Returning to Italy with Stanley Tucci

Stanley Tucci returns to Italy in this episode of Your Italian Podcast, and for the first time publicly he shares that he has been recognized as an Italian citizen jure sanguinis. The beloved actor, author, and Searching for Italy host opens up about his Calabrian ancestry, his family's roots in the town of Cittanova, and the long emotional road to reclaiming the Italian citizenship his ancestors carried with them when they left for America generations ago.

Host Lauren Hopkins talks with Tucci about heritage, belonging, food, and what it truly means to be recognized as Italian by descent rather than simply feeling Italian at heart. Their conversation moves between the personal and the practical: the family stories that kept Italy alive across generations, the documents and vital records that turn a bloodline into a recognized claim, and the deep sense of identity that comes with holding an Italian passport and, with it, European Union citizenship.

For the millions of Italian Americans and members of the worldwide diaspora pursuing Italian citizenship by descent, Tucci's story is both inspiring and timely. It arrives at a pivotal moment for the jure sanguinis community, as Law 74/2025 (the Tajani Decree) and the 2026 Constitutional Court ruling reshape who qualifies and how. Whether you grew up in an Italian American household, are tracing your family tree through a comune or consulate, navigating a 1948 maternal line case, or just beginning your own jure sanguinis journey, this episode offers a rare and personal look at what it means to call Italy home again.

ABOUT YOUR ITALIAN PODCAST

Your Italian Podcast is the show for anyone drawn to their Italian roots. Hosted by attorney Lauren Hopkins, founder of Your Italian Passport, each episode explores Italian citizenship by descent (jure sanguinis), heritage, culture, food, and life in Italy, with the stories and practical guidance the worldwide Italian diaspora is looking for. From tracing your family tree through an Italian comune to understanding Law 74/2025 and what it means for your eligibility, we help you reconnect with the country your family came from.

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DISCLAIMER

Your Italian Podcast is provided for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Listening to this podcast does not create an attorney-client relationship. Italian citizenship law changes frequently, and how it applies depends on the specific facts of your family line. For guid...

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SPEAKER_01 0:24

Welcome back to your Italian podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Hopkins, founder of Your Italian Passport, your one-stop shop for everything Italian citizenship. Today's guest is someone really exciting, everybody. It is actor, author, Stanley Tucci. For those of you wondering, how in the world did Stanley Tucci, did she get Stanley Tucci on this podcast? Well, the answer is we helped him with his Italian citizenship. Stanley Tucci, one of Italy's newest citizens, everybody, is here to talk about his citizenship journey, his Italian heritage, his thoughts on Italy, from all of his travels for both his shows and for his books. So it's it's an exciting episode. I know you're going to enjoy it. Let's dive right in. Stanley Tucci, welcome to Your Italian Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. This is such a treat for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Well, thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Of course, of course. I think we probably need to explain to my massive audience that's watching this what in the world are they seeing? They're seeing somebody that they definitely know talking to someone that they're wondering what is happening here. How has all of this come to be? Uh and the short answer is, you know, we work together on your Italian citizenship, but there's a little background here that I'm not even sure you're aware of, uh, which is that I reached out in 2022, which you probably are like, what are you talking about? And uh I'm a social media nightmare. I don't use it in my personal life. And so here I am trying to find you on social media and send you a DM and I an epic failure. So I uh I found an email, a professional email for your wife, Felicity. And I wrote to her saying, Hey, I just think I saw. So reached out and realized I'm like way late to the game. Uh, and you have already had assistance. And I thought, okay, all right, I will uh step back. But was any did you know any of that had happened?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

I can't honestly, I I I I'm not sure I do. I don't know. I think we might have well, obviously I did have people working on it at the end. You did.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Oh, you definitely did. I mean, the answer that I got in 2022 was like, hey, late to the game, like uh, you know, step aside. And I think at that time I thought, well, there's not really much I can I can add to this picture here. So just get out of the way. And then uh, you know, zipping ahead, uh, I happened to check back in a few years later in 2025 when and we'll come back to the whole citizenship experience and realized, oh, we are not yet across this finish line. Maybe I can help here after all. So yeah, yeah, and here we sit.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Listen, um, first of all, thank you. I'm so thrilled that you did because uh, you know, it wasn't happening, and as you know, the rules were changing uh all the time, it seemed. And there were people working on it who I believe were working diligently. You know, I was I never actually met them. We never, you know, but we exchanged a lot of emails. I had my lawyer Ted, who was incredibly helpful in trying to help me find uh anybody who could, you know, get me across that finish line. Um, and and you you made it happen. And I can't thank you enough. I I can't wait to use my I have I don't have the passport yet, but I can't wait to use it and I go.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

You will soon. And then all of that is correct. I mean, everything that you went through in those years had nothing to do with your representation and everything, everything to do with every time we turned around, the law was changing, and you were getting, you know, you were just a victim as so many were in what in what was going on in the world of Italian citizenship law.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Can you explain to me why things changed so much? And what uh from what I think we maybe we spoke about, or I can't remember who I talked about it with, but that there was an influx of people who had Italian heritage. Um that there were just so many of them, but they were using it using that passport for all the wrong reasons. Is that what is that supposedly what the story was, which is why the Italian government sort of started to, you know, stop people from were doing everything they could to stop people from getting it?

