Q: One of the best action scenes takes place at the Greenhouse. Is the Greenhouse a place that exists in real life? Did you ever attend any illegal races while you were growing up?
A: The Greenhouse really existed. When I was young, I used to watch illegal street races. The place is named after a dip along the road where riders can pick up speed very easily. They could reach two hundred kilometers per hour, and sadly there were lots of accidents. Both sides of the road were covered with flowers in memory of those who had lost their lives. That’s why we called it the Greenhouse; it was packed with flowers. I never took part in a race; kids under fourteen years old weren’t allowed to. Only the older ones, like sixteen and up—a few years make a huge difference at that age. Despite all this, I’ve been a huge fan of those races, and every time I could, I escaped my home to go and watch them.
Q: One of Step’s most romantic gestures is to give Babi a night in her dream house. Is the dream house based on a real place?
A: Yes, it is indeed a real place. Along Feniglia beach, where I used to go when I was young, there’s still a house, an amazing villa standing alone on a cliff facing the sea. It’s incredibly beautiful and hard to get to. As a matter of fact, it’s enclosed by a fence that runs along the street and has a very high gate. It’s unique because it’s exposed to the summer sunset, which turns orange in the evenings.
I remember watching it while passing by on the long beach—over six kilometers—in the direction of Ansedonia and thinking how much I would have liked to visit there. That’s why I decided to let Step do it, by breaking in through the window. I thought it was the perfect spot for Babi and him to make love for the first time.
Many years after the success of Tre metri sopra il cielo, I was sailing nearby with some friends, and I got closer to the house to take a better look. The landlords peered out, recognized me, and invited me in. We docked the boat and entered the villa. The owners asked me if I had ever been inside, if by any chance the housekeeper who manages it in the winter had allowed me in, because many of the things I imagined and depicted in the book were real. They were amazed by the resemblance and invited me to take a tour. It was really remarkable, and I felt the same amazement Step felt when he took Babi there for the first time.
Q: There are a lot of fun cultural references from the 1980s, like going to the discotheque. Did you spend a lot of time in clubs as a young person? Are you a good dancer? Did you have a favorite dance song?
A: I used to love dancing and still do, I usually have great fun; it’s an incredible moment when you close your eyes and stop thinking about the people staring at you. You just let go and dance, and the more you let go, the better you dance. I cannot say I’m a good dancer, but I do love dancing and I don’t care about the people around me.
All my favorite songs are from the late 1970s, like the songs from the film Saturday Night Fever, the Bee Gees or Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, “Disco Inferno,” mostly 1980s music. I believe it’s the best, and it’s no coincidence that it’s still popular today. You can find some of my favorite tracks in the book…such as Spandau Ballet’s “Through the Barricades.” It was the perfect song for a very difficult moment in the story.
Q: Babi’s parents are quite strict, while Step’s parents seem more lenient. And you dedicate this book to your own parents. In what ways do your parents resemble the parents in the story? Or are they completely different?
A: My parents are just like Step’s parents, but they never split up. I dedicated the book to them because it seemed like the natural thing for me to do. In the trilogy, there’s a big part of my family, the things I observed, what I felt and lived through as a kid. I changed it slightly in the story so that it fit, but it’s there. My mom and dad loved each other very much and continued to do so. So I tried to imagine through Step’s eyes what it would be like to witness the end of such a great love, very much like the one my mother and father had, and then the pain of watching your parents getting a divorce.
Q: A teacher plays a major role in this story. Do you think you would make a good teacher?
A: A teacher is a very important person, the person we meet at school who enables us as we grow up and someone with the power to change our life. What I said may seem trivial, but it is not. I remember one of my high school professors, his name was Giuseppe Gioia, he taught religion, Latin, and Greek. Thanks to him, I learned to outline, to make a script, and to organize my time in order not to be frightened when facing big projects and to be able to deal with difficulties by structuring them. So in addition to teaching me his subjects, he showed me how to deal with problems.
I like to teach a lot. I often do internships with young people who want to become actors. We talk about acting, directing, the history of cinema, and what I have done in my career, in order to show the differences between the big and small screens and also what it means to be a television writer. I try to give them many ideas. In addition to the theoretical part, practice is the best way to teach something, experimenting by implementing what has been studied. Teaching also means investigating the person, what his characteristics are, his difficulties, and seeing what he can actually create not only as an actor but also in regard to his approach toward life.
Q: The story is very romantic. Do you feel the Italian culture, particularly for men, may be more open to discussing their feelings? Or was writing a romantic story something that made you work at expressing your emotions? Do you have your own great love story?
A: Novels talk about lives, my protagonists’ lives, their families’ lives, the life of a young girl and a boy falling in love for the first time and almost touching the sky. One could say I told a story that happens to everybody. Your first love story is a big deal; it’s the best you can have because it’s the first time you feel something so powerful. You are amazed and realize for the first time what loving another person means, a person that suddenly becomes more important than you, that comes before anybody else, whose happiness is more important than your own.
You’ll try everything to make that person happy. I remember when I was in school and had the best score on my finals, but I was feeling miserable because Babi, the girl I was dating at the time, didn’t do so well. She had a passing grade, and despite being the one who believed she always knew everything, she was the one who got marked a 36 when I got a 60. I was wrecked, and I wanted to tell the teachers, “No, please, give her my sixty, and I’ll take her grade.” She couldn’t accept the fact she’d done so badly while I couldn’t care less about my score. Love works like this; the one you love comes first.
Q: You now have a family of your own. Have your children read this book? What were their thoughts? If one of your children chooses to rebel like Step, do you think it will be easier or harder for you because of the empathy you have for Step’s character?
A: No one teaches you how to be a parent. When you have kids of your own, you learn by living through it, day by day. I’m proud of my family, and my kids are still young, eight and ten years old, so they haven’t read One Step to You yet. Just like my father did with me, I talk to them about my life and let them see that I’m not perfect but just a man. I share with them my mistakes, my failures, and the ways I always got back on the right path again. I want them to know me as a real man. I know they will eventually rebel some day or another, like we all do, but if dialogue, conversation, and no fear of conflict are the basis of our relationship, we’ll always find a way to be a family.