?
I think that’s a big thing, is that people are getting tired of the big mega budget three-hour movies, where you’ve lost the intimacy, and there’s more of the human story to the smaller films.
I think people are looking for that too. I feel the exact same way. I really do. I am more drawn to the human story. I mean, I can certainly appreciate, especially as a filmmaker, the visual effects, and the special effects, and all of that. But what really makes me embrace a story is the humanity of the characters. Sean Baker, who produced the movie, he edited the movie Anora, he’s such an inspiration.
What role did music play into shaping the film’s atmosphere to you?
Well, okay. I have to mention here comes my son. My son is an aspiring filmmaker, a wonderful writer. He graduated recently from USC, where he studied theatre and film. There’s a song in the movie, if you remember, it’s a montage, it’s a private moment with all the characters. And he not only wrote the song, the lyrics, the music, but also sings it. And my son’s hands are all over this movie. He helped me with the shooting script. He was there on set every single day. I’ll never forget a moment where I did the scene with Lainie Kazan, who plays the mother, and we did it in three takes. After the third take, he came in and he had a hand on his heart. He just looked at me with no words because we really felt it, Lainie and I really felt the scene. So, yeah, he also had the idea of the Ave Maria song. He had the idea of that and the Quando Quando song. This Quando Quando song is an iconic song. It’s a major classic. It plays in Italy in so many restaurants in so many places. So, my dad was best friends with Tony Rennes, who composed the song. When it came time to ask him for the song, he was very generous and he gave it to us. So, that song has a lot of history, too. I remember my mother vacuuming when I was little and singing that song as she was vacuuming the house.
How important is improvisation to you as a director and as an actor?
I used to hate it. I have two stories that I always tell. One is in an acting class where I was next up in an improvisational exercise and I fled, I ran, I got in a taxi, and I found myself in Central Park. I was like, “you’re such a coward” and I pushed myself to go back. And the teacher knew exactly because I’d been late coming back to class, my reticence. And then another time, I had said yes to the director, Henry Jaglom, who did a movie called Ovation.
He asked me and does a lot of improv on set. And I go in and I go, oh my God, why am I here? So, I hide in the bathroom. And I go, he’ll never find me because if I’m not in his peripheral view, he won’t remember that I’m even on set. Sure enough, he sent the AD to get me out of the bathroom and I did this scene. It was the first time Henry was experimenting with digital cameras opposed to film because he used to shoot on film. He let the take go on and on and on. In the first few minutes of the take, I was like, oh my God, I want to kill myself. “Cut!”, “you can’t call cut. You’re not directing this movie”. I wanted to just kill myself and then at some point I heard “Fuck it”. I just went, I unleashed, I just went, and he kept the camera going for 10 more minutes. I laughed and I cried. I don’t know what the hell I did, but a lot of it stayed in the movie. I was really in the moment. So, from that moment on, I really love improv. I have improv some bits in the Italians. And I certainly encourage from any actor that I work with to try things and, you know, and if it goes on a tangent, that’s fine. I’ll go, let’s do it on the page and then do one for you and improv the next one. The whole idea to be on set to shoot is to play, is to take risks, is to try things. That’s the name of the game.
What would you say is your favorite part of the creative process?
It’s hard to say because I love the preparing of it. So, in fact, I told my son “We’re always going to be on a stage. We’re either going to be preparing or we’re going to be in the execution. We’ll be doing it or we will be in the post of it. We’ll be putting it together or we’ll be marketing it like we’re doing now because the movie’s coming out next week. We’re going to do all the marketing, all the press, all the interviews and all of that”.
How would you like the film to resonate with audiences?
I would love people, of course, to laugh and to be moved by it because that was the point that there was a last frame of the movie, as you know, that says why I did this movie. The character I played was a composite of my mother, my grandmother, my great grandmother, my sister; nothing like me though, which is interesting enough because I would never react like that if my son would bring home his girlfriend or fiancé or whatever. But I would like people to enjoy, to watch with their families, to go hug their families, to forgive because the movie’s about forgiveness. I know I hung on to so much while my mother was alive and I could have let it go a whole lot sooner. And of course, enjoy a great Italian meal. Exactly.
Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me anyway and all the best with the film.
Thank you.