NEW YORK, April 12 (UPI) — Another Simple Favor and Martin Scorsese: The Saints actor Lorenzo de Moor says it was easy to say “yes” to starring in the new rom-com, You, Me & Tuscany, alongside Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page.
“This movie takes place where I grew up. It was a no brainer,” the Dutch-Italian actor told UPI in a recent Zoom interview.
“I read the script and I thought: ‘I know exactly who this character is. I see my friends in him. I see parts of myself in him. I know this family,'” de Moor recalled.
“When I sent in a tape to the casting director, I thought, ‘I’m going to send in a little extra one.’ And I was visiting my mom at the time. I was in the Tuscan hills and I did a little tape with the hills behind me saying, ‘This is where I come from.'”
Obviously, that tactic proved irresistible, landing de Moor the coveted role of Matteo in the movie, which opened in theaters this weekend.
Directed by Kat Coiro, the film follows Anna (Bailey), a young New York cook mourning the death of her mother who meets the charming Matteo (de Moor), who tells her how much he misses his beautiful Tuscan villa.
Anna decides on a whim to fly to Italy, ends up staying in Matteo’s house without his knowledge and doesn’t correct his neighbors and family, including his mother Gabriella (Isabella Ferrari) and cousin Michael (Page), who think she and Matteo are engaged.
“I could recognize in him the need to explore more, to venture into the world, to taste things that he hadn’t before, and I could recognize myself and him in that aspect,” de Moor said of Matteo.
“I left my hometown when I was 17 with a dream and I moved to the States, and I went to New York,” he said. “I could understand that need to escape, to see more and he does it in a way that it’s not so easy, and he makes some mistakes along the road.”
The actor said he loves how the film celebrates human connection.
“A wonderful thing about this movie is that every character needs each other,” he noted.
“Anna needs to meet Matteo to follow her dream and he needs to meet her to go home and deal with his family,” de Moor added. “It’s just a beautiful representation of how life works, which is a bunch of wonderful mistakes and accidents on the road.”
De Moor described his leading lady Bailey as “a bundle of light.”
“Every time she would walk into the room, she would just bring this beautiful energy with her. She’s an incredible talent. She’s an incredible singer and incredible actress, and she has such a beautiful soul,” he added. “It was just a treat to work with someone who was so available and so grounded.”
You, Me & Tuscany has the perfect balance of comedy and romance, de Moor said, comparing it to a beloved film he often revisits.
“It brings multitudes to the table. One of my favorite rom-cons of all time is About Time,” he said of Richard Curtis’ 2013 Domhnall Gleeson-Rachel McAdams classic.
“I think that’s the movie I’ve watched the most in my life. I just love that story so much. Maybe there’s an element of father and son relationship that always gets me,” he added.
“That’s a movie, I think, that has the perfect amount of both — the perfect amount of romance, the perfect amount of comedy and the perfect amount of the complexity of being a human being.”
Tuscany also features a number of scene-stealing members of Matteo’s family, whom the lonely Anna unexpectedly finds herself falling in love with along with Michael.
“There’s such a beautiful moment in the movie, which always breaks my heart, when Anna and Isabella, my mother in the movie, are talking and she asks, ‘Anna, so we’re going to see your whole family?’ And Anna says, ‘Well, actually, I don’t have one,’ and Isabella comes in and says, ‘Well, now you do,'” the actor said.
De Moor and co-star Marco Calvani — who plays Lorenzo, the cab driver who becomes Anna’s bemused confidante — served as unofficial guides through Italy for the cast and crew.
“I found out while I was filming, that Marco Calvani, the actor who played Lorenzo, grew up in my same exact town. So, we had that together,” de Moor said. “We became chaperone to the group.”
De Moor will also soon be seen in a summer thriller, Cliffhanger, opposite Pierce Brosnan and Lily James, and the biopic, Maserati: The Brothers, co-starring Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Alba.
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