Today we’d like to introduce you to Ilaria Malvezzi.
Ilaria, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My story begins on the northern side of Italy where I was born. I grew up in the country, close to Florence. My constant contact with nature, wilderness and outdoors made me develop a particular curiosity and necessity for movement, physical experiences and freedom. It inevitably led me to start dancing. Contemporary dance became my main form of expression as I wasn’t allowed to speak my voice at home as much at all. My family was very old school and traditional, and although I loved them very much, they never supported my dream of becoming a professional dancer. I was taking dance classes at a provincial dance school. later in the years, my mother told me that my dance teacher told her that I wasn’t the most talented among all his students, but that I was the only one who would become a professional dancer. I had the discipline, the passion, the fire and a determination of steel. He was right. To please my father I enrolled in University in Bologna to study Physical Education.
Short after I received a scholarship to go and study dance full time in Rome. I dropped out of University, packed my bag and left my hometown. It marked my first separation to my family who took me to the train station full of worries and concerns. Pursuing an artistic career was considered a “crazy move” that would have taken me only to a path of poverty, hardship and ultimately unhappiness. But I was ready to dedicate myself at a hundred percent to what I loved and wanted. It was my time and I wouldn’t have compromised it any longer. I was 18.
In Rome, I didn’t have the easiest time of course. I felt like a lamb in a cage full of lions. But every day I worked very hard at the dance studio and every night in a pub. I was breathing and living dance obsessionally. After a couple of years, I was accepted to a pre-professional course for young contemporary dancers held by Aterballetto, the most prominent Italian Dance Company. There I met the choreographers who had the greatest impact in my life and became mentors and life long friends, Loredana Parrella was a dancer, actress and dramaturgist working aside her husband, choreographer Loris Petrillo. They introduced me to the physical theater. I loved the work and the training and my body responded to it in a visceral and instinctual way. It reminded me of my childhood years in the country where I could be free and full of life. We founded a young physical theater company and I felt like my dream came true. I was in my element and expressing myself to my fullest. Eventually, reality hit. I was already 23 and I couldn’t support myself financially just by dancing with them. I joined an “Operetta Company” and I was on the road for an entire year from city to city, theater to theater. I got to know my much loved Italy inside out and perform with actors, singers and our own orchestra. It strained my relationship with Loredana and Loris and they eventually move forward with the company without me. I was heart broken.
As an artist, I started questioning my life and my creativity as I fell a big part of it was missing within me: life experience. All I knew was theaters, dance studios and pubs where I occasionally worked. How could I create and be inspired if I don’t know what’s out there? Dance alone wasn’t the answer anymore. I quit the “Operetta Company”, went to the travel agency with the little money that I saved. I said, “I speak a little bit of English, I have 400 Euros, and I need to leave this country”. She replied, “There is an offer for New York in two weeks”. I booked it on the spot. I went home waving the ticket to my parents who were startled by it. They reasoned it by thinking that it would clear my mind from dancing and after that, I would go back home and start a “normal life” like all my girlfriends in town. And so I took off and that marked my second separation from my family.
I didn’t know anyone, I had nothing to lose and I could be whoever I wanted to be. I never felt so free and full of possibilities and potential. I ended up staying in a Spanish nun’s residence cleaning the bathrooms in a change of a room. I went to Little Italy looking for a restaurant to find a job as a dish washer. I stepped into S.P.Q.R. in Mulberry street. The manager, a kind and charismatic African American man named Miles offered me a job as a bus-girl. I took it. I didn’t know that I just met the man who would change my life. He took me under his wing. I started to work, I started to get to know the city, to fall in love with it and with Miles. In a short time, we became inseparable. My three months tourist visa was about to expire, but I wasn’t done with the big Apple yet. I went back to Italy and renewed my visa for 6 more months. My parents started shivering. I went back to NYC, started to work as a hostess at the restaurant, went back to English school and moved in with Miles. I was in charge of my life and it was time for me to start dancing again. I was offered to join a company for a new production. But one day Miles didn’t feel good and I took him to the emergency. That night he was diagnosed with stage four duodenum cancer. The doctor had a Starbuck coffee cup in his hand and told him “You have cancer. Do you understand me? You have cancer”. I saw his eyes full of fear and helplessness. He called me by his side and told me to go back to Italy. ‘“You don’t want to see this. Go back home”. It wasn’t even an option for me. I dropped the dance company and started the fight for his life with him. Two years of illness. He underwent major surgery at Sloan Kettering but cancer spread to his liver and he did one full year of chemotherapy.
To stay I enrolled in a Massage School that gave me the student visa and skills. I dedicated my life to him while finding true love. My parents kept on begging me to go back home. I was wasting my life. Little that they knew. Miles’s family and friends became my own and New York became a home for me. I could never leave. I build a new life. The treatment was successful and he fully recovered, gaining back his weight, his energy and his life. I told him, “Now you have to marry me”. And we did. My parents went strongly against it and started what I called a “cold war”. He was not what they wanted for me. They wanted me to marry the man next door in my home town. They threatened me to disown me and to lose them forever. I wrote them my last email “shame on you”. I refuse to speak to them. That marks my third and final separation with my family. My brother Roberto and my best friends came. Roberto walked me to the altar and it was the best day of my life. We celebrated life, love, dreams and faith. The marriage brought us beautiful twins, a girl and a boy, Mia and Alessio (thanks to in-vitro treatments).
