There are compliments and there are compliments. For a young Italian actress making her big screen debut, being compared to Giulietta Masina — best known for her work in front of the camera of Federico Fellini (who also doubled up as her husband), most notably La Strada and Nights of Cabiria — it’s definitely one of the better ones to receive.
But it was this that, Rebecca Antonaci explains, led director Saverio Costanzo to cast her as the lead in his Venice-bowing drama Finally Dawn (Finalmente L’alba in Italian). “Saverio told me that I, in some way, reminded him of Messina,” the 18-year-old says, speaking from Rome.
If Costanzo was looking for someone who could capture Masina’s renowned youthful, wide-eyed innocence, he certainly found it with this newcomer.
Set in the mid 1950s, in the golden age of the Italian capital’s historic Cinecitta studio (and the period where Masina was arguably at her peak), Finally Dawn follows Antonaci as Mimosa, a timid Italian teen who’s unexpectedly hired as an extra on a swords and sandals epic, a sort of mix of Cleopatra and Ben Hur, both of which were shot in Cinecitta. Having been spotted as the latest plaything of the film’s Elizabeth Taylor-like Hollywood star — played by Lily James (pulling some superb scowls behind her kohl)— Mimosa is dragged into a coming-of-age adventure set over one chaotic, Fellini-esque night alongside the film’s tuxed-up heartthrob Joe Keery and kindly driver-meets-fixer Willem Dafoe.
“It was a magical experience — every character, every building around me, they created such a retro atmosphere,” notes Antonaci. “It was really easy for me to play Mimosa, because everything around me was so perfect.”
Mimosa — though whose naive eyes we see the wild night of parties, drugs, dancing, sleaze, hook-ups, and, in once instance, an escaped lion unravel — is initially star-struck by the icons she’s suddenly surrounded by. But in reality it wasn’t wholly different for Antonaci. “it was actually very realistic for me,” she admits. “But they were very kind and generous. And it was a learning experience — I learned a lot from them and their professional approach.”
With her passion for acting starting as a child — “I always found the power of becoming a character and telling stories irresistible,” she says — Antonaci began landing roles, her first professional experience being the short movie il Lato oscuo (The Dark Side). “I was very young, maybe 10 or 11. And it was a hard part — a thriller with a lot of action and drama,” she recalls. Since that early start, she’s appeared in several other short films, and — more recently —episodes of the TV series Don Matteo and Luce dei tuoi occhi (Light of Your Eyes).
But Antonaci says that Finally Dawn — her biggest role to date — is the first project that has opened her eyes up to the fact that her passion could turn into an actual vocation. “I love being on set and playing characters, but with this I really had the first big opportunity to challenge myself, and I just fell in love with the whole world of cinema.” It’s a role that has also landed the actress her first trip to Venice.
Not that acting is her only passion, Antonaci having this year also published Morfina, her first album of self-written songs. “I have to have music in my life — it’s like therapy for me,” she explains. While there were no opportunities for her sing in Final Dawn (although there’s one rousing scene where she — silently — reduces a room to tears through a word-less poem), there are hopes that at future projects may allow her to combine music with acting.
“Actually, songwriting has helped me with my acting career,” she says. “Because I had to explore my inner emotions.”