Prolific is a good adjective for Giuseppe Battiston. Friend and favorite actor of Silvio Soldini, he’s worked for Roberto Benigni, Cristina Comencini, Giulio Manfredonia and a dozen other directors in over four dozen films in the last two and a half decades.
For me, he’ll always be “Tino”, the amateur detective running around Venice trying to catch Rosalba in Soldini’s Pane e Tulipani, but he’s done plenty of important work. Most recently, he stars in Carlo Mazzacurati’s last film, the award winning La Sedia della Felicità, in Andrea Segre’s La Prima Neve, and as the bad, bad uncle in Zoran Il Mio Nipote Scemo.
Battiston is one of Italy’s finest and underappreciated actors, playing dramatic and comedic roles equally skillfully; in the comedies, he kills me. Watch him explain to Riccardo Scamarcio in L’Uomo Perfetto why “a Barbie divorce costs double”.
Auguri Giuseppe! We love you here in the United States!
I Love Italian Everything 