In the third season of the TV series Gomorrah, a character named Maria emerges. She is the fiancée of Enzo, a member of the “Santo clan” in the historic center of Napoli. Maria is a woman who lives a limitless love for a man for whom she would do anything at any cost, to the point of dying as in fact it happens in the fourth season. She is a passionate and determined character open to any emotion. She has no family. Enzo and his sister are everything she has and what she lives for. Maria is a dramatic character, although very young she is a terribly woman and she goes beyond the role of the lover to become a Camorra woman herself but alive and full of humanity.This character has given great popularity to the interpreter, a young actress who had made her debut a few years earlier by participating in other tv series such as Furore (Furor) and Non dirlo al mio capo (Don’t tell my boss). Her name is Gina Amarante and her talent immediately surpassed the limits of the tv series seeing her as a co-star, next to Cristina Donadio, in the short film La Scelta (The Choice), by Giuseppe Alessio Nuzzo. Later again as a co-star in the film by Marco Mario De Notaris: La Tristezza ha il Sonno Leggero (Sadness has a light sleep), alongside Stefania Sandrelli.
In 2020 she returned to the small screen being on the set of I Bastardi di Pizzofalcone (The Bastards of Pizzofalcone) directed by Monica Vullo and participates in the TV series Lolita (Lolita) directed by Luca Miniero.
Since 2022 she has been one of the protagonists of the TV series Un Posto al Sole (A Place in the Sun), in the interpretation of two twins: Manuela and Micaela. Gina was born in Angri, in the province of Salerno. A small town to which, as she says, she returns to feel loved and understood, but from which she felt the need to escape in order to experience better realities with more opportunities for professional and personal growth.
G.A.: “Maybe I’m more tied to my city now than in the past, precisely because I don’t live it every day. Sometimes I feel the need to come back to find myself, in the wise words of my grandmother, in the hugs of my niece, in the advice of my sister, at dinners with my parents.”
She describe herself as an extremely emotional person. Maybe just like Maria in Gomorrah her life revolves around emotions.
G.A.: “I cannot do anything other than “feel”. For better or for worse, and this is sometimes a virtue, others a condemnation, but it certainly represents a necessary component for my work.”
Gina is hyperactive. She never stops doing things. She uses the whole time she gets in order to do things she likes. However she always looks for perfection.
G.A.: “I never give up, I am the most determined person I know and this helps me not to give up in difficult moments, both personal and professional.
I like to surround myself with sensitive, empathic people, I find empathy the key to happiness, I prefer a look at a long conversation, a stroll in the evenings in the clubs, an art exhibition to shopping. I can’t imagine myself without my job and doing it makes me really complete, satisfied, happy.”
Beside being an actress she also has many interests. She attends Pilates course, she likes cooking and reading poetries. And she loves everything belongs to the world of art. She loves writing. She reads a lot and dedicates time studying music and languages to improve herself as a person and as an actress.
G.A.: “I like to enrich my characters and I don’t want to be taken by surprise, unprepared.I have a degree in Literature, but I always tend to point out that for me it is not a job alternative, it is just one more piece, the alternative is not there, either I will be an actress or I will be an actress.”
She also saves time to dedicate to her friends and loved ones.
G.A.: “I certainly have many flaws but I always try to be present in the life of the people I love.”
We have been proposed many questions to ask to her who, although young, is very talented. And we are pleased and honored that she has dedicated us some of her time by answering professional questions as well as questions that affect the personal sphere.