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Yeah, you know that that's that's one narrative. I I think there's some truth in that. That yes, the the fact of the matter is Italian diaspora, those of us of Italian descent living outside of Italy, not yet recognized as citizens or already recognized as citizens, outnumber the 60 or so million that are in Italy. And so there are more of us than there are of them.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

And from what I have been told, uh, you know, applications at one point reached over 300,000 a year. And so you can see how, yeah, there is maybe some reason for legitimate concern by Italy that once we are recognized as citizens, we're we have the right to vote, we have the right to do lots of things that can influence what's going on in Italy on a day-to-day basis, even if it's not affecting us on a day-to-day basis.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

That said, you know, I think they inflate these numbers a bit. Um, I know that there is sort of a uh a negative view to some extent of some of the applications that were coming out of South America. I know that they that they want people to believe that there was rampant fraud in those applications. And I think some of that is true. But we've all sort of been caught up in these changes as they seek to address the fact that Italy, 20 years from now, given the low birth rate there, the older population there, and the existence of the diaspora elsewhere, could look a lot different than it looks today. And so they are struggling to figure out how do we maintain Italy as we know it? What is Italy? What is Italian culture, without it just being diluted or lost entirely by, you know, non-Italian speaking people of frankly different cultures who, you know, might be linked to a parent or a grandparent, but many of us are linked to somebody, myself included, much more distantly related.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Right. I see. So at what point did they stop? At what point did they start to put the brakes on? What year was that?

SPEAKER_01 7:19

I would say the first real brakes were put on in 2023 with something called the minor issue that came out of the courts saying if your ancestor became a foreign national through naturalization while the next in line was a minor, that's why it's called the minor issue. That's gonna be a barrier to citizenship. Uh, that was sort of the first, that was summer of 2023. And that was sort of the first, like, real, ooh, okay, we're gonna cut out a bunch of people with this. And then that gets adopted at the consulates in 2024, and then the chaos of 2025, which was, you know, this emergency decree. If anybody's heard of that, that what's commonly called the Tajani Decree. Taini's the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Italy, who went on national television and surprised even the Italian parliament and said, Hey, new citizenship law. Boom, effective immediately. Uh, just a few people are eligible in comparison, et cetera, uh, to what had been. And then that gets ratified by the Italian parliament in 2025 and all of that. And so here we sit a year later, essentially, with that whole law under scrutiny by Italy's two high courts this summer, deciding is it constitutional? Um, are there other elements of it that should just be ignored, thrown out, et cetera? That there's a it's a two-court system in Italy that's very interesting. That they have a Supreme Court, which is not that supreme. I always say that. It's an advisory court only, though it's called the Italian Supreme Court. And it can be ignored by lower courts, and it can even be ignored by the Minister of Foreign Affairs who dictates what goes on at the consulates. And then you have constitutional court, which is big and bad. And if they say something is unconstitutional, boom, everybody has to get in line and follow that immediately.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

And the fascinating part right now is that these two courts are right now are tracking, have a very different political take on things. And so one is arguably in our favor, that's the Supreme Court, and constitutional court has thus far indicated maybe not so much in our favor. So it's gonna be a really fascinating summer.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

But what was what was the decree then? What was what's the gist of the decree?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Yeah, so the decree on March 28th, 2025, Minister Tayanni goes on TV and says, Hey, uh the new law will say you're only eligible for recognition of citizenship if you are the child or grandchild of an Italy-born person. There was a lot of um other elements to the law that were not mentioned conveniently for some in the decree, but then it got even stricter in May of that same year, where they said, okay, not only do you have to be a child or grandchild, but it has to be through an ancestor who was never anything other than an Italian citizen.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Oh wow, right. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

So that's a you know, there's very few people that can say, my ancestor came here and lived and died and never became a national of the place that they emigrated to. It's it's a small group. Um, having you know done this for 15 years, it's not that, though I I do have some great-grandparents who just never really got it off the ground. I tell this to everybody that you know they had nine children. She had a wooden leg. A woman with a wooden leg had nine children in Pittsburgh, and they never had any heat in the house. So, yes, but that's like ancient history, these people that came and weren't necessarily thriving, but were just merely surviving. So, anyway, long story short, yeah, eligibility has shrunk dramatically and uh by design out of Italy. And I I will be so curious to know. I'm always wondering whether the Italian people and the Italian leadership are in line about this. And in your travels around Italy, do you ever speak to people about the citizenship process, whether through through your own personal experience or otherwise? And do you feel like they feel they're opposed to it or do you think they embrace us?

