This awards season, Stanley Tucci stars in “Conclave,” a film centered on the process of electing a new pope after the death of the previous one. The politically progressive Cardinal Bellini, played by Tucci, vies for the position — despite doubting his worthiness — to stop a far more conservative candidate from winning the vote.
The Focus Features release, which on Sunday won the Golden Globe for Peter Straughan’s adapted screenplay (from the novel by Robert Harris), examines the backstabbing intrigue that undermines elections even among the holiest constituents.
“Why he believes he’s unworthy, we’re not really sure,” Tucci says of his character. “Maybe he thinks he’s unworthy because he’d like it. And he knows that anyone who would like it shouldn’t get it. In the end, what he wants is that the church not take steps backward. However, that does not mean that he doesn’t think he’s not the guy to do it. So, it’s quite complicated.
“Even to this day, after making the movie two years ago, I still think, did he want it? It’s ambiguous,” Tucci adds. “He knows he is ambitious. And as my character says, ambition is the moth of holiness. It depends on why you want to be in a position of power. Do you want to change things? Or do you just want to tell everybody what to do? There’s the great old Jewish expression — if you wish to know a man, give him power.”
For Tucci, ambiguity fueled doubt, which is essential to the notion of faith.
“That’s what I focused on, that he’s sure of where the church should go, but he’s constantly doubting himself and others. Of course, the Catholic Church has done a great deal for many people. But then I also made the movie ‘Spotlight,’ which showed all the things the Catholic Church didn’t do very well.
“Any time you have an institution that is this ancient, this enormous and politically entwined with government and money, there’s going to be corruption in some way, moral or otherwise.”
Along with the film’s deep considerations of morality and power, the production gets bonus points for filming in a place close to Tucci’s epicurean heart: Rome.
“Conclave” was largely shot at the city’s legendary Cinecittà Studios, where a Sistine Chapel set was somewhat miraculously discovered in storage and reconstructed. While the scenes are very serious, Tucci shared laughs between takes with his co-stars and old friends Ralph Fiennes, Isabella Rossellini and John Lithgow, although the days were long and the cardinal vestments were less than accommodating.
“There’s a lot of layers, and it’s heavy, and it’s not easy to go to the loo,” Tucci notes. “It was Cinecittà in the middle of January, and it was absolutely freezing. And then all of a sudden there are too many of you in a small room, and it’s too hot. But there’s so much history there, always the ghost of Fellini. It still needs a little bit of a spruce-up, but it was great.”
The Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning actor has built a second career for himself on TV, first in CNN’s “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy” and now with “Tucci — The Heart of Italy” on NatGeo, as well as in publishing with his bestseller, “Taste: My Life Through Food.”
“We went out to dinner when we could. Obviously, we were in Rome, so there were many choices,” he says. His choice is a place called Pommidoro. “It’s probably the best carbonara you’re going to get in Rome. All family-run, lovely people. It’s where Pasolini had his last meal. It was his favorite restaurant,” he says of the great Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini.
In 2006, Tucci’s wife, Kathryn Spath, was diagnosed with breast cancer; she died in 2009. A year later, while attending the wedding of his “The Devil Wears Prada” co-star Emily Blunt, he met her sister, Felicity, a literary agent. The two married in 2012. Five years later, things got tough again when Tucci was diagnosed with cancer.
“I got really lucky because it had not metastasized, even though the tumor was enormous in my throat. They couldn’t operate on it ’cause it was too big,” he says, describing the high-dose radiation and chemotherapy he underwent. “It devastated my whole organism. I’m still having difficulty swallowing and can’t really eat certain things because it’s all scar tissue. It teaches you to enjoy life to the fullest.”
It comes as no surprise to fans that for Tucci, enjoying life to the fullest usually involves a gourmet meal. And who better to dine with than the U.K.’s King Charles? That’s what he’ll be doing in February, when the Italian Embassy there holds a feast in his honor. When the ambassador put the idea of a dinner before the king, Charles had only one stipulation.
“He said, ‘I’ll have it if Stanley Tucci comes,’” the actor says, laughing, while noting the king is a fan of his on-air Italy travels. Together with the ambassador they decided to approach their mutual friend, chef Francesco Marchese. To be held at a royal residence outside London, it will include a menu composed of traditional Italian dishes sourced from British ingredients.
“So, a big porchetta, because British pork is amazing,” Tucci says. “And in the winter, we have amazing squash and black kale, seafood — Britain has an amazing larder. It will be for people to enjoy the shared principles and love of food between Italy and England.”
