Emergent (Actor): Riccardo Scarmacio

Hometown: Trani, Bari, Italy
Age: 29

“I know the best: De Niro or Pacino. The most important American actors. It’s just a coincidence, but all of them…” Firebrand actor Riccardo Scamarcio pauses to chuckle in his heavily accented baritone. “They are American, but in their blood, there is something—Italian.” Of course, Scamarcio is joking that superior acting is bred from the Mediterranean, but it’s hard to argue with the man after witnessing his incendiary performance as a socialist radical in Daniele Luchetti’s drama, My Brother is an Only Child. Scamarcio is more than reminiscent of his American icons.

His latest endeavor paints a striking portrait of Italy in the ’60s and ’70s, a two-decade span that witnessed the resurgence of both Mussolini’s Fascist Militia and socialists inspired by Lenin’s Russian Revolution. Scamarcio embraced equally the humanity and extremism of his character Manrico, who learns to cope with his brother Accio’s allegiance to the warring fascists. A true method actor, he looked to his personal life and the world around him to generate the intensity in his character.

“I find inspiration thinking about my brother. I love my brother, and when I was shooting I tried to watch Accio in the same way that I watch my real brother.” Balancing these grounded moments of affection, Scamarcio used his frustration with modern politics to project Manrico’s righteous indignation. Ironically, these latter scenes of civic outrage were the least difficult for him. “I’m a very passionate person, and my problem is to make less passion when I do something,” the actor explains. “There are many wars, and personally I don’t believe in war. It’s just my culture. Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa. There are many wars, man, and for me, I know—that’s the human problem.”