The acclaimed character actor not only steals scenes, but he’s also earned an online cult following for his way of mixing a Negroni.
The very funny, very charming Stanley Tucci was tracked down in London just before Christmas. “I feel English when I’m walking through here,” he said. “Do you really feel English?” asked correspondent Holly Williams. “Yeah, and I speak English when I walk through here! Yeah, just the language, not the accent!” Tucci is that actor who you’ve seen everywhere, often stealing scenes, sometimes entire movies. It’s earned him a cult following, though Tucci claims he doesn’t understand it. “People are saying that now. I don’t know what that is!” he laughed. “I think it means that you have people who watch a film for you, even if you’re not in the starring role,” said Williams. “I guess that people really like the variety of the performances, and that’s what I sort of revel in. I love that.” From an ideal husband to Meryl Streep’s Julia Child in “Julie & Julia,” to a deranged serial killer in “The Lovely Bones,” a role that won Tucci an Oscar nomination… and now “Supernova,” in which he and Colin Firth play a middle-aged gay couple. Tucci’s character is suffering from young onset dementia. Williams said, “One of the things that’s interesting is that the sexuality of the two main characters is not a theme in the film at all. It’s a universal love story.” “Yeah, people are starting to come around and understand that love is just love,” he said. Tucci helped get the film made, including sending the script to his friend, Colin Firth. “Having played a number of gay characters, you want to do it so that it’s, as you do with any character, you just want to be truthful to it.” “It’s been muted, but there has been criticism from some quarters saying that gay roles should be played by gay actors,” said Williams.
