Fans of Prime’s smash hit series, Citadel are in for a treat as the spy universe expands with Citadel: Diana. The spin-off takes viewers forward to 2030, and furthers the story of the intense and bloody battle between the Citadel spy agency, and their powerful enemy, the Manticore syndicate. M&F was in London to speak to Matilda De Angelis, who is the shows lead, and Gina Gardi, who served as Executive Producer on the highly anticipated project, to find out more about the process of making those physically intense scenes, and why they are not afraid to get their hands dirty in order to normalize the presence of strong female characters on screen.
Gina, it must be an excited project to work on for lots of different reasons. I wonder if you could talk to me about Matilda, and how she’s kind of rolled with some of the punches on set, and does a particular actor change the direction of the action?
Gina Gardi: You know, I’ll let her speak to her incredible dedication. But let me preface this by saying obviously, this role required enormous, enormous commitment, because not only is it an incredibly complex role for the character and the emotional journey of this character, but the physical demands of the role and the stamina.
You know, (as opposed to a film) you have a more compressed period of time when you’re making a series of six episodes, you’re there 18 to 20 weeks. And, compound that with months of training. What was so fantastic about Matilda was her level of commitment to this project and how she embraced the four months of training that she had to do before she was actually able to delve in to her role as an actor, becoming Diana. So, that was amazing.
So, Matilda, when you were writing songs and thinking about performing on stage and releasing albums, did you ever imagine you’d be rolling around and kind of doing stunts in movies?
Matilda De Angelis: No, (laughs) I never thought about myself that way, but I do have a past as a gymnast. I used to, from the age of four to the age of 12, I remember doing competitions in the weekend and training four times a week, So, I come from that (physical environment) and I have a good muscular memory.
So, when it came to training for the series, first of all while reading the script, that (physicality) was the thing that I was most drawn to and fascinated by. We don’t get the chance that often to do something like that, especially in Italy, we don’t really have that culture. So, I wanted to be able to do most of my stunts. Not just because I wanted to have fun with it, but also because it was important for my performance in general, to really have dirt on my hands and, you know, really dive in to it.
Like you say, you have that muscle memory and timing, and agility still, but there’s the cardio aspect of trying to hit your marks, trying to get the face right while picking up a huge gun or something else. Was that tricky?
Matilda De Angelis: It was tricky. Yeah, I went through different kinds of training so from parkour to martial arts and then training with guns of course, because I needed to portray Diana like a war machine and a well-trained spy. So, it all had to look very natural and very casual so even unloading and reloading a gun had to look like very easy for me, and that wasn’t easy at the beginning…
I have to say also, I have the most wonderful Coach, Emiliano Novelli at EAStunt in Italy. They’re the best in the world and they trained me with so much patience and love, and they were always on set, you know, caring about me, making sure that everything was safe. But, he also kept telling me just believe it. You have to believe in what you’re doing. Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense. I mean, I don’t want to say that 90% of how it looks goes through the face, but also if you believe in it, the audience will believe in it.
Strong females on television are very important. How proud are you? Not just of ‘Citadel: Diana’, but all of the Citadel series, because they have very strong stories and strong female characters?
Gina Gardi: And, you know what’s so bizarre is how organic it was in the sense that it wasn’t, you know, sitting at a table and calculating, being strategic and saying, ‘OK, we want our show to have a strong female lead’. (Citadel: Diana) could only be portrayed by a woman, and I think on the other shows it was a natural progression as well.
So yes, especially for Italy to have such a strong female lead and, (Matilda), you said this a little while ago, we can’t wait for the day where we don’t need to comment anymore on the fact that ‘oh, wow, there are three strong female leads in a global series,’ and that is kind of you know… Not even the norm, but just par for the course, right? Yeah. So, yeah, it’s fantastic!
Citadel: Diana premieres on Prime, Oct. 10, 2024.