Stanley Tucci talks ‘Conclave’ and, of course, Italian food

NEW YORK — Should you mispronounce an Italian word in front of Stanley Tucci, you will get a lovely language lesson.

This happens in the middle of our interview at the Whitby Hotel to talk about his latest film, “Conclave,” Edward Berger‘s drama about the choosing of a new pope. Tucci, clothed in luxurious vestments, plays Bellini, a cardinal wrestling with his own ambitions. The movie, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, was filmed at the legendary Cinecittà studio in Rome. I mention that, but fully butcher the word. Tucci jumps in to help explain.

“If you have a ‘c, e’ it’s a ‘che,’” he tells me patiently. “If you put an ‘h’ after the ‘c’ it becomes a ‘ca’ sound. It’s the opposite of English, sort of.”

In recent years, Tucci has become something of an unofficial ambassador to Italy and specifically its cuisine, with multiple cookbooks, a travel television show and videos on Instagram of himself whipping up beautiful-looking meals, often filmed by his wife, Felicity Blunt (sister of actor Emily, his “Devil Wears Prada” co-star).

In “Conclave” he helps to illuminate a walled-off corner of the nation he loves. The film, adapted from the novel by Robert Harris, depicts the chaos and intrigue of the secret procedure that unfolds once a pope dies. Ralph Fiennes portrays Cardinal Lawrence, who questions his own devotion all while corralling his colleagues who are sequestered in Vatican City as they decide on the identity of their next spiritual leader and do some backstabbing in the process. Tucci’s Bellini is Lawrence’s friend, an American who is being pushed as the most progressive candidate for the job. But he is unsure — at least at first — whether that’s a responsibility he wants.

“The most important relationship in this film, for all of these men, is the relationship with themselves,” Tucci, 63, says. “That’s what it all boils down to. They think it’s God, they think it’s this, they think it’s that — and it is, but really it’s not. It’s them.”

His character is ultimately devastated by the realization of what he really wants. Tucci, meanwhile, comes off as a man who is remarkably self-assured, having developed a second career in recent years around the idea of how to live well. It feels like an extension of some of his best-loved characters: the fabulous editor who mentors Anne Hathaway in “Prada,” the devoted Paul Child in “Julie & Julia,” even the restaurateur in his co-directorial effort “Big Night” who whips up perfect-looking eggs silently.

Tucci has landed in New York City from his current home base of London about an hour before we speak, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it. Dressed in a dark velvet jacket with just a hint of a plaid pattern, he doesn’t wear the exhaustion of international travel on his face. He is, however, very hungry and quickly orders sparkling water, a Macallan 12-year-old Scotch on the rocks, and some chips with guacamole. He remembers that the guac was good at this establishment and, once it finally arrives, confirms that it is. It’s not too spicy — he can’t eat spicy foods after having oral cancer.

“Guacamole and Scotch, is that gross? Who knows?” he asks. I defer to him. After all, he is in town for an event to celebrate the release of his new book, “What I Ate in One Year,” a food diary-slash-memoir, where he uses meals good and bad as jumping-off points to muse about Hollywood, family and death.

The book starts with the production of “Conclave,” Tucci bemoaning the quality of Italian catering at Cinecittà. Taking a bite of a chip he explains to me why that’s the case: In Italy everything is served fresh. That can’t happen while filming. “On a movie set you have to cook for so many people and it’s just sitting around most of the time,” he says. Tucci often brings his own food when he’s working: light soups, like home-cooked minestrone. He’s also, recently, taken to buying pre-made gazpacho and sipping on it in between takes. (He prefers the brand Brindisa, should you care.)

Despite his complaints with the dining options at Cinecittà, taking on “Conclave” was a no-brainer for the actor. He was a fan of Harris’ writing, and had read the book while filming the shipwreck limited series “La Fortuna” in Spain. Two years later, Berger, following up his Oscar-winning adaptation of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” reached out and offered him the part of Bellini. The main alteration to the character from what Tucci had initially read was making him American instead of Italian.

“To me it didn’t matter,” he says. “What mattered to me was the complexity of that story and of their relationship to God, their relationship to the church, their relationship to each other and their relationship to themselves within that strata.” (He wanted to speak Italian onscreen, but it didn’t make sense in context.)