SPEAKER_00 11:34

I've never I've never encountered anyone who was opposed to it. When I say it's taken me, you know, when I tell them basically it's taken me 10 years to get it. And um, and they're shocked. They go, well, what about what about your grandparents? They go, Yeah, they were every they were all born in Italy. And and then I try to explain, you know, what you all even before, you know, it used to be just the paternal side, right? It had to be your paternal side. Then suddenly they made a law. It could be your maternal side that if they were born, then you could get it that way. But then of course, everything you described just took everything and just made it so much more complicated and more difficult. Um, but I have never encountered anyone saying, they say, Well, I know somebody who can help you. You know, they always say I know somebody can help you. Um, and because they're like, Well, you should do it. Not not only because you you f you you have grandparents who were Italian, but also because you come to Italy all the time and you, in essence, promote Italy in a way, you know. Not it's not not doing it, I'm not doing like the show that I do necessarily to promote Italy, but I want to show the beauty of it and the complexity of it. And the, I suppose I am, I suppose, in some ways, promoting it. I just want to I want people to understand how complicated it is through the prism of food.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yeah, I I and I think that's exactly what you accomplished with the show. I mean, Italy, and I and I agree, in my experience, individual Italians embrace the idea of citizenship recognition and sort of look at it as this closing of a circle that people left 100, 120 years ago on a, you know, on a nickel and a dime and a and a hope and a prayer, and thought, okay, I'm gonna see how this goes. Never realizing what that in a hundred years we might be trying to get back there. I think a lot of them thought, oh my gosh, no, I'm running from poverty, I'm running from starvation into, you know, God knows what on the other side of the ocean. Uh, and here we sit 120 years later, trying to close that circle and f feeling like the door is shut.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

But I know it's interesting. The door is shut to a place that, and this is what you mentioned before we started, you know, recording. You know, what's the reason you want to do this? What is the reason you want your Italian citizenship? It's because I love that country, and it's because I lived there when I was young. I lived in Florence when I was young. And it it completely changed my life for the better. And I ever since then I would get these pangs of needing to go to Italy. And I went when I was uh 22, maybe something like that. I went on a Urail pass, I took on a Urail pass $25 a day. And I'm not kidding. Um that was this is 1983, something like that, 84. And you could do it. That was with accommodation, and it was amazing, and I felt like I couldn't move forward in my adult life without having gone gone back into a place where I became a teenager. I know it may sound funny, but I I couldn't I did there's had to be this sort of completion or something that I left kind of on an inhale at the age of 13. I was only there for a year. But it was had such a profound effect on me that I th I left without some sort of completion. So going back for me and spending a week or two, whatever it was, there traveling with no money made me able to to to move forward as as an adult and you know in my chosen profession. And obviously the the the the country has the it keeps sort of beckoning me. Um and I think you know, one of the reasons I wanted to do the show, as I said, was I wanted to go back and really see if I could tell the story, the stories of Italy through the prism of food. But it has a it has a you know a a kind of a grip on you. And part of that is just genetic, and part of that is having experienced it physically it it attaches itself to you and you need you need to go back.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

When you uh I've always been curious about this. I'm I'm aware of you having spent a year in Florence as a as a teenager. When your parents announced we're doing this, were you initially excited? Or did you think, oh my god, this is really this is the worst thing I've ever heard of?

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Well both. I mean, I remember now we hadn't been anywhere, we hadn't traveled anywhere. You know, my family didn't have any money. My father was an art teacher, you know, my mother worked in the office.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

I hear you.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

And we uh I'd never been on a plane. The only train I'd ever been on was I think maybe we went into New York City once or twice, maybe. Um and I'd never stayed, I think, I don't know if I even had stayed in a hotel, which I barely went to restaurants. And anyway, so they said, Oh, we were like, oh, it's how exciting. Italy, wow, a plane, Italy. And then panic started to set in because you're a teenager, and my sisters were, you know, three three years each respectably younger. And uh there was panic, and I remember when we all got to Rome, where I the three of us, we were in this little pension, the pensione, Texas was the name of it. Yeah, and we we were in one room, my parents were in the next room, connecting, and my sisters and I were all in one bed. I'd never slept in a city before. You know, I was from the suburbs, you know, it was quite rural, rather rural suburbs. And we all started crying. And we were so afraid of what of what?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

What are we doing? What is this?

