Massimo Ghini: From Altar Boy to Acclaimed Actor

The beginnings with Strehler

“They asked me to be an altar boy in my parish and I immediately accepted. The celebration of the Catholic rite is a representation: a costume is worn, certain gestures are made, phrases are said and scripted songs are sung. Let’s tell the truth: it’s a real show… It was there, as a boy and in front of an altar, that I felt the first symptoms within myself, the first signs of an actor’s soul.” The actor and theater director Massimo Ghini turns 69 today. Born in Rome on 12 October 1954, he began acting in the Seventies. He failed at the audition for the Academy of Dramatic Arts, but after some time his revenge came: «When Giorgio Strehler chose me, albeit for a small role, in his King Lear… and sorry if it’s not much – Ghini recalled a few months ago to Corriere -. When I told my mother, he thought I had made it up… Instead the great director adored me, he enjoyed calling me the “romanaccio”. But then I was chosen by Vittorio Gassman to play Cassio; Franco Zeffirelli to play Mortimer in Maria Stuarda with Rossella Falk and Valentina Cortese… and so on. Some people were annoyed that I was hired by such personalities, because I was too cool, I didn’t have the physique of a young Werther and then I didn’t go to school or even the avant-garde cellars of the 70s: I immediately went to Serie A. If anything , to earn some money in the summer, when the theater tours ended, I cut my teeth organizing shows in the Valtour villages with Rosario Fiorello. In short, I didn’t miss anything.”

The first meeting with Nancy Brilli

In the second half of the Eighties, on the set of the miniseries directed by Alberto Lattuada “Two Brothers”, Massimo Ghini met what would become his first wife: Nancy Brilli. In 2015, the actress revealed to Corriere the (funny) details of that first meeting: “She entered the wrong dressing room, we were both in our underwear”.

The wedding in 1987

Massimo Ghini and Nancy Brilli got married after six months of engagement in 1987. “He went to ask my father for my hand – Brilli recalled to L’Arena -, perhaps it was the most embarrassing moment in life my father’s. He wanted to do everything as well as he used to. He gave me a wonderful gift because Massimo is very generous. This famous light point… I think he visited half of the shops in Rome. In the end he bought me this light point. I accepted it, I was very happy but afterwards I went to bring it back because we didn’t have a penny between us.”

Married…even for pretend

After three years the couple said goodbye, but Nancy Brilli and Massimo Ghini remained on excellent terms: «Nancy and I didn’t have children but we loved each other very much – Ghini said a few years ago in an interview with Sorrisi -, then the work we do has led us to be increasingly distant and to take different paths, without conflicts. Indeed, we remained excellent friends.” In 2016 the two met again on the set, in wedding dresses for the fiction “Weddings and other follies”.

Two twins

From his relationship with Federica Lorrai in 1994 Massimo Ghini had twins, Camilla and Lorenzo. The separation between the actor and his partner, which occurred when the children were still small, was not simple: «With Camilla and Lorenzo’s mother – Ghini told Sorrisi in 2022 – it was a very difficult separation: it would have been a perfect case for “Studio Battaglia” (fiction broadcast last year on Rai 1 with the actor among the protagonists, ed.)».

Love for Paola Romano

“Every now and then they paint me as Jean Paul Belmondo, but I’ve been with the same woman, my wife Paola, for 22 years”, the actor said in 2017 to Io Donna. In the 2000s Massimo Ghini found love again with Paola Romano, a former costume designer, married in 2002. “I conquered her at Alessandro Haber’s house at a New Year’s Eve party – said the guest actor of Oggi è unaltro day -. We looked at each other and recognized each other because we had already met (but we hadn’t spoken).”

Leonardo and Margherita

Paola Romano and Massimo Ghini are the parents of Leonardo (1996) and Margherita (1999). The actor’s four children followed very different paths: Lorenzo is not part of the world of entertainment, Margherita moved to London while Leonardo chose acting. The spotlight of the entertainment world has also come on for Camilla: she is among the assistants of Forum on Canale 5 and is a speaker on Rtl 102.5 and Radio Zeta.

2023-10-12 05:37:00
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