Italian actress Marta Gastini has made ‘horror’ her specialty

ALL DRESSED up as Mina in “Dracula 3D”: “The costumes were beautiful, but tight and heavy. And we shot in Turin during summer.”

Meet Italy’s reigning scream queen.

Italian actress Marta Gastini has made shrieking, shivering and looking very scared her screen specialty. “I love making horror films and wouldn’t mind playing the vampire next time,” she told Inquirer in an exclusive interview recently.

It’s because she plays Mina, the willowy virgin stalked by a bloodsucker in horror master Dario Argento’s latest epic, “Dracula 3D.”

An excerpt of “Dracula 3D” was premiered at the Moviemov Italian Film Festival held last week at Greenbelt 3, Makati. Gastini had flown in from Rome to attend the special preview. The film, currently in post-production, will be released worldwide early next year.

“I was really curious to see it for the first time,” she said. “It was everything I hoped it to be. I was impressed.”

She reserved the highest praise for Argento: “I learned a lot from him. He pushed his actors to think. He gave us freedom to do what we wanted. But if we made a mistake, he would guide us back to the right path.”
|
The film was shot in Turin at the height of summer. “I had to wear beautiful but heavy and tight – and very hot – costumes. In Italy, we shoot winter scenes in the summer and summer scenes in the winter. I’m not complaining; I love my job.”

Especially since “Dracula 3D” allowed her to share the screen with Rutger Hauer, who plays Van Helsing the vampire hunter. “I had seen him in ‘Blade Runner,’” Gastini related. “At first, I was a little scared because he had such an intense presence. He’s tall and his eyes are piercing.”

MARTA Gastini says Dario Argento is a “generous” teacher. photo by JIM GUIAO PUNZALAN

She learned a lot from Hauer just by watching him from the sidelines, she said. “I was trying to study him. He can be still and strong at the same time.”

Likewise, she picked up lots of pointers from her screen partner, Thomas Kretschmann, who plays her vampire groom. “His Dracula was menacing, but vulnerable and human at the same time. It was interesting for me to watch him play Dracula’s duality.”

Gastini has had the best teachers on the set. Last year, she played a possessed girl in another thriller, “The Rite,” which top-billed Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins as an exorcist.

On her first day on the set of “The Rite,” it suddenly hit her that she was working with the Hannibal Lecter.

“It was a powerful scene and he was only 20 centimeters away from my face, trying to drive away the devil from my body,” she recounted. “I know that he’s a genius, but he’s humble and approachable in spite of his achievements.”

She seems attracted to dark roles, she pointed out. In the TV mini-series “Borgia,” she played Giulia Farnese, the Pope’s mistress. “Yet another Gothic role,” she quipped.

When she returns to Italy, she will start shooting an indie film, another horror flick with edgy director Simone Gandolfo. “We are all young people in that movie.”

She hopes to return to Manila to promote “Dracula 3D” next year. “I’m staying only three days for this trip. I got to see Intramuros and did a little shopping in Greenhills,” she said, pointing at the black pearl earrings she was wearing.

On Friday night, the first-time Manila visitor proudly wore the Philippine-made jewelry when she accepted Argento’s lifetime achievement award at the Cinemanila fest.

E-mail [email protected]