‘Parthenope’ Breakout Celeste Dalla Porta Talks Working With Paolo Sorrentino, Gary Oldman: “An Experience That I Lived To The Full”​on March 4, 2025 at 2:40 am

It’s easy to dismiss Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope, as some critics have, reducing it to a sumptuous perfume ad à la Tom Ford. The same could be said about Celeste Dalla Porta’s eponymous character, who often finds herself being pigeonholed into certain archetypes due to her striking looks, which are only rivaled by the film’s sweeping […]It’s easy to dismiss Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope, as some critics have, reducing it to a sumptuous perfume ad à la Tom Ford. The same could be said about Celeste Dalla Porta’s eponymous character, who often finds herself being pigeonholed into certain archetypes due to her striking looks, which are only rivaled by the film’s sweeping   

It’s easy to dismiss Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope, as some critics have, reducing it to a sumptuous perfume ad à la Tom Ford. The same could be said about Celeste Dalla Porta’s eponymous character, who often finds herself being pigeonholed into certain archetypes due to her striking looks, which are only rivaled by the film’s sweeping shots of the Neapolitan jagged cliffsides that abut the surrounding cerulean sea.

In this personal, intimate three-decade-spanning epic — Sorrentino’s follow-up to 2021’s lauded The Hand of God — a young Parthenope comes of age amid the backdrop of family turmoil and tragedy, pursuing a life of education and wonder. A cinematic exploration of the limitations of and privileges afforded by beauty and youth, Parthenope cascades through ‘60s and ‘70s Italy as a loose orange scarf dances in the wind, digging into criminal underbellies, the papacy and the rise and fall of divadom. 

Though Porta, who went to acting school, had previously worked with Sorrentino in The Hand of God, as an extra in which her scene was eventually cut, she marks the A24 feature as her first “substantial collaboration” with the auteur. Subdued and hard to pin down, Parthenope the character takes its name after the city of Naples, steeped in Greek mythology as the site where a siren cast herself into the water and drowned.

“Paolo always gave me the advice not to be too close to the myth because otherwise we would miss out on the reality of the story we wanted to tell,” Porta said, via an Italian translator. “Having said that, there are some allegorical elements, similar components between our story and the myth.”

Below, read an edited and condensed version of Deadline’s Q&A with the star of Parthenope.

DEADLINE: How did this journey come about? Was there an audition process, and how did you come to know Parthenope?

CELESTE DALLA PORTA: Yes, it was a long audition process after which I ended up being picked, but we had many sessions, and each time, Paolo would give me a new part of the script. It was like a gift that he would give me every time — every audition he would give me a tiny morsel more.

Parthenope is difficult to define: she’s fun and flirtatious, but there’s a depth to her. The movie is about love, tragedy, maturing — for you, what was the center of this character? 

It’s true. It’s a character that, at an emotional level, undergoes so many different changes, and there’s so many different nuances. And for me, the center of this character is filled with all of these details, all of these nuances. I have a hard time singling out a single feeling or a single element to describe Parthenope because there’s just all the richness of all these different themes in it. Maybe one thing is her human quest — her quest for freedom — that can be the sort of fil rouge, the common thread, that goes throughout the entire process.

Shot in Naples, the cinematography, the costuming, the setting is just so sweeping and beautiful. Did you have a favorite location or scene? What stands out for you with this grand project?

Definitely, there are multiple moments that mean a lot to me. The scene when Professor Marotta [portrayed by Silvio Orlando] introduces Parthenope to his son, because in that particular moment, there’s an exchange of trust. There’s mutual trust that comes up. And I think that’s extremely important, and it sort of lets you take a sigh of relief. The character is sort of in a position where she can finally let herself go. She can finally allow herself to be overwhelmed and surprised by something that’s so wonderful, which is both the professor’s son and the gift that the professor gives her by trusting her to that level.

Given that this is your breakout role, what were you able to take away from Paolo and your scene partner Gary Oldman?

I learned a lot from both of them because both of them are great maestros. They are teachers that can explain everything, but they don’t do it with words; they do it just through the way they work, so the opportunity to be side by side with them, and observing them at work, and being involved, becoming a part of their world and of their imaginary life was something completely magical and unique and unforgettable. I learned a lot of things from them in a very practical, hands-on way, just by being next to them. At least I hope that I’ve learned, because these artists can reach levels that are so high that one can only sort of look up to them and love them.

The film is also a love letter to Italy of sorts, given Paolo is from Naples. It’s steeped in the culture, fashion and music of the ‘60s and ‘70s. What was it like inhabiting that world?

The opportunity I had to get to know the city of Naples in a much deeper way, and above all through the gaze of Paolo Sorrentino … that can extract all of the beauty and the magic that is there in such an incredible way, and then we plunge into the music of those years, and we plunged into the imaginary life, the life of the creative world of those years. And that, for me, was an incredible opportunity to try to immerse myself as much as I could in that world. That became part of who I am, and it became an experience that I lived to the full.

Parthenope, to me, feels like a film that stays with you. Was that your experience as a performer, did you feel that staying power in playing your character?

Parthenope is such a mysterious character. She’s such a mysterious woman, and she’s so intelligent, and it’s not like I can claim that I’m exactly like her. I try to interpret her. And having said that, I did that, starting from a character that has left a lot of herself in me, and it’s as if we embarked on a journey together, because we went through her entire life. She grows up and she becomes a mature woman. And to some extent, I did that too, I accompanied her through this growth journey, and so in terms of extracting myself from her, it’s as if, on the one hand, I still have her inside me because I was in touch with her for so long. But on the other hand, I also recognize that she is a character and [a] fruit of the imagination. I’m also deeply immersed in the promotion of the movie. I’ve been talking about Parthenope every single day, and therefore she’s still very much a part of my day-to-day life.