Massimo De Francovich

After studying at the Accademia Nazionale d’Arte Drammatica Silvio d’Amico, De Francovich made his theatre debut with Vittorio Gassman in Jean Anouilh’s Ornifle. He has worked with some of the biggest names in theatre during his long career, including Franco Zeffirelli, Edmo Fenoglio, Evi Maltagliati, Tino Buazzelli, Mila Vannucci, Lucia Catullo, Vittorio Sanipoli, Maria Fabbri, Carlo Bagno, Giancarlo Sepe, Giuseppe Patroni Griffi, Valeria Moriconi, Egisto Marcucci, Giancarlo Cobelli, Guido De Monticelli, Piero Maccarinelli, Carmelo Rifici, Serena Senigaglia, Furio Bordon, Giuliana Lojodice, Massimo Luconi, Luca Zingaretti, Piergiorgio Piccoli, Franco Branciaroli and Antonio Calenda, to name but a few. His long artistic collaboration with Luca Ronconi started at the Teatro Stabile di Torino in 1990 and continued at the Teatro di Roma and the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. He has appeared in productions such as Eugene O’Neill’s Strano interludio, Karl Kraus’s Gli ultimi giorni dell’umanità, Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s L’uomo difficile, Shakespeare’s Re Lear, Ibsen’s verso Peer Gynt, Dostoevsky’s I fratelli Karamazov, Giordano Bruno’s Candelaio, Marina Tsvetaeva’s Phoenix, Euripides’ Baccanti, Thucydides’ Memoriale, Enzo Siciliano’s Pericle e la peste, Arthur Schnitzler’s Professore Bernhardi, Goldoni’s Il ventaglio, Hermann Broch’s Inventato di sana pianta and Stefano Massini’s Lehman Trilogy. His cinematic appearances include Marco Tullio Giordana’s Pasolini, un delitto italiano, Franco Bernini’s Le mani forti, Giancarlo Planta’s Onorevoli detenuti, Michele Sordillo’s La vita altrui, Roberto Andò’s Il manoscritto del principe and Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grande bellezza. In 2004, he starred in Ovunque sei alongside Stefano Accorsi and Barbora Bobulova. Between 2008 and 2010, he played the Old Man in Romanzo criminale – La serie directed by Stefano Sollima, and featured in the TV series Boris in 2009. His numerous awards include the Armando Curcio Prize in 1990, the UBU Prize and the Le Fenici Prize in 1991, the E. Flaiano Prize and Nanni Moretti’s Sacher d’Oro in 1994, and the Salvo Randone Prize in 2000. In 2006, he won the UBU Prize, the Italian Critics’ Prize, the Veretium Prize in Borgio Verezzi and the Premio Olimpici del Teatro. He was awarded the Ennio Flaiano Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.