Stanley Tucci
Interview By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com
“Okay,” Stanley Tucci says gamely as he sits down for his press interview. “What do you want to know?”
Perhaps to himself he’s an open book, but movie-going audiences who have had the pleasure of watching him have seen something else: a chameleon. One of the world’s most gifted and prolific character actors working, Mr. Tucci has disappeared into a number of numerous roles over the years: everything from Road to Perdition to A Midsummer Night’s Dream to The Core to this summer’s The Devil Wears Prada.
In Prada, he plays a Nigel, a gay assistant to Meryl Streep‘s Miranda Priestly, the editor of the Vogue-like magazine Runway. When asked if he thinks that people will think he’s gay now, he laughs. “Well, I’ve played Adolf Eichmann in a movie,” he says, referring to the 2001 TV movie Conspiracy. “And nobody assumed that I was a Nazi murderer in real life. So the way I look at it is, if that’s what they think–” He laughs, realizing the slightly imbalanced comparison he’s just made. “If that’s what they believe, that’s great, that’s fine. Whatever. It’s all just pretend.” (“It was a gay Eichmann,” he adds.)
When asked about how to handle the role in Prada, Tucci reasons that going over the top would have been the wrong choice. “You can’t do that with this. I didn’t think that would be appropriate at all, I think we’ve seen enough of the over-the-top gay guy who’s very flamboyant and very ‘flaming’ and all of that stuff. I didn’t think it was appropriate for the film, and it’s something we’ve seen before, and it’s something we’ve seen too much. And it’s a comment on the person; it’s not a person, it’s a caricature.”
While shooting was fun, though, Tucci had little time to prepare. “I was cast [when] they were already shooting the movie and I just had a few days before I started shooting, and my goal was to make this person as believable as possible.” For him, it was an easy decision to make. “It was a beautifully written role, and I knew that in a way people might not
With the movie being a movie set in the fashion world, the clothing was naturally an important factor of the shoot. “The costume fittings were very extensive. I mean they went on, for like, hours. But they were the most satisfying and the most enjoyable costume fittings I’ve ever had, because finding the look of that guy was crucial to finding the inside of that guy for me. This is often the case with costumes, but particular in this movie.”
With such a successful career that’s increasingly high profile, Tucci has developed his own resistances to the perils of success. He has three children — six-year-old twins and a four-year-old — and shies away from attention. “I like to protect them from that stuff, and I think it’s necessary. And I don’t go looking for it, either. I think it really depends, it sounds silly, but on the energy you put out there. You can walk around with your kid and people know that you want to be photographed, I mean, they know it, and they’ll send out that message. I don’t send out that message.”
It seems he’s become critic-proof as well. “Take the New York Times book review. It’s all rotating, people coming in and reviewing. I think that theater reviews, and film reviews, should be exactly the same. I don’t think there should be one person, or three people, who write for the newspaper and give their review… I think it’s awful. It’s one person’s opinion. I can’t tell you how much I hate this.”
Instead of dwelling on the press or paparazzi, he’s characteristically keeping busy. “Yeah, I have three movies that I want to do. One is with [Prada costar] Miss Emily Blunt, whom I think — she’s just awful, isn’t she?” He laughs. “That, I hope to do next summer, with Emily and James McAvoy, and we’re in the process of putting the money together now. And then I have another movie that I was going to direct this fall with Patty Clarkson and Glenn Close and Maggie Smith, but I can’t do it because I’m going to
For now, until the next role, we’re left with Prada to get our Stanley Tucci fix. Someone mentions that he’s really the glue that held the entire movie together. “I was,” he agrees. “Because this whole movie would’ve fallen apart, I got news for you.” He laughs. “Uh, no.”
