Maria Riboli on the set of "My first simple smile" talking to the director

Of course if the role is a good role it doesn’t really matter if it’s on screen or in a theater, but the two experiences are so very different from each other.
On stage you have the luxury to have a beginning, middle and end in an arc of one, one and ½ hours and your character has a full story.
As an actor the whole process is way more logical, because every night you start at the beginning and you finish at the end.

But on a set you might be shooting the very ending of the movie the first day you show up, so as an actor you have to have a very strong view and understanding of your character and you have to really be in tuned with yourself to be able to remember the work you’re doing, because maybe today you’re shooting a scene where you’re storming out of a room because of a fight and two weeks later you have to shoot the scene right outside that room…so you have to be able to recreate that feeling, remember very well your intentions.

It’s definitely very challenging. Also on a set there are way more distractions that on a stage.

You can have a cute little scene sitting on a couch in a small studio apartment chit-chatting with your onset-loved one (and that’s what we enjoy watching at the movie theater) but in reality, it’s the two of you, the director, the crew, lights all around you, the microphone boom an inch from your faces…and you have to cut all that out and just concentrate on your work and hold on to it tight!

I shot films where I had very emotional scenes and I had to just focus really hard and not let go of my emotions while the lights were being refocused and the crew was moving around, because when they say “Action!” you have to be ready to go…time is definitely money on a movie set!

One of the positive things about being on camera is that you can re-shoot, so if something is not right, you can always do another take…and you usually do.
You do not have that luxury on stage…if something goes wrong…you better pray that all the info you got in your improve class will come back to you very fast!
And as we say “the show must go on”! And it always does, and it’s always fine!
I remember a show I did few years ago where an actor one night completely forgot to walk on stage and so there I was ready to walk into the scene and no one was there…of course now it’s a very funny story, but right there at the moment I truly had to think very fast! I grabbed two of the actors who were supposed to be with me in the scene and I drag them on stage…I started improvising and they followed me, while someone else went to get the missing thespian.No one in the audience noticed anything and the show kept going as usual…

Another thing that I do love about the theater is the live audience!
There’s nothing like it…the energy you feel from them it’s amazing and it’s just so rewarding to hear their laughter and their tears, and the applauses…that final applause…that’s what we live for…the energy you get there washes out all the tiredness from weeks of rehearsals, and it’s the best reward a performer could get.It’s never about the actor but it’s about the audience for me…it’s about them being able to identify with my work.

My first love will always be theater I have no doubts about it, the magic connected to a dusty stage is sacral to me.
I always arrive quite early when I have a performance and I love to just sit on stage in silence. It puts me where I need to be.


“The theater is so endlessly fascinating because it's so accidental. It's so much like life.” Arthur Miller