Orlando, Silvio

(1957-)

   Actor. One of the new generation of actors who emerged in the 1990s, Orlando graduated to film after working onstage with Gabriele Salvatores at the Teatro dell'Elfo, making his first appearance on the big screen in Salvatores's Kamikazen ultima notte a Milano (Last Night in Milan, 1987). After distinguishing himself in a strong supporting role in Nanni Moretti's Palombella rossa (Red Wood Pigeon, 1989), he starred as the affable and honest schoolteacher forced to turn speechwriter for a corrupt politician in Daniele Luchetti's Ilportaborse (The Yes Man, 1991), a characterization he would reprise in Luchetti's La scuola (School, 1995). Following the film's extraordinary success, not least for the way in which it anticipated all the revelations of systematic corruption in Italian politics subsequently revealed by the Mani pulite investigations, Orlando came to work with all the directors of the New Italian Cinema, with Salvatores again in Sud (South, 1993) and Nirvana (1994), with Carlo Mazzacurati in Un'altra vita (Another Life, 1992) and Vesna va veloce (Vesna Moves Quickly, 1995), with Paolo Virzi in Ferie d'agosto (Summer Holidays, 1996), and with Giuseppe Piccioni in Fuori dal mondo (Not of This World, 1999) and Luce dei miei occhi (Light of My Eyes, 2000).

   In the late 1990s he also often returned to the stage, playing Caliban in Giorgio Barberio Corsetti's 1999 production of Shakespeare's The Tempest and directing himself in several comedies by Peppino De Filippo. Having already won a Nastro d'argento for his lead role in Mimmo Calopresti's Preferisco il rumore del mare (I Prefer the Sound of the Sea, 2000), he was more recently awarded the David di Donatello and nominated for the European Film Award for his brilliant performance in Nanni Moretti's Il caimano (The Caiman, 2006).

   Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema by Alberto Mira