Roberto Benigni
Roberto Benigni
Roberto Remigio Benigni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRIis an Italian actor, comedian, screenwriter and director. He co-wrote, directed and acted in the 1997 film, Life Is Beautiful, which garnered him the Academy Award for Best Actor and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He also portrayed Inspector Clouseau's son in Son of the Pink Pantherand has collaborated with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch in three of his films: Down by Law, Night on Earthand Coffee and Cigarettes...
NationalityItalian
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth27 October 1952
CountryItaly
I am overjoyed and extremely grateful to receive this extraordinary honor. These awards fill my heart with happiness, knowing that people throughout Europe have been touched by our film.
The soldiers are seen as a 'presence'. There are no judgments made, for sure,
I would like to thank my parents in Vergaio, a little village in Italy. They gave me the biggest gift: poverty.
The most important thing is to continue to be yourself. The day after the Oscars, you have to get on with your life. To be honest and true to yourself.
Sometimes poetry, it is incomprehensible. But we need incomprehensible stuff! It is very healthy to talk about incomprehensible things! It is very healthy! We need it!
The Divine Comedy' is very sophisticated but also very popular.
My duty is to try to reach beauty. Cinema is emotion. When you laugh you cry.
Only comedians can talk about death, life, God and Virgin Mary. If I was a tragic actor, I couldn't allow myself. But with this accent I can do it. I can talk with death in person because I am a clown. Yes. And I am proud to be a clown - very much.
For me, Fellini was like a watermelon. It is there. A watermelon cannot die.
This is a terrible mistake, because I used up all of my English.
I am like a cartoon strip; I am like Donald Duck; everybody knows me in Italy.
Fellini and Bunuel changed my life for me, they are my favourites. If it is true that movies are dreams, both of them, Fellini and Bunuel were shooting in a dream way.
The first movie I saw - and I don't know if it influenced me - was Ben Hur. We watched it outside in a corn field, and it ran backwards, so the first movie I ever saw was Ben Hur backwards.
Stanley Kubrick is one of the geniuses of this century.