SPEAKER_00 18:34

You know, then we went out, we walked around, we went to the Coliseum, we went to the, you know, we saw, and suddenly you were you you were like, wow, this is incredible. And then we went to a restaurant, which was right around the corner, because you had like my dad had like a voucher or something that the pension had given him. And we went to this restaurant, and I remembered I wrote about it in the one of the books I wrote, like how I remember very distinctly, because Italian restaurants in those days were all, you know, if it wasn't a trancheria, if it was a ristorante, it was bright light, white tablecloths, waivers with white or off-white jackets, bow ties, all that sort of stuff. And I was like, this is incredible. What is place?

SPEAKER_01 19:22

If you get up into the Ponderosa, but this is uh this is quite a step up from that.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

I was like, oh my god. The only restaurant I'd ever been to was a pizzeria, I think, and or friendlies. Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

I don't know if you're like, yes, I remember friendlies, right, with the ice cream after the hamburger.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Yeah, sure. Yeah. In fact, what's so funny? Do you know Massimo Botura, right? You know who the chef. Yes. His wife, Lara, she was about 10 years younger than I am. She worked in the friendlies that I used to go to. Mount Kisko, New York. Anyway, um, it was once I started to, once we found an apartment in Florence, I mean my dad, who spoke Italian pretty well, my mom didn't really speak that uh that uh Italian that much. Um, she could speak a dialect more. Um, and he, you know, found they found an apartment, moved into this apartment, started to play soccer, you know, with the kids. I'd never played soccer before. And I was put directly into an Italian school.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

I was wondering that.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

That was no English, just Italian.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Yeah, I was put in like um a year, like a year before my so a year back. I mean, they put me like a year back. When they were learning grammar, that's when I was learning the grammar as well. So it was incredibly helpful. Within two months, by three months, I spoke fluently. It's amazing how fast you absorb it when you're there. You just I mean, that's not happening at the age of 65. I got news for you. But at the age of 12, yeah, spot. Um, but was I nervous about it? Yeah, we were nervous, and then I absolutely loved it. And then around eight, nine months, I was ready to go back to America and see my friends and you know, run around the woods again at all.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

But it stuck with you. I mean, it was it was truly the the experience of your life at that point.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

No two ways about it. It was the greatest. We traveled through Italy. Uh, we went to, I can't even tell you how many different museums and churches, my father being an art teacher, um, which is a great gift to have. You don't realize it necessarily at the time, but you know it. Now to have uh a father with a sophisticated eye showing you around Italy. Sure. That's that's pretty rare.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Yeah, that's a different level of getting to know a place, what you know, hearing what he knows and him you know imparting it on you. Would you say your your childhood life in New York was a c sort of a classic Italian-American experience for your grandparents in your life on a frequent basis?

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Oh yeah. We visited my grandparents. I grew up in Cotona, New York, which is uh about 50 miles north of the city. And both of my parents came from Peakskill, New York, which is about 40 miles on the Hudson. So we were on the border of Connecticut, where our house was. So it would take us about 25 minutes or so to get to my grandparents' house. And we would visit them almost every Sunday. Uh, either my dad's father, because his mom had died when I was I was quite young. I think I was seven when she died. And uh so we would visit him and or we would visit my my grandparents. Um so it was every maybe every weekend, maybe every other weekend, something like that. My cousin, Joe, with whom I wrote Big Night, used to live right next door to my grandparents, my maternal uh grandparents. So I would see him all the time. Uh and yes, it was a huge, huge part. We were with them either one side of the family or the other uh every holiday. My aunt and uncle on my father's side lived right near us, eventually on the same road as us, and we used to all play tennis together. I've heard my aunt's uh sons were tennis pros in um uh at different clubs around as they got older. We used to go skiing with them together, and um it was it was one it was it was a wonderful way to grow up, and it was a really wonderful way to uh understand comp how complicated families can be. Sure. And I'll just stop right there. Uh, but also how wonderful they can be. Sure. And it's where I learned the basis. Well, it's it's what made me just love food. Because on both sides of the family, food was first and foremost.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Right.

unknown 24:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

The great sort of uh unifier of you can be fighting about something, but you still have to sit down and eat. So let's let's eat something good.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

They all my father's sisters were very good. I was very close to my father's, uh, one of my father's sisters, and she was like a sort of second mom to me. And uh she was a wonderful cook. Different than my than my mother, but still, my mother's like a kind of a genius.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

I I think I found a a recipe that got published that your mother did in the the journal news in 1999. Uh Rosotto with butternut squash, lobster, and sage, as contributed by John Tropiano Tucci and Stanley Tucci, who I presume is your dad uh and not you collaborating with mom in 1999 on this recipe, but it just sounds delicious. It is delicious. Yes. Cooking has, you know, obviously been a big part of your life. I don't know if you you, I'm sure you do know this, so but I'm sure the audience doesn't. So all four of your grandparents, not only from Italy, but from Calabria. Father's side of the family starts in Vermont at a they were stone cutters, both in Italy and in the US. So I presume there was like a quarry in this Northfield, Vermont.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

