Adam Driver jokingly admits to not being the most strategic when it comes to choosing roles, The Wrap reported, citing the Academy Award nominee's appearance in the podcast Smartless.
Case in point, he has played two Italian icons back to back and he's tired of the questions about it. The actor spoke with Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Sean Hayes on Monday about playing Maurizio Gucci in the 2021 film House of Gucci opposite Lady Gaga and Enzo Ferrari in 2023's Ferrari.
Driver insisted it's because of directors Ridley Scott and Michael Mann, and nothing to do with doing an Italian accent.
Adam Driver and his Italian jobs
“Who gives a s**t that it was two Italians back to back?” he asked.
The question regarding Driver's seeming penchant for Italians came about when he said he hasn't employed any kind of strategy when it comes to his acting career. Driver's roles over the years have ranged from playing an actor in his breakout role in Lena Dunham's Girls to a Jedi who finds redemption as Kylo Ren in the Star Wars reboot. Driver has also received several awards and nominations in his career.
He joked that playing Gucci and Ferrari back to back was “a good example of not being strategic in a way that I probably should.”
“So many people have been like, ‘How many Italians — ?’ I’m like, it’s just kind of worked out that way,” Driver stated, saying that maybe someone on his management team should have warned him that the Italian question was “going to come up a lot.”
He continued, “But I’m like, you know, it’s Ridley and it’s Michael and they’re in my mind some of the best filmmakers. Who gives a s**t that it was two Italians back to back?”
“Adam, are you happy to be playing Italians?”
The Hollywood Reporter ran an article about the idea of Americans playing foreign cultural icons as “cultural appropriation” in Napoleon and Ferrari. French and Italian critics were complaining why their national human monuments were played by men who were not French or Italian. And what's even more egregious than their being the wrong nationality? Speaking in English… in dodgy accents.
It all boils down to what THR calls Hollywood historization. However, both Napoleon and Ferrari did well in those respective countries so maybe it's not really appropriation or historization — just big name economics.
Driver did say that he most likely is finished with playing Italians for now. During the press cycle for Ferrari, a lot of people have said that he now has a “thing” for it.
“I'm surprised how much it comes up. It's like, ‘You have a thing,' and I'm like, ‘It's two! It's two Italians!' It's just two,” he insisted. But is it two too many?
Maybe, maybe not. However, Driver bemoaned the discussion surrounding his Italian jobs saying that the “press isn't a place where you have a nuanced conversation” when it comes to pointing out this pattern.
“That seems like a hard idea. Like, ‘What is it with Italy?'” he continued.
“I mean, it's less to do with Italy, although I like it. It's more about Ridley Scott and Michael Mann and the projects themselves. Italy is not the first thing on my mind,” Driver insisted.
But Driver seems to be in good humor, even with the criticisms. And maybe he's not really done with playing Italians. At the rate he's going, he could end up playing Italian drinks impresario, Gaspare Campari.
“Campari, I hear, is not done!” he joked.
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