There’s a new player in Emily Nelson and Stephanie Smothers’ game of catwalk couture and mouse: Michele Morrone.
“Another Simple Favor” director Paul Feig recruited the Italian actor, who broke through as a kidnapper hoping to seduce his captive in the erotic thriller “365 Days,” for the “A Simple Favor” sequel (streaming now on Prime Video).
Morrone, 34, plays Emily’s (Blake Lively) wealthy, Mafioso fiancé Dante Versano, who is instrumental in helping free his bride-to-be from prison. In the original 2018 movie, Emily was arrested after Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) secretly livestreamed Emily copping to faking her own death, which she tried to pin on her flailing husband Sean (Henry Golding). In the new installment, Emily taps Stephanie to be her maid of honor at a dreamy destination wedding in Capri.
“I read the script, it was incredible,” Morrone says.
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He admits with a laugh that “365,” is “not the best film ever,” but he reprised the role for two sequels. Morrone has also portrayed a husband who regretfully begins an affair with a robot in “Subservience,” and recently wrapped “The Housemaid” (also directed by Feig). He’s filming “Maserati: The Brothers” with Anthony Hopkins, Andy Garcia and Jessica Alba, as well as another project, which he has to keep under wraps. What Morrone can say is, “It’s going to be so fun.”
He can speak more freely about his role of Dante, which is “nothing like it seems,” Morrone says. “He wants to feel powerful, but he’s not. He doesn’t really care about being a Mafia boss.”
Morrone reveals the important lesson Lively taught him on the set of “Another Simple Favor” and the importance of being original.
(This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.)
‘Another Simple Favor’: Why director Paul Feig ‘tried to kill’ the sequel
Question: What made the experience of “Another Simple Favor” so enjoyable?
Michele Morrone: People were kind and fine and funny and super-inspiring, even (more than) the acting. I’ve learned so much. Blake is in the industry 20 years, and I’m just new. So I had the chance to learn the American acting method.
How does the American method of acting differ from Italian acting?
In Italy, it seems like you just need to be in front of a camera to be an actor. I believe that actors in America take the job much more serious than Italians. The movie industry in America is one of the first industries. So they take it very, very serious, and I like that. We’re working, and we need to make a good project.
The American people on set, they’re so, so polite, even positive. When you work on an Italian set, they make you feel like you don’t know (anything). You just have to do the job. Americans are very open to listening to you. I was so surprised that Paul Feig was there to listen to my ideas. We had an exchange of ideas, and we gave life to the character together.
Is there a specific piece of advice you received about American acting on set?
I was trying so, so hard to speak in the American slang, but then Blake was like, “Why are you doing that?” I was like, “Because I want to at least try to speak like you.” She was like, “No, you’re cool because you have an Italian accent. If you were an American actor, you would be just like everybody else.” It was so refreshing for me. And I really want to thank Blake for that because that was actually right. What matters is the acting, the work, the passion you have for this job, how serious you take a film and a script.
Is there someone whose career you would like to emulate?
No, everybody should find their own way to become original. Because if you try to emulate someone, you’re just bringing a weird copy of someone else and people won’t be so interested in you because it exists already.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ‘Another Simple Favor’: Blake Lively’s top tip to Michele Morrone
