Q&A: Stanley Tucci on grief, food and ‘Supernova’

NEW YORK

Stanley Tucci’s pandemic activities have run the gamut.

He has household-schooled tiny children with his wife, Felicity Blunt. He has shared cocktail recipes. He has had the virus. He has worked on film and Tv set sets with new safety protocols. He has penned a food memoir — the to start with draft in London’s very first lockdown, the 2nd draft in its 2nd.

And he is starring in a recently released film in which he presents one particular of the finest performances of his career. In “Supernova,” Tucci performs Tusker, a novelist on the edge of early on-established dementia. He’s however himself but it is beginning to slip absent. He and his longtime associate, Sam (Colin Firth) acquire a road vacation in an R.V. through England’s Lake District, maybe their past. The film, currently actively playing in theaters, will be offered to lease digitally Feb. 16.

“It’s a real select-me-up in the course of the pandemic,” Tucci deadpanned in a current interview.

But in “Supernova,” Tucci and Firth — real-existence good friends for 20 a long time — are this sort of a convincing, tender few that the intimacy and compassion of the film, penned and directed by Harry Macqueen, is a type of salve, even when it’s heartbreaking.

For the 60-calendar year-outdated Tucci, who has extensive exuded wit and sophistication as both an actor (“Highlight,” “The Starvation Games”) and filmmaker (“Large Night,” “Joe Gould’s Secret”), the role of Tusker is one to celebrate. Talking by online video convention from London, Tucci mused that he might celebrate the film’s premiere by a Zoom with Firth, around Negronis.

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AP: As an creator of various cookbooks, are your passions for performing and for foodstuff interwoven?

TUCCI: They’re only interwoven, I suppose, in “Big Night” or “Julie & Julia.” But other than that, no. I act to take in. The only way I can find the money for to consume is to act. (Laughs) If I’m provided a position, my very first considered is: Okay, where by does it shoot? The second considered is: How significantly will they fork out me? And if it is capturing someplace else, I instantaneously assume of the food items there. I know if it’s Toronto, which is fine. I really don’t want to be that considerably away, but I know there is great foodstuff. Vancouver? High-quality. If another person says Bulgaria, I’m almost certainly heading to go, “How very long is that shoot?”

AP: Do you occasionally prepare dinner for your co-stars?

TUCCI: Unquestionably. I cooked for Colin when I did “Supernova.” We have been friends for a extensive time so we’re in each individual other’s kitchens. His wife is a excellent cook dinner. I like to do it. I like to consume what I like to consume. I do not want to go and take in some hamburger some area in the center of nowhere. I’d alternatively choose the time and set in the hard work to make myself a little something great.

AP: You are a really exact actor. I can see that remaining similar to cooking.

TUCCI: Not if you noticed me cook dinner. My spouse goes, “How significantly of that did you place in?” I don’t know!

AP: If you’re choosing projects partly by circumstance, driving close to the Lakes with a close friend sounds like a very good alternative.

TUCCI: It was actually great. It was tricky to go out and locate foods, I’ll be truthful. So the cooking was a necessity moreover I like executing it. But it was a terrific experience. I had never been to the Lake District just before. All people I understood experienced always talked about it. It was even more gorgeous than they explained. To do the job with one particular of your ideal pals and perform with this very proficient director on a attractive script on a story which is significant, it just does not materialize. Nobody’s obtaining abundant off it but that is not the level of it.

AP: “Supernova” is about a couple collectively navigating a terminal situation. Your very first spouse, Kathryn Spath-Tucci, with whom you have several youngsters, died in 2009 from breast most cancers. Ended up you wondering considerably about the conversations you and she shared near the finish when making the film?

TUCCI: Some thing like that just gets a section of who you are. You never even have to imagine about it. It’s just there. And you really do not truly want to imagine about it, but it’s there. It’s often there. It is there in your dreams. At the time you get more mature, even if you haven’t expert what I seasoned, you do have a know-how of it. Because you have lost persons. You have missing other people, regardless of whether it’s mom and dad or grandparents or more mature close friends. I’ve misplaced rather a several friends around the very last couple of a long time. I’m rarely outdated. I’m more mature but I’m not outdated however, I really don’t think. But, yeah, with Kate, it’s often in you. It’s a pretty strange detail. It’s not that you dwell on it. It’s just a portion of you. You just would like that you could have carried out anything extra to enable. There is a guilt. There is no issue about that. There is a guilt that you’re transferring on with your lifestyle. You’re viewing your young ones grow up. You are heading to see, hopefully, grandchildren. She will not have that prospect. Your brain starts off to even get perplexed occasionally simply because you assume, “Oh, she would love to see my very little young ones.” Which would not make any perception. Since you love them so a lot and I really like her so significantly. It is all just about appreciate, truly.

AP: You have been at first to perform Sam with Firth as Tusker. Why did you switch?

TUCCI: I was more comfortable playing Tusker. It just appeared additional suitable to me, and to Colin and to Harry, naturally. Colin had brought it up. He mentioned, “Suppose we swap roles?” I said I was considering the very same issue. I do not know why. Each individual time I looked at it, I explained something’s not suitable. It just manufactured superior sense, rhythmically.

AP: Had you ever accomplished that ahead of?

TUCCI: No, hardly ever. That is element of doing the job with pals. When you function with a close friend, you have a shorthand and you believe in each individual other. And you believe in each and every other more than enough to say, “Let’s change roles.” No one would at any time do that. You really don’t wander onto a established and go, “Hey, I have an concept.” Can you imagine the brokers and producers and everybody freaking out?

AP: Do you come to feel you’ve got gotten greater as an actor as you have aged?

TUCCI: I feel like I have gotten greater, yeah. That was the objective, just to retain having far better. I’m a lot more calm now mainly because I have just been executing it for so lengthy. A great deal of it is system. And a great deal of it is realizing the much more normally you do it, the a lot less you actually have to do — that financial system is anything. You don’t require, a great deal of times, to expend the vitality that you imagined you wanted to when you have been younger. Also, you are more mature now so you can’t. (Laughs) The only issue at this stage: I despise ready. Like I can not bear it. I just hate it. Life’s too shorter. You commit so considerably time on a film set just waiting. As a director, I check out to move points alongside pretty, quite quickly. I really don’t like lengthy times. I really do not like lunch hours. Let’s go, do it, go house and have a martini and a good meal.