I was in a Blockbuster Video in 1995 Rome and they were playing a movie on all the tv screens with a really super good-looking actor. “Who is he?” I asked the girls who were working there ( although they were not working very hard because they were engrossed in the movie. ).
“L’uomo perfetto”, they told me – the perfect man.
“They’re not kidding”, I thought. The guy was adorable. In a few minutes I realized that “L’uomo perfetto” was the name of the movie, and that the actor was Riccardo Scamarcio. Still one of my favorite romantic comedies, it’s the story of a young woman, Lucia, with a beautiful best friend, Maria, that has been stealing her boyfriends since the beginning of time. Lucia endures being second best for years but Maria crosses the line when she gets engaged to the love of Lucia’s life. In a move that is so crazy it might actually work Lucia hires an actor, played by Scamarcio, to seduce her friend and pry her away from the guy she’s in love with. It sounds sillier than it is – no kidding. I’ve watched it a dozen times.
The Ashton Kutcher of Italy, Scamarcio has been dating the beautiful but much older Valeria Golino (she crossed over to Hollywood and starred in “Rain Man”) for years, and their relationship is reliable fodder for the gossip magazines; They’re engaged, they’re married, they’re broken up, he wants to get married but she doesn’t, she wants to get married but he doesn’t. The paparazzi never leave them alone.
Since “L’uomo perfetto” 33-year-old Scamarcio has starred in over a dozen movies, like “Mio Fratello è figlio unico” (my brother is an only child) and “Mine Vaganti” (loose cannons), and in 2012 let’s hope he takes every advantage when America finally gets a good look at him in Woody Allen’s “Bop Decameron”. Also in 2012 we’ll get a chance to see him in a movie that’s being directed by Ash Baron-Cohen, Sasha’s cousin, called “The Blind Bastards Club”. That one’s got Mickey Rourke, Lenny Kravitz, and Rosario Dawson and is the story a bunch of blind people that get off on living dangerously, and pretending they aren’t blind.
I saw him on stage in Rome in a very funky version of Romeo and Juliet, and I am here to tell you that every woman in that theater from 10 to 100 was hot for him – This is your chance Riccardo – I think that America is going to love you.
I Love Italian Everything 