When I sat down for lunch in Bryant Park, Manhattan, with “The Four Seasons” star Marco Calvani, I asked him whether anyone had recognized him on the street during the press tour for the Netflix series.
“I am learning to enjoy this time until it lasts. Those billboards on Santa Monica Boulevard, in three months, there will be another face. Sunset Boulevard, we took over, everywhere, my big, giant face. I didn’t know any of this before, so I can’t say I was afraid, but I didn’t know what to expect. Yesterday, I was around New York, and 10 people in one hour on the streets [stopped me]. I’m actually more shocked by the fact that people actually watched it, many different people of different ages and looks. It’s another opportunity to be nice to people,” he said of the viral comedy series from Tina Fey, Lang Fisher, and Tracey Wigfield.
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By the end of our lunch, our waiter stopped and asked if Calvani, the eloquent and delightfully charismatic, out-gay Italian actor and filmmaker who now lives in Los Angeles, was in fact the guy from “The Four Seasons.” Calvani, of course, is now a Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series Emmy contender for the hit show. And in a moment where gay representation outside our screens feels at risk.
Inspired by Alan Alda’s 1981 movie of the same name, the series follows a friend group of three married couples (Fey and Will Forte; Steve Carell and Kerri Kenney-Silver; and Colman Domingo and Calvani, in a rare healthy gay marriage on any screen) over the seasons as quarterly vacations and gatherings test their bonds. Calvani plays Claude, the last addition to the group and one who occasionally feels like the extra wheel as a proudly flamboyant, neck-scarf-wearing gay Italian whose presentation on the surface looks like a caricature, but it’s one Calvani imbues with depth and feeling.
It was Calvani’s newfound friend Colman Domingo, who plays Claude’s more measured husband, who brought him on for the role. “He called and said, ‘Hey, are you still an actor?’ I said no,” recalled Calvani, who got his start in Italian theater before emigrating to the United States. He’s now primarily a director and screenwriter, including on his feature debut from last year, the elegant Provincetown-set “High Tide,” a gay romance starring his real-life partner, the Brazilian actor Marco Pigossi.
“He was like, damn it, because my husband Raul had a vision. ‘Would you mind putting yourself on tape?’ I really thought he needed someone Italian, a bartender, or waiter, who says ‘pizza and lasagna.’ I asked what it was, and he didn’t tell me, and thank God he didn’t, because I would have freaked out,” Calvani said of the “Four Seasons” casting.
Calvani said that he felt free “enough to do it, and it was fun, but it wasn’t easy to try on a more practical and professional level,” he said of his return to acting. “On the page, the character was close to stereotypical, and I didn’t want to do that. It would have been boring for me because it’s too easy. It was quite a challenge to bring pockets of depth into the role, into those moments. The script gave me enough to show some intricacy and layers, but I didn’t want to play the stereotype, the Italian man who screams, who’s theatrical, the middle-aged gay man who’s flamboyant. It was a huge risk, but at the same time, we are doing a comedy … I think when [my character is] angry, even if I throw clothes and say things that are, maybe from an American perspective, an Italian stereotype, I hope I anchor myself to the truth of what I was feeling.”
Claude is married to Domingo’s architect Danny in the series, with Calvani in a role that’s been retrofitted to modern times but was originally built for Rita Moreno in the Alda film. Calvani never saw the original movie, which is now streaming for the first time, and on Netflix. “This was one of Tina’s favorite films. I wasn’t familiar with it at all. I was born when the movie was made. When I was cast, I tried to watch the movie, and it was not available anywhere. Maybe it’s a sign I have to make my own version of Rita Moreno,” Calvani said.
Calvani’s recent friendship with Domingo helped contribute to a lived-in relationship — Claude and Danny have their quotidian troubles as do any couple, but you get the sense in the show of two people really going through jealousy and betrayal (especially as their relationship starts to open up).
“These two characters deeply love each other, even if they’re going through a crisis. There’s a huge amount of respect and passion between them,” Calvani said of their work on the series, which shot in locations ranging from Upstate New York in Beacon to Puerto Rico. “Colman and I have been friends, but only for — not even — two years. A year ago, when we started shooting, we were still in that phase where there’s kind of an infatuation. You want to know more about the other one, so we were genuinely excited to spend a lot of time together. That excitement … was the main ingredient we poured into the roles and into our chemistry and our scenes.”
Calvani said that early experiences in Italy, however painful or struggle-filled, made starring in something like “Four Seasons” possible, and empowered him to feel a bit braver in deconstructing the possible stereotypical side of Claude.
“I left Italy 12, 15 years ago,” he said. “I think I was carrying a lot of homophobia. Everybody knew I was gay, but I wasn’t out there publicizing my homosexuality. I never put it into my work. I don’t think I would have been able to be this free as an actor playing Claude if I hadn’t gone through ‘High Tide’ and also if I [didn’t have] the other career, the writer/director. The fact that I was invited to play this role and act in it is sort of a side game. It gave me so much freedom, even in being so flamboyant, being so theatrical, being more gay in the show than in real life, I just went for the game. I wouldn’t have been able to do that 20 years ago, not just because of Italy but because of the way I was.”
“The Four Seasons” is now streaming on Netflix.