And I found the most, I know that she, Teresa Pisani, your paternal grandmother, died when you were young, as you mentioned.

unknown 26:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

There are the most endearing quotes about her online, if you have ever found these, but I had to, I had to share this with you. So when she got when they got married, your grandparents, this was written up in the Vermont Register, as the bride is one of Northfield, Vermont's most popular and attractive of the younger set. You may know her as the efficient clerk in the store of Boyles and Smith.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

She was so sweet.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

I know. And even when your father's oldest brother, I believe, was born in New York, Vermont Register wrote about her again, saying, Teresa Pisani, you know, the adorable clerk at Boyles and Smith. Well, she's had a child in New York. I just thought, oh my gosh, this woman really like made a an impact on the community.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

But I I know.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

So dear.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Oh, I have to have to try my father later.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

I'll tell him that you I I thought your dad might like that.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Yeah. By all accounts, she was loved by everyone and was a very warm, uh, a very warm loving person. I have no recollection of her, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

I I no, I can understand. I mean, I think she I think I read that she died in 1966, so you were a young child and from what I understand, your grandfather, Stanislaw Tucci, might meet her because he was working with your great-grandfather, Domenico Pisani, at the what I presume is a quarry or some sort of in in Vermont.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Yeah, it would have been a quarry because Vermont is known, right, for its all the stone, right? Uh granite, I think, in in particular. Um, so that's where he learned his trade. And he came over at the age of 14 or something like that, and um was in New York City by all accounts for a very short period of time, and then went up to Vermont. And that's how he where he learned stone cutting, eventually opened up his own business, moved to Peak. You know, they moved to Peakskill, he opened up his own business, uh uh monument business.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

And as in like city monuments or as in headstones?

SPEAKER_00 28:14

No, headstones.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Okay. There's always going to be work in headstones.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Yeah, exactly. Yes, yes, exactly. That's why they put a fence around the cemetery. People are dying to get in. Right. Um the yeah, so yeah, he did that. And you know, he my dad, you know, would help, and my uncle Frank also. Um Frank was an architect, interior designer. My father became an artist, and they would design monuments uh for my grandfather, for, you know, whoever, you know, would come to him and say, I need a monument. He would um they would design them. He had the the the business with his brother, I think, originally, one of his brothers, and then I don't know if there was a falling out or somebody saw I I don't know what happened.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Yeah, I saw that. That that there is there's a brother tracking along with your your grandfather closely in their time in the U.S. You mentioned that he came at the age of 14, and that's the same story for my great-grandfather who came alone at the age of 14. Wow and then having done this citizenship work for 15 years, I think about that all the time. Can you imagine this boat ride of two weeks uh to a place you've never been, you don't know what is awaiting you, and you're alone, some of them alone, some of them. Your maternal grandmother, for instance, was three, you know, some very young children, some teenagers. I mean, what um, you know, what a bold move and what a, you know, what what courage it took to say, I'm doing it. I'm just gonna go and give this a shot.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Yeah, but think about how desperate you have to be to want to do that, or as a parent, to send your child at the age of 14 by himself or herself sometimes to another country where they don't speak the language, and they've got a few bucks in their pocket. Now there were there were usually there were always some sort of familial connection for the most part, right? So there was somebody who was gonna meet them, a cousin or an uncle or a gr whatever. Um, but that's it. And then I don't know how many times they ever saw their parents again.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Sometimes never.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Never.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Right. My great-grandfather never saw his parents again. He was their only surviving child. They lost five children in young childhood. He was the only one who survived to the teenage years, and they never saw him again.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

That's horrifying. Right. It's horrifying to me. It's horrifying when my kids, you know, I had I have many children because my you know, my first wife passed away about 16 years ago. And um she, you know, we had three kids who are, you know, in their twenties now. And then Felicity and I have two little kids. And I hate not seeing them. I cannot imagine such a thing. My my son is 11. You know, in a couple of years he would have been shipped off to America from Italy because there was no opportunity for him.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

It's just a wild decision that families made.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Yeah, and this is the thing, like you know, when people today talk about um uh refugees and they talk about immigration, you just think you have no idea what the do you think that those people really want to leave their homes? Do you think they really want to and they want to come and take your jobs? Is that what you really believe? Well, you're an idiot because it's not true. They don't want to leave their homes. They would love to live wherever they live because that's where they're from. That's where their history is. They don't want to leave. They want to be there, they want to work, they want to be healthy, they want to raise their families, and lead uh a perfectly normal life. That's what they want, but instead they can't because of famine, because of pestilence, because of war.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Right. I think people forget that immigration is driven by necessity, dire necessity and desperation. Uh it's the same as true today as it was 120 years ago, as it was even prior to that.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

