In Conversation With Cristiana Dell'Anna
Cristiana was photographed in New York by Julia Sariy; hair and makeup by Megan Lanoux; interview by Alison Engstrom. Photography assistant Parish Mandhan.
‘Cabrini’ is a wonderful film and your performance is incredible. Can you share what the film is about for those who haven’t watched it yet?
I was trying to explain it to someone and I came up with the tagline that it's basically the story of a badass nun who was also a wonderful woman. I believe she chose to be a nun because it was the path that allowed her to be the freest. She could be her own boss because, at the time, you didn't have any choices. So if you chose to be a nun, you wouldn't be owned by any man and you could make your own choices. I've always believed that that was her main motivation. Of course, she had faith and she grew up in a Catholic family, so obviously she confided in God. But I describe her as a social justice fighter who believed in equal rights. She had a clear vision that she trusted and that's why I like her so much as a woman.
When I look back, she never took no for an answer, and sometimes by repeating the story, I lost the meaning of it. Now that I am talking to you, I do remember again what it meant. It meant that she believed in her thoughts and she had self-confidence, self-love, and she respected herself and others. She understood suffering and the disadvantages that minorities had to go through. She was an immigrant herself, so all these things make her a very complex yet quite contemporary character. Even though she lived during the late 1800s, she was a special woman who can still teach us. We can look up to her as another woman in history who has made history for us all. So the more of that narrative we give ourselves as women, the better it is for future generations to see how big the impact women have had in the history of humanity. She now has her own statue in the Vatican, which is quite remarkable.
When she arrives in New York she's greeted with so much disease, poverty, and inequality. How did you get into her head space?
The moment I know about a character, even when I don't have the part yet, I start studying it—my body starts studying it somehow. It's very much a feeling related to my senses. It feels a little bit like the butterflies you get when you are in love. From the moment I learned about her by reading the script, my brain was already working on what she could be and what she might've been like. I did a lot of research since she was a living person. I read a collection of letters that she exchanged with Archbishop Corrigan in New York. It gave me an insight into their relationship and therefore what kind of person she might have been not only in her private life but in her institutional life and how she related to the institution that Corrigan represented.
There were details and clues about her that I put together and I stored them in a place in my head and I left it there for a while. A big part of my preparation was I lost some weight because I needed to look ill. I also wanted to discipline myself and learn what it meant to sacrifice something. It taught me what it meant for her to help others and to have high values, even higher than herself. She had such strong beliefs that anything else just felt bearable, even her illness. Then I read the script back and forth and it was really my bible. It was a journey that I created for her. She went from a young, naive girl who first arrives in New York and is in the real world for the first time. Not that she wasn't in Italy, but she was away from her homeland and familiar shores in a completely different world. She slowly becomes more self-aware, more experienced, and understands the world better, and she becomes a bit smarter. She has a more mature grip on life and a self procession that is rooted more deeply than it was when she arrived. Those are all the little things that I put together to try and then I just left it to my imagination and my gut to guide me whenever I needed it to.
I think that the story is really beautiful and very timely because America is made up of immigrants. My family came from Poland, Germany, France, and Hungary. We're living in a period where immigrants are dehumanized and it's incredibly upsetting to say the least. What do you hope People leave the film with?
You used the words, dehumanize immigrants, which I agree with. It's so much easier for us to let merchandise travel around the world. You can just buy something on any website and it will be delivered to you in five business days and there is no border. So actual things have more value than human beings, which is absurd. So it'd be great if people started wondering about what kind of life we're leading as a collective. We no longer are allowed to think of the world as little tiny sections divided. We need to think of a more global community. I mean, I don't have a solution for immigration, but the value that we give to things compared to what we give to people is something we need to start wandering about because we've left that behind.
There's one line I say in the movie, we are all children of God. We are all the same. A place like the United States, its strength is based on diversity and on the people who have their own heritage and cultural differences. They make this country great and amazing. But if we want to build a more equal society, then we need to start understanding what value we are giving to ourselves as human beings because it's diminished.
What are you most proud of about the film?
The hard work I put into it. It took a lot of preparation and I was on set every single day leading every scene. I would come with the crew and leave with the crew. It was a lot of work, but I'm proud of it because I felt I was doing something good by portraying a woman in history who maybe isn't known to everyone.
You also work alongside the amazing John Lithgow. How was that?
It was amazing. He's such a sweetheart. He wrote poems to me between takes. He's very funny and so is David Morse who has a dry sense of humor. He would always have me giggling before we would start shooting and would be like, oh my gosh, now how do I get focused again (laughs).
I can only imagine they added levity to the darker parts of filming. But now to talk about your career. How did you get into film? Was it something that you had always wanted to do?
I trained for the stage in London and storytelling is something that is part of my being. It's what makes me happy. I always think of Billy Elliot. Do you remember the film when he's asked, what is dance for you? And he doesn't know what to say until he does. He says, it's like electricity. It's the same thing for me; it’s my way of expanding my life. I compare myself to my favorite character in literature, which is Darrell Standing, in the Star Rover by Jack London. It's one of the most adored books that I have in my library. It's a way of breaking through the limits of the human experience and acting gives me that. I had wanted to do it since I was a kid. My mom was a great storyteller and bedtime stories were my favorite moments. And then when I started reading literature, which is something I adore to this day—I'm a greedy reader— and storytelling became even more a part of my life. And then as a teenager, Titanic came out.
How many times did you see it? I saw it four times in the movie theater (laughs).
I saw it quite a few times. I still, to this day put it on just because it reminds me of that same feeling I had when I was just 13. It was so emotional and I was taken by the story and of course, Leo and Kate Winslet who were so amazing—I was so wanted to be her. But the older lady did it for me–that’s when I realized I wanted to be an actress in that very moment. I wanted to be that older lady with a secret to tell, a story to tell, and for some reason, acting was the one thing that gave me that.
I couldn't do much work in Italy because there wasn't much there, especially in Naples where I was raised. Acting wasn't something you did at school—we didn't have acting classes—we had small extracurricular courses, but it wasn't anything special. But when I turned 17, I had a bad accident and I fell off my horse. I wanted to go to London, but my dad wasn't supportive of the idea. So I did a year of medical school just to please him because he thought I would be a doctor. But it was the most miserable year of my life. After that, I was fed up, I said to him, dad, listen, I'm so sorry. This is your dream. It's not mine. I want to be an actress. I packed my bags with 1,500 euros in my pocket and I moved to London on my own. I started working and putting money aside. My dad didn't financially support me because he said, if this is your choice, then figure out a way to do it, because I have to be true to myself. Looking back, I am thankful for that because it gave me what I needed to make it work.
That's amazing. I love when people have conviction and just kind of pursue what they want, regardless of what it is. And obviously it's paying off. So it's pretty incredible. Is there anything else that you're working on that people should know about?
I just wrapped a Netflix series, which is a comedy, and will be released worldwide in the fall. I love it because I get to use my comedy skills. It is in Italian, but it's a family drama around a story of a family and friends who try to raise two kids. It's dramatic, but it's also very funny.
