Young Mussolini, 1992

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Director: Luigi Calderone

In May of 1992 Antonio flew to Prague to star in a television mini-series called The Young Mussolini about the early years of dictator Benito Mussolini. The story is about Mussolini's life from age 19 when he worked as a teacher, to the beginning of the Second World War.

"The one danger," says Antonio, "it was his own story. It was important for me because I was obliged to create a character completely different from those that I had done. But it didn't have the budget that it needed and we had to shoot, more than with money, with blood. There were four months of fourteen daily hours of work in which I had one day of rest. It was the strongest experience that I've lived for fatigue and sacrifice."

Paulo Jan reports from Spain: Oh yes, "Young Mussolini". Well, it was a TV series coproduced by spanish TV and other european channels, a sort of "TV movie", but divided in several chapters. I mean that it wasn't produced like a conventional TV show or sitcom, but more like a theatrical movie, with good actors, a higher budget and so; the only difference is that this movie is four or five hours long. It was shown a couple of years ago, but I didn't see it, and I think that it hadn't a big audience success (though maybe this was because of the time slot.

That's too bad because this is a powerful drama and Antonio is outstanding. He takes the character from an idealistic and charming young teacher to an obsessed middle-aged man consumed by power and willing to sacrifice everything for his cause. This is one project of Antonio's that every fan should see. Beg your video store for it.

Related Information

In order to shoot The Young Mussolini Antonio turned down a part in an American film with Kathleen Turner and Dennis Quaid.

As soon as the series is finished Antonio is paired again with Sharon Stone (they presented an Academy Award together in March of 1992) in Los Angeles to shoot a commercial for wine. The commercial was shown only in Europe. "Antonio is one of those men that attract women easily", says Stone. "He has a way of looking disarming. He seems hard and soft at the same time. You have no choice but to get to know him better to find out the secret of his character. I am sure that in twenty years he will be considered the same as Valentino."
But, Antonio was dissatisfied with the advertisement. "My behavior in the spot was poor. The filming was very frenzied. I arrived from Spain and began to film without rest. Particularly I don't like myself in that spot. Sharon is very elegant, very handsome, very brilliant. But, in reality, even today, I don't know why I was there."