I'm an immigrant, I'm an immigrant in England. Nobody has any issue with me. Right. Right. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Right, isn't it? Uh yes, it's always the it's always the the poor that we think well, there's no room. There's no room for you here. Yes, when when historically we have seen that every single time there's room, if you just decide that there will be.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

If you decide to make room, there's room.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Yes. I often think not just the boat journey, but I think back to the you know, when you were on and searching for Italy and you were doing the Calabria episode, and here you are in a car driving up to Citanova, I think it was.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

How about the journey from your home to the boat? I think it is hard to get to Citanova today. How did they get to the port 120 years ago? On a mule? Did they walk? Right. I mean, the answer is they must have been it must have been a mule.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

In a cart.

unknown 33:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

There was somebody who was going there and took you there. And how to take you to get there?

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Yeah, right. I mean, just the the full journey.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Yeah. I mean, look, like you say, in part of it, this was part of the difficulty of doing the show is that to get from point A to point B in Calabria or Abruzzo or Trentino Alto Adige is like that's like two hours. Yes. If you if you're in Trentino, you can ski it in a half an hour. What's your me? From one town to another, you just go ski over there. Boom, boom, you're there in a half hour. Otherwise, you're in a car for two hours.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

Yeah. I have uh I've come close to Chittanova. I I don't know if you know of a town called Canalo. It's essentially come up the mountain from the other ocean. Uh if you're coming up to Chitanova from this side, come up this way. And I am acutely aware of how difficult it is to get there today in 2026. It is a trek to get there.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

And this is also this also points to the fact that, you know, certain regions in particular, I mean, Trentino Alto Adige is a is a more wealthy region. Whereas Calabria is not. What? And Calabria does not have the infrastructure um to allow it to sort of rise out of what is still substantial poverty and you know oppression by corruption. And that is so unfortunate. I mean, you have when we filmed there, it was I was really made quite sad about it because it's so beautiful and the people are so nice, but you you know, you're just driving through villages that are completely abandoned. Yes. Because everybody left.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

There's nothing to do. There's no work, there's no way to make a life for oneself and their children.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

They go to the north of Italy, they go to not so much America anymore, they come to England. There is a huge, huge. I walk down the streets all the time and I hear Italian spoken constantly. You have a concentration of like 500,000 Italians here. It's huge. Every Italian restaurant you go into, most of the staff is all Italian.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

Oh, I did not know that there was such an Oh it's it's huge.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

All the waiters, all the uh so many of the chefs, so many of the staff, so many of the managers are all and in clubs and in bars, all Italian. The butcher shop in my little area where I live in London. I walked in there, three butchers, all Italian. And it's a British-owned shop. I mean, it's it's it's it's like America 70 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Yeah, I know I I can understand that. I think Italy, I mean Italy's going through Italy's having a moment where clearly these young people aren't leaving because there's ample opportunity in Italy. Uh they're leaving because they're finding that there is better opportunity someplace else. Not necessarily, like you said, it doesn't have to be all the way in America, but maybe London.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

No, and this is the thing that I just spoke with a fella who's a driver who we work with on the show, wanted to go to Rome. You know, he he drive he drives me around if I need he's become a really good friend. And he he said it's really hard. The opportunities really aren't here. The opportunity and the opportunity to forward yourself, it it it it it doesn't exist in Italy the way it does in other countries. And another friend of mine who lives in Rome, and she said the same thing. She goes, You can get a job, but you're gonna make this much money at that job, and you're gonna stay in that job. And you're not it's not gonna be a job that you want to stay in, but you're gonna have to stay in it, or you're gonna have to leave the country. And that is heartbreaking when you think about uh how much Italy has to offer. And it's uh I I don't know the reasons for it. I don't know. I mean, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

I think some of it is, at least in the South, is still the stranglehold of organized crime. I think but that doesn't explain the Norse, that doesn't explain central Italy. I I think I I don't know. I don't know that I have the answer to why isn't Italy willing to or able to advance the way much of Western Europe is is and has already done, clearly.

SPEAKER_00 38:59

Trevor Burrus So much of Italy, so much of the economy of Italy is based on tourism. And if you don't have those, if you're not like Pulia now is becoming a place, right, over the last 10 years where people are starting to go, but still it doesn't really have the infrastructure that it needs to have. Um, Calabria, forget it.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

Nobody goes the Wild West.

SPEAKER_00 39:27

When's the last time you've heard someone who didn't have Calabrian routes say, I think I'll go to Calabria? Never. Never they never say it because great, there's no there. Correct. And and that's unfortunate because as I said, it's stunning. Stunning.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

It is. I mean, it is it's beautiful territory, and it it could have so much to offer. Speaking of uh Chita Nova, where your citizenship is now linked, home to your maternal grandmother.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Uh, in the episode when you were in Calabria, you had a massive lunch with people in Chitanova. Who were all of those people?