The birth of my children made my parents accept Miles and they finally welcomed him in the family. Everything was truly like a dream…but a big part of me was still missing: performing art. I started to dance again, but I was surprised by the fact that It didn’t have the same effect that it used to have on me. It didn’t feed my soul anymore. At that time I had a dear friend, Annie. She was a professional actress and she kept on telling me that I was an actress and I kept on resisting it by saying “No, I am a dancer”. Finally, I let her drag me to my first acting class at Thomas G Waites Acting Studio. When I think about that day a quote from Mark Twain comes to mind: “We are born twice, the day we were born and the day we understand why”. My first acting class was my rebirth. What that monologue from “The Comedy Of Errors” did to me was enlightening. I knew what I was meant to do and pursue. Of course, I needed to investigate further the nature of my interest and the work itself. I was accepted at William Esper Studio and I graduated from the two years conservatory program under the mentorship of Suzanne Esper.
After graduation, I had my first experience onset of a short film and I was surprised how much I loved it. Before that, I thought only live theater could give me such heights. I was wrong. I felt intrigued by it and It inspired me to create my own work and tell my own stories. I wrote and produced two short films that have been very successful at film festivals and given me many satisfactions and recognitions. I finally found my own voice, a voice that dances alone couldn’t ever give me. Only real life experience could have offered me that gift and to be able to express it in a cinematic way was a very powerful revolution for me. I wrote and produced my third short film and turn it into my first feature film currently in pre-production. Looking back, I am so grateful for every turn, fall, hope, failure, tear, obstacle, hope and sweat because they inject me with so much life and love for what I do and for the ones that make up my entire world from my family, my friends, my colleagues and fellow artists. I am a woman in my 40’s, an immigrant, a mother, an artist and I am blessed and grateful for it all every single day.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The greatest challenges have always been “to go against the wind” as I call it. Often the ones who are supposed to support and encourage you the most are the ones that actually try to stop you from achieving and striving. It’s hard when those people are your family. It’s fundamental for me to listen to my heart and only trust some selected people who truly believe in me and are there for me along the way. On the other hand, I am also grateful for the attempts to block me as they are all tests to my determination, strength, will and focus. The more I hear “you can’t” the more I thrive.
The typical industry challenges are just part of the game for me. Nobody said it was easy, right? There is no smooth road, and even if there was, probably it wouldn’t interest me.
Please tell us about your art.
I am a freelance actress and filmmaker based in New York. I am part of the community of independent filmmakers in New York. As I write, I am interested in any genre, it depends on what the story calls for. My first short film “Unvoiced” Directed by Jeremiah Kipp is an experimental film about a woman who suffers from schizophrenia. It won many unexpected awards and it made me very proud. “Open” Directed by DT Sheridan is also an award winner and it’s a dramatic short film about open relationships. My third short “Sins” also Directed by Jeremiah Kipp is a thriller film noir currently in post-production. I never know the story that will inspire my work. However, I am very much interested in human nature at its rawest. I am interested in capturing the most instinctive, ugly, untamed side of humanity. As an actress, I am also attracted to dramatic roles and have been cast in many horror films as well for my ability to take different forms and shapes and use my physicality to embody monsters, ghosts or nightmarish creatures.
I am most proud of the community I have built around me, my colleagues. It indeed takes a village to make a film, but every village becomes a family. Trust is an indispensable element among the cast and the crew. We all have to jump together and every time it’s a leap of faith. I chose my team based on loyalty, talent and professionally and most of all, heart.
Everyone is so unique. I don’t think I set myself apart from anybody in a competitive way. I just do my work earnestly, honestly and respectfully. I aim for quality, simplicity and depth.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Yes, I have had. No one can do this alone! Annie McGovern is my dear friends, beautiful and talented theater actress who saw the actress in me and “kindly forced me” to go to my first acting class. She has been a mentor and a role model for me, always pushing me further and support me every step of the way. She joined the cast of “Open” Directed by DT Sheridan, and it was an absolute honor and privilege to share the screen and the film with her. She is also co-executive producer of the film. Thomas G Waites is my first acting teacher. Thanks to him I discovered my passion for acting. He believed in me from day one and made me perform in two of his Shakespeare productions both Off-Off-Broadway and Off-Broadway. I still see him from private coaching when I need help. He once told me ” Passion is like the root of a tree, it breaks the asphalt” concerning my necessity to perform. Jeremiah Kipp is my number one artistic collaborator, a dear friend and a lighthouse for me. He is a well-known and very active film director in the New York area. He involves me in every project he can. We are artistically kindred souls and we have absolute trust in each other. He directed two of my short films and he co-wrote and he will direct my first feature film “Sins”. Suzanne Esper is my hero.
She raised me as an actress by giving me the technical skills and a deeper understanding and appreciation of the craft. She whispered in my ear “Make films” before I left the conservatory. My brother Roberto is my angel. He knows me more than I even know myself and he wouldn’t let me ever doubt myself and my path. He is my voice of reason. My children, Mia and Alessio are of course my little cheerleaders who love to see mommy rehearse, dress up and prepare. They enjoy my art and they are a big part of my imaginary work. My friends and my clients are also a strong community around me. They follow my work with interest and enthusiasm. I had to crowdfund my last project and I was very moved by not only the emotional support but also the financial support I received by them. I am a very blessed Italian gal.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ilariamalvezzi.com
- Email: ilariamalvezzi.nyc@gmail.com
- Instagram: @movenze
- Facebook: @ilariamalvezzi1
- Twitter: @movenze
- Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5889828/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
Image Credit:
Photographer Francesco Rossi
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