G.A. – The visceral need to be and not to do, to feel and not show, to live and not suffer. For me this is not just a job, it is life and every time I try with every part of me to experience my characters as if it were the only important thing to do. Cinema has often saved me from many difficult moments and I want my work to be able to save many people like me to feel less alone, to feel understood, loved. Certainly my most precious quality that becomes a skill on set or on stage is empathy, I like to be carried away by the emotions of the moment that the character experiences, by the feelings that colleagues transmit to me, I like to be constantly listening. I never stop asking myself questions, learning, deepening, I don’t stop until I know about the character as much as I know about myself. –
NAP. – What prompted you to pursue an acting career and to be so determined in making your dream come true? –
G.A. – In truth, I don’t remember the exact moment when I realized I wanted to do this job, it’s as if it had always been a part of me. I remember that as a child, fourth / fifth grade, I invented a stomach ache and fever with my parents to be able to stay at home in the morning to watch Giffoni’s films. My mother tried to make me passionate about any discipline, dance, swimming, rhythmic gymnastics, but one day, around the age of 12, I clearly told her that I wanted to do acting, or that or nothing, so she decided. Wanting to do this job for me is not a simple desire, the classic dream in the drawer, it is a need for me, it is an instinct, I cannot do without it. It is as if all my days, from wake up in the morning to bedtime in the evening, revolve around this need, it is like falling in love, it is like forever. –
NAP. – What do you think is the most challenging aspect of your job? –
G.A. – Surely the wait. In this job you inevitably need someone to tell you yes, and just being talented is not always enough, as in every job there are many dynamics with which you may never learn to live completely. The phone that doesn’t ring, the phrase “Gina didn’t get it”, facing this is the most challenging aspect of my job. Without a doubt, the game is always worth the candle, it is worth it all, it is truly the best job in the world, when you do it however, when they allow you to do it. But after all, nothing is simple
and actually earning things makes them much better and more fulfilling. –
NAP. – You are Nina, in the series I Bastardi di Pizzofalcone season 3. From both a professional and an emotional point of view, what can you say about this experience? –
G.A. – It was certainly a good experience. I had already met the director Monica Vullo, during a workshop and I immediately liked her approach. I appreciated her way of seeing and creating the character. It was interesting to work on a very simple, naive, pure character to the point of not realizing that the person she loved and the uncles who had raised her were willing to kill her for their own interests. Nina was really a character made of emotions rather than words, looks, weaknesses. I am very happy to have brought it to life. And then the working environment was wonderful, I found people I already knew, I had the pleasure of meeting other equally beautiful ones and I felt mutual respect in the air. This is always a great feeling. –
NAP. – For two seasons you participated in the series Gomorrah. What was, in your opinion, the best part of your work in that series? –
G.A. – Maria is still a part of me in some way. Gomorrah was my first important job and it is certainly thanks to this experience that today I am a different actress, more aware, more courageous and even a little more confident. The best part of my work in this series is having given Maria’s character everything I could, I lived her to the fullest in all her feelings, in her strengths as much as in her weaknesses, because she had it, she had so many. Surely the most beautiful feeling that characterizes her is the unconditional love she feels for Enzo, she would be willing to do anything for him, to the point of sacrificing herself, dying. Having had the opportunity to play the character of Maria for two seasons has allowed me to follow her, accompany her in her growth, she goes from being a girl who follows her love everywhere, to being a mature woman and absolutely aware of the risks of world in which he lives and the devastating fear of losing everything that represents him.
And then Gomorrah is an incredible project that really allows you to give your best as an artist, where the ultimate goal of all the wonderful and very long work of everyone, is our emotions, as an expression of everyone’s emotions, absolutely everyone. –
NAP. – In percentage terms, as an actress, how much space do you give to talent and how much to training? –
G.A. – Good question. Training must never stop, talent must always be trained, but it must be there, talent is this job. And by talent I mean having that something inside of you that is so strong that you can’t hold it back. Talent is that twinkle in the eye that everyone notices, it is that explosion inside you that no one can help but hear, see. It’s something you either have or don’t have. However it is not enough. That is why there is training that helps us to cure it, to perfect it, to model it, to keep it alive, which allows us to sometimes make a difference. –
NAP. – What do you give as an actress to your character and what do you get from it? –
G.A. – Almost everything perhaps, in both cases. I give myself unconditionally. I don’t give the characters aspects of my character, of my being, I always tend to separate the two things a lot, the more a character is away from me, the more chances of success are, but I give my feeling, living experiences at 360 degrees. As I said before, I try with every particle of mine to be that character and not to simply play it. The consequence of this is inevitably painful in the end. Letting go of a character is never easy, there is always something about you that you leave and something you take and this enriches you above all as a person as well as an actress. When I said goodbye to Maria, it was like tearing a part of my body, I felt without an arm, I had brought her home with me for years in the evening, I had grown her emotions and suddenly she was no longer there. But the truth is that we never abandon our characters because they help us to grow professionally and to be ready to give life to others.
NAP. – Where would you like to see yourself in the next 10 years? –
G.A. – Wherever it is as long as you continue this work / life. –
