Joe Wright Says His Mussolini Italian TV Series ‘M. Son Of The Century’ Is “About How Dreadful Men Can Be” – Venice Q&A

Anthony D'Alessandro

September 5, 2024 at 8:00 PM·10 min read

Filmmaker Joe Wright takes a 180 in the portrayal of World War II prime ministers, pivoting from the wise and measured Winston Churchill in 2017’s Darkest Hour (which delivered a Best Actor Oscar win to Gary Oldman) to the spontaneous, hot blooded and short-fused Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini in the Fremantle/Apartment/Sky/Pathe series M. Son of the Century, which made its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival today. While the Lido gets to see the series’ full eight hours that Wright directed and executive produced, TIFF will be treated to the first two episodes.

We spoke with Wright while he was editing the punk-rock stylized series. He originally shot M. from October 2022-April 2023; the show carrying all the filmmaker’s tonal sensibilities, i.e., deep amber colors, flickering shadows, fierce pacing which we’ve seen in his award-winning features Darkest Hour, Atonement, Anna Karenina and more.

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M. Son of the Century follows Mussolini’s rise, as played by Luca Marinelli, from being an editor of political newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia, to becoming a passionate symbol of hope to forgotten Great War veterans, which spawned the vitriol and violent Blackshirts; all paving the way to the totalitarian’s grip of a nation. The first season captures 10 years of Il Duce’s life, building toward the murder of a socialist politician.

Though polar opposites, Wright’s Churchill and Mussolini share intriguing similarities: The filmmaker shows both in unflattering fashion, while underscoring their audible authority to hold sway over their respective populaces. At the same time, they both experienced isolation in their pursuits for what they believe is politically right.

Those stateside who are fortunate enough to watch the show will witness an eerie political allegory to former President Donald Trump’s sensibility to rally a crowd, not to mention echos to the Jan. 6 uprising. While M. Son of the Century has been sold to most of the world, it still has yet to find distribution in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Below is our conversation with Wright:

DEADLINE: How did the opportunity come about to do a TV series about Mussolini?

Joe Wright: Producer Lorenzo Mieli and I were both doing the awards circuit — myself with Cyrano, and he, with The Hand of God, which, I was a big fan of, and I’ve been a big fan of his work for some time. A lot of people I work with, my editor in particular, Valerio Bonelli, have always told me about Lorenzo. We kept on bumping into each other, as you do at that time of year. I got to spend some time and hang out and discovered that he had a very brilliant mind and a very calm and interesting point of view of cinema.

Apparently, he was a fan of mine. So, we said, ‘Yes, let’s do something together,’ and there were a couple of things that he sort of suggested, and one of them was Mussolini, and I’ve always been fascinated by Mussolini and kind of surprised by how little others outside of Italy really know about him. So, it was another opportunity for me to learn.

I was developing a movie at the time, and so, I said, ‘Listen, you know, I hope to keep doing this movie, but if the movie doesn’t go ahead, then you can count me in.’ Also, the other thing I should say is that one of my favorite television shows ever was the TV series of Gomorrah, which Stefano Bises wrote. Stefano was the writer on M, and so, I was immediately intrigued by working with him as well.

DEADLINE: It’s very clear the series is relevant to what’s going on today politically, specifically in regards to demagogues who have ruled our governments, to the whole Jan. 6 uprising. From the moment you read the scripts, was that influence immediate?

WRIGHT: It’s impossible to ignore the influence that M and his populism, his far-right populism, has had on global politics ever since, and certainly, since 2016, we’ve been watching an even more terrifying return to that type of politics, that type of rhetoric, that type of populism, and so, yes, it’s certainly a very political piece with a great deal of pertinence for what’s going on today, not just in America, but in… I’m very, very sad to say, in a lot of European countries and Brazil and all over the world. So, yeah, it felt like a very, very important piece to be making at this time, and Lorenzo really embraced that. He’s a very political animal, and it felt important not just for Italy and then for the situation there, which is ongoing, but also around the world.

DEADLINE: The series is all in Italian. Did you have a translator on set or did you direct in Italian?

WRIGHT: I directed in Italian. I had loads of crew who were also Italian. I took Seamus McGarvey, my DP, and an AD Danny McGrath with me. We were the only British crewmembers, and yeah, luckily, Luca Marinelli, who’s the star of the show, speaks perfect English, but some of the actors didn’t. It was a very interesting process, directing in another language, and one that I’m not that familiar with. A bit, but not much. So, it was really directing by the sound of the voices, and you can really tell the truth of a performer in the sounds they’re making, but I also have translators, and my script supervisor was bilingual and brilliant and so on.

DEADLINE: How long was the shoot?

WRIGHT: 127 days for eight episodes, the whole thing.

Offices for Mussolini’s newspaper at Cinecittà.

DEADLINE: And it was all shot at Cinecittà?

WRIGHT: We were based in Cinecittà, and all of the studio stuff was shot there, but we also built a large backlot set for the streets of Milan there. We also filmed around Rome and in Naples and also in the north, in a small town called Gorizia, just north of Trieste.