SPEAKER_00 40:10

They were all people who were related to me. Wow. And and we my parents went. And a lot of them I remember, not a lot of them, a few of them I remember meeting when they were young, when they were in their like their twenties. So, and now they're like all old men. And I was like, how can that be the same person? You know, of course, then I look at myself and I think, how can that be the same person?

SPEAKER_01 40:40

How can that be the same person? Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

But yeah, and um, so a number of them were still alive. Uh, and it was it was a really great experience. They didn't live in Chita Nova proper anymore. They lived sort of outside. And it kind of a lot of them lived in like a they, you know, that this is a it's fascinating too. It's just such a not American thing, which is, or British thing, which is, hey, I'm gonna build a house, and then we're just gonna we're gonna just gonna attach your house to to my house, and then we'll attach one more house to that house, you know, because you're you're my brother or you're my son, and that's your blah blah blah. So we'll all just like like a commune. Yes, yes, just remain and they always have two kitchens, you know, meaning each house has two kitchens. They have the the regular kitchen, then they have a kitchen in the basement because it's cooler or whatever. And you know, there's always a big wood-burning stove someplace where they can cook and burn whatever they want. And it's it's fascinating, and it's still happening, like they're still living the way they lived hundreds of years ago, but with you know, with obviously now with amenities and they were successful businessmen and all that as um excuse me, um, with um like agricultural machinery and stuff like that. Um but still that the the idea that you all live together, no matter what, is it just doesn't go away. And the only time they go away, they go like they go far away. Right.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Unless you're leaving forever, you're never leaving. Yes, you're barely even going to the grocery store alone. We'll do it collectively, we'll go together. Yes, well let's let's all go. Yes, it's a big to-do. We're gonna go down the hill, we're gonna get the groceries today. Yes, it's what we do on Sundays.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

Yeah, so-and-so's coming in from the airport. Who's gonna pick them up? We all are.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

Yes, yes, so a little known fact the the person that I started your Italian passport with 15 years ago was from Calabria, and so that is why I spent so much time in Calabria, and these stories that you're telling are identical. I mean, it used to be endearing and at the same time so frustrating to me, where it was like this discussion of what time are we gonna go to the grocery store? Could it take the entire morning? And I would think, My God, I could have gone and been back by now. What are we doing? I know, I know at the same time, it was like I would tell myself, Lauren, just slow down, just enjoy this, just enjoy that like you can make a whole day out of going to the grocery store and to spend the first half of it talking about when are we gonna go and who's gonna drive. And then when you get there, what are you gonna buy?

SPEAKER_00 43:39

What are you gonna buy? Is it gonna be this? Should we be that? Well, that doesn't look good. Well, try these. What about these? No, I don't hate those. Why do you hate those? You know, and then it goes into that. You're in the grocery store, you come home, you're exhausted, and and then you start cooking.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

Right. And I and I really think what here am I here I am getting frustrated because what my life of running around. From one thing to the other, never enjoying any of it is really a better existence. Yeah, no, I don't think I'm doing it right. No, you know, so chill out, you know, learn learn to be slower. Well, Stanley, I have uh I have some exciting news from Chitanova. So your birth record is registered there as part of the completion of the citizenship process and the closing of that circle. And they have written and they have asked the following. They said, Dear Mr. Stanley Tucci, uh this is from the mayor, Domenico Antigo. He wrote, I am pleased and proud to inform you on behalf of myself, the municipal administration, and the entire town uh that of your entry into the community community of Chitnova as a pr as a prestigious fellow citizen who has brought honor to his birthplace to the virtuoistic instruments of cinematic art and culture. We would be happy to personally present you with citizenship at the municipal palace in an official ceremony in accordance with the ceremonial procedures prescribed by law on a date of your choosing or next summer, is what they proposed, if that doesn't next summer or a date of your choosing. So I don't know if you're interested in another trip back to Chitanova. I imagine yes.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

That would be pretty cool. I could I would love that. I am that's incredibly moving and um flattering.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

I I thought so too. And I thought, you know, it really sort of sort of what we hit upon at the beginning of the discussion, which is uh, you know, all these changes to the citizenship law from the leadership. And here, you know, the the people in the town of Citanova, in this example, are so thrilled about your completion of this process that they're saying, you know, please let's have uh let's make this a reason to celebrate. That I think I think the people of Italy and the leadership might not be of one mind on this issue.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

Yeah. Look, I can understand if you're getting 300,000 applications a year, you know, I can understand the government going, wait a minute, wait a minute, we have to figure something out because something's not right. Do you know what I mean? In a way. And yet at the same time, there was that huge diaspora, and from a Catholic country, which means more often than not, there's gonna be a lot of kids in each family, right? So that kind of that's the way it works. Yeah, that's the way it works. I mean, that's the way it was supposed to be, and so it was.

