The interview with Michael Poryes turns into a script

“No one ever leaves a star. That’s what makes one a star.” (Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder)

But the idiot who leaves a star, rest assured that a real star will never allow his return, I say.

Here is how my interview with the great Michael Poryes begins. 

But it is certainly not a traditional interview. It cannot even be called an interview. 

It could be defined as an interesting exchange of experiences, of work and life, where the theme of fame opens many treasure chests, often dramatic.

I therefore “transgressively” skip all the questions that I should have asked the immense screenwriter and filmmaker Michael Poryes and begin to talk about Billy Wilder, his daughter Victoria Wilder, who I met recently, my contact with Gloria Swanson and still on Billy Wilder, for me the number one director in the history of cinema. 

An embarrassing statement, however, since Federico Fellini was my mentor. 

Michael thinks of Billy Wilder’s films, he can’t remember the title of Wilder’s most theatrical film and asks me. 

I : “The most beautiful film on the history of cinema and absolutely the most beautiful film in the history of cinema?” – I answer him – “… is “Sunset Boulevard”. 

The film par excellence about fame, the theme of Poryes’ most famous work, the four time Emmy nominated  “Hannah Montana”. 

Poryes answers me by telling me that Hannah Montana deals with the theme of fame, which instead in “Sunset Boulevard” is fiercely the protagonist. 

There is a common aspect between me and Poryes: we are both famous, with the problems of those who are famous and we both try to take fame away from our lives, invaded by fame. 

Michael tells me that, coincidentally, his son, yesterday, made him understand how his life can potentially be controlled by his fans, since his information is everywhere on the Internet.

Hannah Montana fans are many and each fan wants to penetrate the life of their star, Michael Poryes, the creator of Hannah Montana!

What do fans really want from their idols? A vast and delicate topic this.

One of the goals of the fans, often linked to unawareness, is to deprive the star of his golden mantle that he shows off on stage, to, in the end, reverse the roles. But how? Just like in: “Les Bonnes” by Jean Genet, where the star is physically killed, his power is killed, his magnetism and seduction is dethroned, to absurdly reinforce his incorporeal icon, which is the only thing that matters to a fan. Atrocious. And this is what happened to me now: someone has penetrated my orbit and attracted by my magnetism towards my core, the “metaphorically” mortal clash is now underway. Who will survive?

At this point Michael talks about Miley Stewart , a teenager who wants to become a pop star. As her success grows, her friends start to look at her differently. And when she, because of her success, moves to Malibu, Miley wants to change everything: she divides her personality between being a star and herself and so creates Hannah Montana. Miley wants to be treated as herself. I reply that this is why I can’t live my life and Michael tells me that you never know if someone is treating you genuinely or treating you to get something from you or they are around you to show off to their friends that they are your friends and never treat you honestly. 

Michael tells me that he has had friends since he wasn’t famous and they have never changed with him. And he asks me if it is the same for me. I reply yes, but mine is an unconvincing “yes”, since the energy of the few friends I have is captured by all the others who treat me for my fame. 

Michael says that his career has had notable ups and downs, as he assumes mine has also been. Yes, my career has also had moments of glory and moments of oblivion, like the character of Norma Desmond. 

And Michael adds that it is very difficult to navigate between people who are your friends, but who are also friends of your fame and people who are just your friends. 

All this gets complicated when you are a teenager. You have to understand if your parents use you for the money you produce. I quote Amy Winehouse where the family does not seem interested in Amy, as a human being, but to be interested in her, as long as Amy produces money, so Amy, feeling useful, abuses drugs, to keep up with her shows, and then dies for this and for a love lived in this context. Atrocious. They talk about Lady Gaga and her mother, Sophia Loren and her mother, Cher and her mother. The theme again moves away from Hannah Montana, but the background on fame broadens.

I feel it is right to make known my dramatic relationship with my father, in relation to my fame, obtained, as with Miley Stewart/ Hannah Montana, as a teenager.

My father, a powerful lawyer, destroyed my friendship with Federico Fellini, forbade RAI TV, the Italian state television, from working with them, completely tore me away from my world of entertainment which for me was life, and I, in short, found myself alone, collapsed on the floor of my house in the grip of a powerful depression that isolated me from everything, everyone and even from myself, a depression fueled by my father for years, while Fellini called me for his films and my father tore those vital calls, as oxygen, from my life, because they would have given me back my fame, now in agony like me!

Michael is struck by this dramatic story of mine: because of my fame, my father literally rejected me as a son and punished me for no longer being his son Federico, for having become Wardal! Atrocious.

Only after my father’s death, little by little, without strength and disappointed by everything, I was collected out of pity by a great playwright who imposed me once again on the great stage and when I heard the loud applause of the audience, forgotten due to my long absence, I said to myself, with tears in my eyes, while the curtain fell: “Wardal, listen! You can no longer leave your audience, since it is the only one that loves you and will always love you! Courage, Wardal, you are not guilty of being Wardal! You see, they call you back for the applause! And then, Wardal return to the stage and be Wardal forever! ” .

I was sorry, really, to have vented with the great Michael Poryes, but it was inevitable: the themes of his Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana are so close to mine! Since long ago, now, forever. 

Michael comments on how slippery our world of entertainment is, repeating that the anchor for him are true friends that Michael has because he is whole, intact: Michael has never been contaminated by his fame. 

That’s why Michael has the same friends as always who have never changed with him, because Michael has never changed. Michael believes in friendship, where fame has no access. Another problem in our entertainment industry is people who want fame without wanting to study, without any preparation that deprives the possibility of believing in something and there is the absence of authenticity since, with my personal experience, I have often seen scripts presented as originals that were instead totally copied from famous scripts, never well read, that were authentic flops. 

Another aspect of our entertainment world is that it always requires us to be reborn when we do not feel the need, to renew ourselves when we do not feel the need, to change when we do not feel the need and it takes a continuous “Metamorphosis” to sell, a “product” forced to be born?! A show that I am writing is called “Metamorphosis” and I will share it with Michael, since I know that he is an authentic artist, an authentic person. 

A great and current initiative of Poryes is to have rewritten the story of Al Kamilah, immortalized in the non-fiction film: “Al Kamilah the miracle filly” by Angela Alioto directed by Christopher A. Salvador , into a children’s picture book . The story that has fascinated and still fascinates social media is that of a filly for which no one wanted to try anything to save her life and Angela Alioto, on the contrary, trying everything and believing in the miracle, after months and months of dedication and love, saved her life. The book will be released soon illustrated. Poryes believes in believing and, in my opinion, believing only takes place in genuine, honest, authentic beings and that belief can produce miracles. 

Michael Poryes, recently becomes very popular also in Italy by Sky TV for his TV series called: “Home, Sweet Rome”, which broadcast by Max an enhanced streaming platform from Warner Bros has obtained in 2024 a huge success also in the USA. “Home, Sweet Rome” is a comedy that has totally interested the Hannah Montana audience, since like Hannah Montana it focuses on the teenager Lucy, played by Kensington Tallman, who changes her life and moves from California to Rome with her father and in with her stepmother, Francesca, who is an Italian pop star! The theme of fame reappears again, but it is less evident and everyone identifies with Lucy, immersed in a new life, in a new culture. Wonderful scenarios of the city of Rome open up with the irresistible glamour of Italian fashion and Roman life that my mentor Fellini immortalized with his most famous film “La dolce vita” and where the air of Fellini remains at the Trevi Fountain, in Via Margutta, at the “Canova” and “Rosati” bars in Piazza del Popolo where I used to go with Fellini and now it seems like I’m having a coffee with Lucy.