David di Donatello Awards 2024 4 May 2024 1.18pm
The actress, who received the lifetime achievement award at the David di Donatello 2024, told an anecdote from her early days. The director Renato Castellani told her that he would never be an actress. When they worked together several years later, Vukotic avoided reminding him. Alessia Marcuzzi: “We reminded him now”, but the director died in 1985.
Milena Vukotic received the Lifetime Achievement Award over the course of David di Donatello 2024. The actress, while she was giving her speech, wanted to remove a pebble from her shoe. She revealed the name of the director who told her she could never do this job. She was Renato Castellani. His story provided the assistance to Alessia Marcuzziwhich made a small gaffe.
Milena Vukotic at the David di Donatello 2024: Alessia Marcuzzi’s gaffe on Castellani
Alessia Marcuzzi told Milena Vukotic that she read that a director, at the beginning of her career, told her: “To be an actress you have to be as beautiful as Gina Lollobrigida and as charismatic as Anna Magnani and she is neither one nor the other. So you will never do this job”. The presenter preferred not to name the director. Thus, Milena Vukotic exclaimed: “And this director was Renato Castellani, when he invited me to play a beautiful part in his film on Verdi’s life, I didn’t remind him“. Hence, Alessia Marcuzzi’s gaffe: “We reminded him of this now“. Renato Castellani died in 1985.
She dedicates it to her husband Alfredo Baldi, her parents and Federico Fellini
Milena Vukotic admitted that when she was told that she would receive the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award at the David di Donatello 2024, she thought long and hard about the speech she could have made:
Alessia Marcuzzi wins the David di Donatello with slits and transparencies: the presenter’s clothes
The thing that came to me immediately was gratitude, not only towards the Film Academy which gave me this honor which I am amazed by, but towards life which sometimes gives us some exceptional gifts. I would like to dedicate this gift to my mother and father, who since I was little have always made my dream come true, that of being able to express myself with words and dance and now I would also like to dedicate this David di Donatello to Alfredo Baldi who is mine husband and who is also a film historian. So every day or almost we share the great love for cinema. I cannot help but turn my thoughts to Federico Fellini who in this study made Italian cinema immortal.
Carlo Conti recalled another character she made iconic, that of Pina Fantozzi, and the actress declared: “They call me Pina every day. What if she bothers me? Absolutely not, being loved never bothers“.