The team behind HBOsMy Brilliant Friendon bringing the authors Naples to life.
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(All told, the show will be broadcast in more than 50 countries.)
The challenges of adaptingMy Brilliant Friendwere multitude.
That seemed to win the day, she recalls.
This meant finding unknowns from the Campania region to star.
The process took eight months, beginning in January 2017.
(Vulture wrote about thefour main stars here.)
My Brilliant Friends universe is densely populated some 150 actors and 5,000 extras.
Meanwhile, the series wont have the advantage of the books identifying character legend.
It was important to find faces and bodies that would be convincing from a historical perspective.
Looking at pictures of Neapolitan families of the 1950s was very helpful.
Schuur notes that the script also had to do a lot of the heavy lifting to differentiate characters.
So how do you build a story that introduces [everybody] memorably?
The images I have in my mind as I write are iridescent, sometimes hyperdefined, sometimes blurred.
I was attached to the idea of creating a visually metaphysical atmosphere, he says.
Finally, there are those shoes.
recalls costume designer Antonella Cannarozzi.
In this regard, my collaboration with Pierpaolo Piccioli, creative director for Valentino, proved instrumental.
This is the idea, she says.
Using Valentinos iconic archive, it took us several adjustments on classic moccasins before we attained the model.
A wedding dress was also created and supplied by Maison Valentino.
The series is indebted, Cannarozzi adds, to this high level of Italian craftsmanship.
Is this her story?
Who is her brilliant friend?
Will she watch the show?
But the mark of a genuine fan is that they respect, and even prefer, her anonymity.
Should that happen, Costanzo doesnt think he will return to direct, though that was the original plan.
Already, the level of attention and expectation has overwhelmed him.
I dont want to be in Hollywood, he says.
Its too noisy and crowded for my sensibility.
