Je So’ Pazzo: Interview with Giovanni Ludeno and Mariasole Pollio as Pino Daniele’s Father and First Wife

A good film is one that not only the lead character but also the supporting roles possess substance and depth, and the same applies to the actors. These qualities, together with many others, make Je so’ Pazzo interesting and engaging, regardless of whether it tells part of the life of Pino Daniele, a gifted Neapolitan musician and singer who left us in 2015. If the artist is portrayed by Massimiliano Caiazzo, whom we came to know thanks to Mare Fuori, in the role of Gennaro Daniele, the father of the Neapolitan bluesman, we find Giovanni Ludeno. Some may remember him perhaps from Le indagini di Lolita Lobosco, where he played Antonio Forte, Lolita’s best friend and trusted collaborator, where he wore a flawless Bari accent. Ludeno however hails from Naples and renders the father of Pinotto as a creature almost Shakespearean in his complexity, mutability, and ambiguity. The relationship between Pino and Gennaro was not straightforward, because when the former was a child, the latter entrusted him to two affluent, spinster sisters who lived in the same building where the Daniele family kept a bass. It is precisely this “abandonment” that made Pino a rebellious, angry young man, constantly at odds with his roots, and it influenced his perspective on Naples. Another important person in the artist’s life was his first wife, Dorina Giangrande, who served as a backing vocalist for his band. Pino and Dorina were young when they married, and from that fifteen-year marriage, two children were born. In Je so’ Pazzo, Dorina is portrayed by Mariasole Pollio, whom we interviewed at the Festa del Cinema di Roma 2026, alongside Giovanni Ludeno. It should be remembered that the film, directed by Nicola Prosatore, distributed by 01 Distribution, and recounting the life of Pino Daniele from childhood to the 1981 free concert at Piazza del Plebiscito, is currently in our cinemas.