Tucci himself was raised Catholic in Westchester County, just outside of New York City. He went to services every Sunday and made his first communion and confirmation, but admits that he never connected to the religion. “I just couldn’t get my head around it,” he says. “It just was so completely detached from my everyday life.”

As a child he was fascinated by Native American traditions, which made far more sense to him than the pageantry of the church. He loved the notion that “everything was connected — the Earth, the sky, the stars, the planets, human beings, trees, animals, water.” He recounts a memory of an illustration he once saw of a person emerging from another person’s belly. He understood it after watching the birth of one of his children. It brings him to a unified theory of why people pursue acting.

“All these other people are inside of you, everybody in the world is inside of you,” he says. “I do believe that that’s why actors are actors because I think everybody is a multiple personality. Actors just choose to access it.”

Ralph Fiennes, left, and Stanley Tucci in the movie “Conclave.”

(Focus Features)

Now Tucci considers himself a “secular humanist,” like his late wife, Kate, who died from breast cancer in 2009. As far as the Catholic Church goes, he believes the “more open the Church is the better,” a trait he shares with his character, and, in a way, with “Conclave” as a whole.

“I feel like Bellini,” he says. “I don’t understand women not being part of the priesthood. In the end I think the more inclusive a religion is, the stronger that religion is.”

These days, Tucci will not take on a role if he doesn’t feel like he can do it — and looks back at some of his old roles with a hint of disdain, including his Puck in the 1999 “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” (“I wish I had another go at it,” he says.) As such, there’s an instinctiveness to the way he plays Bellini, who is presented as the liberal choice for pope in opposition to the traditional, bellowing Italian Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto).

Still, the rituals of Catholicism also informed his performance. “Conclave” had a religious supervisor on set, who taught them the proper way to clasp their hands in prayer and cross themselves. Meanwhile, the elaborate vestments that were designed by costume designer Lisy Christl shifted his movements. Tucci’s notes that Christl’s versions look more beautiful than the actual garments, which are a “little flimsy.”

“You’re wearing the weight of it, which is something,” he says. “It changes the way you walk, changes the way you move. When you look in the mirror, you look like somebody else so then it’s easier to pretend.”

“Conclave” offered Tucci the opportunity to reunite with some former co-stars. He had collaborated with Fiennes in the 2002 rom-com “Maid in Manhattan.” They also contemplated putting on a George Bernard Shaw film that Tucci would direct and in which Fiennes would star. Their scenes together were “intense” but “really fun.”

Meanwhile, Isabella Rossellini, who plays a watchful nun in “Conclave,” has appeared in two films that Tucci directed, including his beloved “Big Night.” In his new book he describes a dinner he had with Rossellini at L’Eau Vive, a restaurant run by French Carmelite nuns and frequented by Rossellini’s mother, Ingrid Bergman. They were encouraged to join the nuns in singing hymns while they ate.

During production, Tucci flew back home to London as much as possible. “I don’t just want to sit by myself,” he says. “I want to go home and see my family.”

He’ll be back on a plane to London about 48 hours after our conversation, and is looking forward to a break that won’t come until after Christmas, when he finishes shooting the latest season of the Prime series “Citadel.” He has also completed the filming of 10 more episodes of his Italian travel series. When it was on CNN it was called “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy.” Now a NatGeo production, it is named “Tucci in Italy.”

If the long-awaited “Devil Wears Prada” sequel that is now in the works happens, he hopes it won’t be until after he’s had some time to rest.

“I need to take some time and put my house in order,” he says. “I have to put my mind in order.”

But Tucci is also not a fan of overthinking — especially when it comes to art. He appreciated that about Berger, whom he called a director with a “real intellect” but “isn’t over-intellectual.”

“If you think something to death you kill it,” he says. “Anything creative, yes, you’re always thinking, but you have to do that stuff beforehand.”

It’s a line that makes me think about the casual sophistication that Tucci exudes as he walks me out of the restaurant, Scotch in hand. He will correct your Italian, but won’t make you feel bad about it.