Jacopo in New York
– HARLEM

When we were kids in my country town in Italy far from Hollywood, we all dreamed of grabbing a pistol, exiting a saloon, and fighting a duel dressed like John Wayne. We dreamed of racing down the streets of California on motorcycles like suburban bandits. We dreamed of being British spies roaming the world and its casinos. We all dreamed the dreams of the movies as kids, but no one in my town ever thought they could become an actor. As youngsters in the south of Italy in my day, these were dreams nobody had the courage to try to achieve. It seemed impossible to become an actor, to choose that as a career. Jacopo, on the other hand, did just that. He was lucky to spend years as a child in San Francisco with his family, which allowed him to grow up bilingual. Then life seemed to take him in a different direction: into the world of publishing and literary criticism in Europe. “It’s strange to think back at it now, but when I was studying in Paris at the university, I had a poster of the Flatiron Building in my room. When I graduated, I was offered an internship at Picador, which had its offices right in the Flatiron”. This young Italian-American man set out to conquer New York – entering through the front door as a brilliant intern inside one of the most important US publishing houses in one of the world’s most famous buildings, located in the heart of Manhattan. At the end of the internship, he was asked to stay on. However, life stories never go quite so smoothly, whether we are in Italy or North America. “The financial crisis came along, many people lost their jobs, and so did I. Suddenly I was unemployed in Manhattan. Things were grim, but I told myself I still had time to go back to what had always been my true passion: acting. I went to auditions, I was accepted at an important school, and I began acting”. Jacopo has recently bought a house — a modern, clean, and elegant apartment right in front of an elementary school in Harlem. The only noises are those of children at play. New York constantly changes and amazes: who knows what this street was like when I was a boy, in the 1990s? It must have been more chaotic, before it became the relatively calm residential zone it is today. “Over the years I have lived in many neighbourhoods. Just like other aspects of life, trying different neighbourhoods has been like a roller coaster, like having multiple lives, the highs and the lows. After the publishing house I worked as a waiter in Brooklyn and the East Village; I lived in Brooklyn ten years ago, when it was still not so trendy; I had two roommates; then in SoHo I lived with five other people; afterwards I moved to the East Village and then the Upper West Side. At a certain point I went back to live with my parents because I had no place to stay. It was strange, difficult, but maybe necessary. One evening I served dinner to Barack Obama in the restaurant where I was working. Today, I feel good here. I feel like finally having a place of my own is good for my work, as if I had found some balance for the first time,” unless one day a call arrives from Los Angeles – the marvellous risk run by all actors. “Who knows? Maybe at a certain point I will have to live a bit here and a bit there. I don’t think California is the right place for me. I wouldn’t like to have to always move around in a car for example, but in the end it’s the work that calls the shots. Somehow – and maybe it’s the fault of that poster from my college days – wherever I go to pursue my career, I will always be a New Yorker”.