It’s tempting but tough to say thatSupernovamarksStanley Tucci’s best performance yet because he’s brought so many unforgettable characters to screen over the years. But trust me when I tell you, he’s exquisite in this film. Tucci stars oppositeColin Firthas Tusker and Sam, respectively. They’ve been loving partners for 20 years, but encounter a crushing challenge when Tusker is diagnosed with early onset dementia.
It’s a devastating, but beautifully poetic story told by writer-directorHarry Macqueen. WithSupernovanow available on digital, Tucci took the time to walk us through his experience making the movie, which included him encouraging Macqueen to cast Firth in the film. Between their off-screen friendship, their on-screen collaborations and Firth’s full body of work, Tucci was confident that he and Firth would make the optimal duo forSupernova:
“I love him. We’ve been friends for 20 years. He’s an incredibly good person and a great friend. He’s a great father, and he’s just one of the best actors ever. And we have the best time together. We don’t seem to get bored of each other, which doesn’t really make any sense because we’re not very interesting.”
The many people out there thoroughly enjoying Tucci’s mixology videos on social media right now might beg to differ with that last statement.
While this is impossible to picture after having seenSupernova, initially, Tucci was going to play Sam and Firth was going to play Tusker. Here’s how the switch happened:
“I think that we did it the way we were supposed to do it. But yeah, Harry offered me the role of Sam and that was the way we went into it. Colin was gonna play Tusker and then I kept reading it and thinking, ‘Something’s wrong. I wonder if we [switch].’ And then Colin comes to me one day, he goes, ‘We should switch roles.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve been thinking the same thing.’ So we went to Harry and, poor Harry. It was just like, ‘Oh god, why did I get stuck with these two?’ And then he said, ‘Alright, well, let’s read it. Let’s pick some scenes and we’ll read them one way, we’ll read them the other way.’ And we did and it was pretty evident that that was the way it was supposed to be.”
While the end result might suggest Tucci and Firth were perfectly in sync throughout production, Tucci did take a moment to highlight how his own process differs from Firth’s. Here’s how he put it:
“I will stray outside the script. I’ll improvise quite a bit. I’ll repeat things. Like the scene in the bed, when we fall out of bed. It’s in the script, but then I just sort of expanded it and changed it. And I’ll throw things in to just - I don’t know why. I have no idea why! I guess to keep it fresh, to keep it honest, to keep it real, but certainly without destroying Harry’s beautiful script. And luckily Harry was fine with that. So I’m much more likely to do things like that. If Colin says something to me when we’re riding in the car, and he has line, then I have a line, then he has a line, then I have a line, if I couldn’t hear him I would just say, ‘What?’ And he’d have to repeat the line. I mean, I sort of heard him, but I wanted just to say ‘what’ because it was so loud in there. It just seemed more natural. And I think what that does is it keeps you on your toes. It keeps both of us on our toes, and I think that’s a good thing.”
If you’d like to hear more about Tucci’s experience working with Firth onSupernova, the research that went into the film, how Tucci’s experience as a director influences his work as an actor and more, check out our full conversation at the top of this article!