SPEAKER_01 46:36

I often think that uh it is, you know, the north and the south of Italy, it's really arguably two different, two different countries, and the north has a certain way of looking at the south, and vice versa. And I think I kind of think this rejection of the diaspora is just one last sort of putting it, taking it to the south of, you know, just a bunch of poor peasants who who left. And, you know, okay, so so your your descendants made something of themselves. Well, that doesn't mean any that doesn't play here, is sometimes what I think is the yeah, kind of the message.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

There could be that that prejudice that, you know, has you know yeah, I mean, we know, like you say, there is that prejudice within the country still, which is unfortunate. Um, and yet at the at the same time, you do see the the difficulties of living in the south and the sort of implacability of it, of um and things not changing, whereas the north is constantly changing. Um yeah, it's very it's it is very different and very very frustrating. Look, my hope is that that isn't the case, what you just described, but who knows?

SPEAKER_01 47:53

A few well just two last questions on citizenship. So uh knowing that, and maybe this is news, knowing that you and your minor children will be citizens, but your adult children, if the law that's currently in place stands, will not be.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

I know.

SPEAKER_01 48:11

How do you how does that make you feel after all of your time in Italy?

SPEAKER_00 48:15

It's incredibly frustrating because I know that my children love Italy. They've been going there since they were little. My son, one of my uh my older son is a chef. Uh uh, his twin sister is hair and makeup artist. They both went to university to study different disciplines and ended up doing those things. And they're brilliant at what they do. Their younger sister just graduated from the American University in Rome. She's completely in love with Italy and refuses to leave, basically. Although how she's going to afford it, I don't know. But we'll address that. We are addressing that. Um, so if she had her way, she would never leave. And I know the other two would spend as much time there as possible. My son has spent summers there with friends who have a place in Ulrian, worked on their farm. Uh, he understands Italian, speak a little bit. They are they absolutely love it. And it's heartbreaking to me to know that they have so much to offer the country, and the country has so much to offer them, and eventually their children, that they don't have easy access to it is heartbreaking to me. My hope is that those laws will change and allow them to get what I think is their right.

SPEAKER_01 49:45

Last question, what has it two-part or what does being an officially recognized citizen change for you, if anything? And what would you tell someone who was considering embarking on the citizenship journey?

SPEAKER_00 50:02

I would tell first to answer your last question first, I would tell them to do it, that it's not going to be easy, but I would also have them call you. But because you made it happen. And but that they really should pursue it. Because when I it's very funny how this little pamphlet can be so meaningful. And there's a there's a part of Italy in Trentino Alto Adige, there are the Ladin people, right? Not the Latins, but the Laddins, who have been there for thousands of years. Pre-Roman. And they don't have, they say, I don't care what it says on my passport. It doesn't matter. If you want to say Italian, great. You want to say because it had been part of Austria-Hungary at one point, you want to say Austria-Hungary? Great. Doesn't matter. I don't care. I know that I am Laddin. That's all that matters. I have my traditions and I know who I am. For me, I know that I am Italian. I know that I have that genetic connection and an emotional connection to that country, having spent so much time there. However, I I I covet that piece of paper. And every time I think about it, I'm elated, and I cannot believe that it happened. And it makes me feel very much more connected to my family and to my ancestors. And I remember my with the exception of my excuse me, my uh father's mother, I remember my grandparents very, very, very well. And I wish that they were around to to see this. And I'm glad my parents are around to see it. And uh it means a huge amount to me. Because that place has given me so much. I'd like to be able to give give back it away. And this makes it this makes it easier. And then you don't have to wait on those stupid lines anymore.

SPEAKER_01 52:31

Then everybody catches up you with you with the baggage claim and you think.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Yeah, this is where it's all the same.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 52:37

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

Well, Stanley Tucci, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to meet with me today. This has been a fun conversation. I hope it has been for you as well.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

It's been absolutely great. And thank you so much, Lauren, for for this. It was really fun to do. And and thank you again for all your hard work and for you know bringing a dream of mine to reality.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

Of course, it was a pleasure and an honor.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

So thank you so much. Thanks. Take care, Stanley. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 53:14

Stanley Tucci, thank you so much. That was a fantastic conversation. It was an honor to help you with your citizenship and an honor to host you here on your Italian podcast. To those of you in the audience, it is a call to action for all of you. Uh, as you have now heard, there are major developments in the Italian courts uh culminating in the hearing on June 9th of this year. Please put something out on your own social media, telling Italy, what does what would your Italian citizenship mean to you? What would the fact that you're cut out of Italian citizenship mean to you if this law is allowed to stand? Together, we may affect the change that we need to overcome this current law. So please, uh, one of us won't get it done, but all of us just might accomplish something. So, Stan, thank you again. And everybody, let's come together and make this happen.