“My method is not to have a method!” answers Riccardo Scamarcio when asked about his technique. The Italian actor has embodied an assortment of men, from playing the Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani in the 2024 film Modì, Three Days on the Wing of Madness, to portraying “unnamed police officer” in a brief appearance on Ryan Murphy’s 2026 FX series, The Beauty. Scamarcio features in both cameos and starring roles, in films and on TV, proving that “there are no small roles, only small players,” as the Method’s inventor Konstantin Stanislavski once famously said. He’s also written a couple of shorts and produced a variety of other projects, including the film he is on the Lido this year to present, Children of the Monkey, directed by Tommaso Landucci. 

Once you watch Scamarcio on the big — or small, even micro — screen, he never lets go of your subconscious, burrowing in there with his talents. Scarmarcio does concede that his way into a character is to “read the script once, all the way through, just trying to get a feeling, get the sensation, and for my imagination to start working so I can identify with a character.” In every role, the actor tries to discover a “center,” which is where the subconscious of the character lies. With each one, “there is a consciousness and the subconscious,” which Scamarcio explains as “the things that he knows, that he thinks, that he’s aware about, and what he doesn’t know, the things he is not aware of,” continuing, “because always, as human beings we are driven by these two ‘hemispheres’ — the rational and the irrational, black and white, order and disorder, conscious choices and instinctual ones.” He adds, quite matter-of-fact, “I am ready to fail,” when playing a role, “I include that possibility.”

In Children of the Monkey, Scarmarcio plays a father, Dario, torn between his rational thinking and his instinctual need to love. Dario is the dad of a severely disabled boy, Enrico or “Enri,” as he calls him, as well as the uncle to a teenage boy named Giacomo, “Giac,” with whom Dario identifies; in this young man, he sees himself. When Giac shows interest in Dario’s unused, old motorbike, the emotionally burdened father takes him under his wing to teach him how to ride, in an attempt to be just an ordinary dad, the father of an ordinary, healthy boy. It is a performance that proves at once moving, devastating almost, but also a perfectly realistic portrayal of parents living with disabled children. In Venice, on the red carpet for the film’s world premiere, Scamarcio called his co-star Andrea Aggio, who is also confined to a wheelchair as the character he plays, his “partner in crime,” and never missed the opportunity to be by the young actor’s side. Children of the Monkey is executive produced by Academy Award winner James Ivory. 

“Dario is…maldestro,” Scamarcio says in Italian, which translates to awkward in English. “But he’s a good man; he is a good father, he is trying to do his best.” The actor adds, “It is not easy to be a father to a serious disabled son and so we just want to give him some indulgence, some kindness, because this is what what we need in today's time, I think.” The actor, who is the father to a 6-year-old daughter, goes further into this thought. “We really need some kindness, to justify and protect all the mistakes that as parents we make, instead of protesting, you know, with the rhetorical attitude of ‘because my father did this and because my mother did that,’ just to make them feel guilty — being a parent is not easy, and I think we need to understand that and be empathetic.”

I ask Scamarcio if becoming a father helped him get into the role that has earned him an Orizzonti Best Actor award on the Lido, and he replies with an immediate, “it helped a lot! I think in a mysterious way, my subconscious has changed since I’ve had my daughter — I have discovered for the first time in my life this new way to love someone.” It is “a different love,” as he puts it, offering a glimpse into the softer side of this complex man, “it’s a very powerful, deep, strong love that is beyond yourself, you want nothing in exchange, you just offer love.” A love so unique that Scamarcio often asks himself, “does it exist?” He also adds, jokingly, “I don’t want to be a kind of a ‘peace and love, everything is beautiful and perfect’ kind of guy; being a parent is a big responsibility but at the same time, a great opportunity — also to relive your childhood through theirs.”

During a year when politics are the big talk at the Venice International Film Festival, as well as the obvious shortage of women filmmakers in Competition, Scamarcio’s presence reminds me of two years ago on the Lido, when an international production about a famous Italian artist, directed by a big Hollywood star and starring the Italian actor, did not premiere here, going instead to another festival in San Sebastian. The film was Modì, Three Days on the Wing of Madness, with Johnny Depp at the helm and Scamarcio offering an extraordinary performance as the ailing Modigliani, and featured Al Pacino, Stephen Graham, and Antonia Desplat in supporting roles. The lack of a Venice premiere left a gaping hole, a giant missed opportunity to showcase an international production with an Italian leading man at its core. Something which hurt Scamarcio, left him thinking “what is wrong with my country?” he confesses. 

About approaching work with either male or female directors, Scamarcio says, “for me it makes no difference, because when you have to live an adventure, which is the starting point when you make a film, I don’t care if you’re a man or a woman, I don’t really approach myself from a gender kind of thing.” The soul has no gender, he concludes, and “if you have a good soul, I’m interested in you, if not… no, but it does seem strange to me that out of 21 films there is only one woman director in Competition.”

Next, Scamarcio will be seen playing Pontius Pilate in Mel Gibson’s ambitious two-part religious epic The Resurrection of the Christ, which kicks off with Part One in June 2027, as well as in Susanna Nicchiarelli’s Giorni Felici, an adaptation of the graphic novel by Zuzu, also starring Carlotta Gamba. 

When I ask him to describe himself, Scamarcio thinks about the question for a moment and then says “I’m a person in love with cinema, since I was a child, and I’m a better person because of cinema.”