DEADLINE: I actually got to see the sets at Cinecittà, which were gorgeous. Was that a feasible shoot? Had you shot there before?

WRIGHT: Cinecittà was amazing, and Lorenzo had worked out a deal with the lot. We were getting great rates at Cinecittà because of the deal that he organized, and working there was fantastic. I loved working there. I mean, it’s a great combination of all the modern facilities you may possibly need. A very positive, can-do approach, and also this incredible history around you. You know, you feel the lineage. You feel the heritage of that studio and not just Fellini, but you know, Scorsese making Gangs of New York and you know, all of those… amazing, amazing history of filmmaking there. Antonioni shot there. They all shot there, and that does feel special. So, you know, it works financially, and sort of creatively, spiritually, it feels like a very powerful cinematic environment.

DEADLINE: How does Lorenzo compare to other producers you’ve worked with?

WRIGHT: Lorenzo is intensely intellectual. The guy is a serious thinker, and he told me once that he called his production company The Apartment because basically, he just studied in his apartment and feeds stuff out from there. He has, I think, exceptional taste. He is very good at putting packages together creatively.

I don’t mean financial packages. So, for instance, M, he had bought the rights to the book, then put Stefano on as writer and that was a brilliant alignment there. Then he brought me on. That was a really interesting, left-field idea, and I think, you know, was a really smart one, because I have a distance from the material, which allowed me to… you know, the Italians are – it’s a very, very emotional issue for Italians.

DEADLINE: Absolutely.

WRIGHT: One of the first questions I asked Lorenzo was, well, ‘Who do you think should play Mussolini?’ And he said Luca Marinelli. And he said it’s completely up to you, but I would look at Luca Marinelli, and he was absolutely spot on, and one of the great things, for me as a British, English-speaking director, is that I wasn’t aware of the Italian accent, and so I could discover a whole world of actors that’ve never been on my radar before.

And they were incredible, and I had no idea whether they were, stars or not stars or where they came from or what their backgrounds were, really. I was able to be incredibly egalitarian in my casting, but he suggested Luca. I looked at all of Luca’s work. I was just blown away by his work in other shows, and then I met Luca, and he is a complete masterstroke of casting.

And he is absolutely extraordinary, and the whole show hangs on his performance. It’s kind of a one-man show, and so, that was Lorenzo. When I said to Lorenzo, I’d like the technical advisors to do the music for this, that was not an obvious choice, and he was totally on board. Immediately understood what I was getting at, why I was making that choice.

In script development, he wouldn’t get into the nitty-gritty too much, but then he would have one or two, I’m thinking, one idea at the beginning of book one, which I learned… this is a bit of a spoiler, how I describe it, but it just turned the whole thing around, and you just went, ‘Oh my god, that is the line’. That was Lorenzo.

So, he’s one of those people; maybe it’s because he allows himself a certain distance, again, like I had that distance, he allows himself a little bit of a distance to be able to see more objectively, and that’s really, really useful, and then he kind of leaves you alone and he was incredibly supportive at every stage.

He’s certainly a producer who you can call on at the right time when needed. You know, I can’t remember… there was an issue with a very high-profile location in Rome, and it required a little bit of a high-level executive phone call. He makes things happen. Yeah. He totally makes things happen.

[Editor’s note: Mieli departed as CEO of Fremantle’s Apartment earlier this year and launched the studio OUR Films with partner Mario Gianani which Mediwan has a majority stake in.]

DEADLINE: Do you think Western audiences, particularly British and American, will be ready for M. Son of the Century? Most Italians have a fascination with Mussolini, good or bad. Even if you’re not pro-Mussolini, he’s a riveting character.

WRIGHT: I think it’ll be really, really interesting, and I’m fascinated to see the response. So, it’s a very bold take on the show, as well. It’s not a kind of period drama in the traditional sense, you know? As I mentioned, you know, it has The Chemical Brothers in the music. It’s a very intense experience, and I’m very excited for audiences to get to see it. I’m interested in both the Italian response, because Italy has never fully faced up to its Fascist past. You know, after the war, there were terrible retributions by civilians meted out, but there was no social stock taken, responsibility taken.

There were no Nuremburg Trials. There was no truce or reconciliation. So, I’m fascinated to how Italy responds, and I think it’ll have a big impact there, and I think it will also have a big impact in the rest of the world. I feel sure it will, because it’s a very… it’s about Mussolini, but it’s also about Fascism and populism and the right wing. It’s also about how dreadful men can be, as well. It’s also about masculinity, if you like.

DEADLINE: Is that what drew you to the project?
WRIGHT: Yeah, one of them. I mean, one tries to find work that works on so many levels — political, sociopolitical, geopolitical, cultural, but also personal and spiritual. I think that’s really important to sense that. The series does work on many levels.

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Joe Wright Says His Mussolini Italian TV Series ‘M. Son Of The Century’ Is “About How Dreadful Men Can Be” – Venice Q&A