Aleteia reporter John Burger speaks with Cristiana Dell'Anna who protrays Mother Cabrini in the new film "Cabrini"
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 - The Jesuits dug here and on the south side,
00:05 so we will start from the north.
00:07 They dug every 15 meters.
00:09 We will have to dig every 10 meters.
00:12 Habilia, establish two shifts and work your way south.
00:17 The other children can also help
00:18 when they're free from class.
00:20 In the meantime, we will make the river work for us.
00:27 (dramatic music)
00:29 Understanding her psychology and letting that kind of
00:48 flourish on its own by adding pieces of information,
00:56 it was very much part of the process
00:59 and to create a soil for the tree to then grow.
01:04 So I had to wait a little.
01:08 It was a long process, but eventually it worked out, I hope.
01:12 (laughing)
01:15 - Christiana, you're from Naples.
01:17 Do you have any family stories of immigrants
01:20 to the United States, particularly New York?
01:22 Any possible connections with Mother Cabrini?
01:26 - We as Neapolitans, we are all immigrants.
01:29 We do say that.
01:32 In Neapolitan, (speaking in foreign language)
01:35 There's one song in the movie,
01:38 sang by Liam Kampora.
01:40 He's one of the actors.
01:41 He plays Enzo.
01:42 And that's in Neapolitan.
01:48 And I've known that song for my entire life.
01:51 We grow up knowing that we are people, immigrants,
01:55 that we've always been.
01:58 And yes, there is, as in probably every Neapolitan family,
02:03 there is a story of immigration.
02:06 In my case, not particularly to New York, but to Brazil.
02:11 They went south to South America.
02:13 It was very popular at the time.
02:14 And in fact, probably the biggest part,
02:17 the biggest percentage of people who emigrated from Naples
02:20 and south of Italy actually went to Latin America
02:25 rather than the States.
02:26 But yes, there is.
02:29 And I still have family in Brazil.
02:32 Some of them are in Brazil.
02:33 Some of them have moved between Spain and Portugal.
02:37 But yes, there is a lot of that too in my family.
02:42 So I know what it feels like and what it means.
02:48 - So what kind of challenges were there
02:50 for you doing this role?
02:52 Can you speak about challenges that you encountered
02:56 in preparing for it or during the filming or anything?
03:00 - With this particular project,
03:01 I really wanted to make sure that I was there,
03:05 ready every single take we did.
03:10 And I think I was, and that was, it was exhausting,
03:15 but also very rewarding
03:17 because at the end of the day,
03:18 I could just fall asleep peacefully because there isn't,
03:23 yes, of course I have favorite takes and favorite moments
03:28 that might not have ended up in the final edit,
03:30 but I was sure that my work,
03:32 I wanted my work to always be,
03:37 if not perfect, near perfect,
03:41 because I felt the responsibility of the whole story
03:46 and of the character.
03:48 I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing.
03:51 So that was a bit of a challenge, really.
03:54 - I think that comes through, actually.
03:58 But I wanted to ask you,
03:59 what were some of the most satisfying moments for you
04:01 in working on this film?
04:03 - It was this, it was exactly this.
04:06 The fact that I always felt I was her.
04:08 There wasn't one moment when I just thought,
04:12 oh, okay, I was a little bit,
04:14 there was a higher percentage of Christiana in that scene.
04:19 No, it was never me.
04:23 There was a very, there was a bit of me somewhere.
04:26 There's always a bit of me, but it was mainly her.
04:29 And I just think probably the Senate scene
04:34 is the one scene I feel mostly proud of
04:38 because even in that speech,
04:40 there's a few lines I wanted to add.
04:43 I wanted it to be very meaningful
04:45 because a woman who comes, who bursts into Parliament,
04:49 no, in the Senate, not Parliament,
04:51 and speaks to all these senators, men,
04:54 in such a powerful way,
04:57 it isn't something that happens,
04:59 that happened at the time every day.
05:02 In fact, it never happened.
05:04 It's a historical, very important piece.
05:07 It's a very important piece of history right there.
05:10 And it's very true, apparently.
05:12 It's something that has happened for real in real life.
05:15 So I was very proud of it.
05:18 And it was satisfying at the end of the day to,
05:21 I had to repeat that speech over and over again,
05:26 over and over again.
05:28 And it was always a long shot.
05:29 It was never cut.
05:30 You see some cuts,
05:31 but it was always done in a way
05:33 that I had to go through the whole thing.
05:35 So it was very much a theater piece for me
05:38 than anything else, which I loved.
05:40 I love and I was trained for.
05:43 So yes, that was very satisfying.
05:45 At the end of that day, I was,
05:47 I just felt, oh, everything else is gonna be so easy to do.
05:51 We shot that scene halfway through.
05:54 So the rest of the shoot was like,
05:56 it was much, much easier.
05:59 And I could,
06:01 I could invite more people over at my place for dinner
06:07 and more enjoyable time outside of set
06:10 to discuss the day and enjoy what we did.
06:13 Before that, it was, I needed to,
06:15 I'd just be with my husband and relax.
06:18 But after that speech, it was very easy.
06:23 (silence)
06:25 [BLANK_AUDIO]