Luca Marinelli: The Life Story Behind Italy's Versatile Actor

Luca Marinelli is one of those actors who disappears into every role he plays. You can watch him as a violent criminal in one film, a poor sailor chasing a dream in the next, and an immortal warrior in another, and it takes a moment to realise it is the same man. He does not rely on a famous face or a single style. He changes his body, his voice, and his whole way of moving, until the character feels like a real person and not an actor wearing a costume. That willingness to change completely is what has made him one of the most respected Italian actors of his generation.

He was born in Rome and trained on the stage, where an actor learns to work hard every night and to earn the audience’s attention without any tricks. From the theatre he moved into film, and he built his career step by step, taking small parts first and then bigger ones, always choosing roles that asked something difficult of him. He never seemed in a hurry to become famous. He seemed more interested in becoming good, and the fame came later, almost as a side effect of the work.

Today he is known around the world. He won the top acting prize at the Venice Film Festival for Martin Eden, he starred in a global Netflix hit, and he has played one of the most controversial figures in Italian history on television. Yet he still lives a quiet life away from the spotlight, and he still talks about acting as a craft to be learned, not a prize to be won. This is the story of how a boy from Rome became an actor who can play almost anyone.

A Roman Childhood and the First Love of the Stage

Luca Marinelli was born on 22 October 1985 in Rome, a city where history sits on every corner and where art is part of everyday life. Rome is not a quiet place to grow up. It is loud, crowded, and full of people who talk with their hands and feel things strongly. A child growing up there learns early how people behave, how they argue, how they laugh, and how they hide what they really feel. For an actor, that kind of education matters, because acting is mostly about watching people and understanding them.

As a young man, Marinelli became drawn to the theatre. The stage has always been the place where Italian actors learn their trade, and Rome has theatres that are hundreds of years old. Acting on stage is very different from acting in front of a camera. There is no second take. If you forget a line, the audience sees it. If your voice does not reach the back row, the play fails. Marinelli chose that hard road, and he enrolled at the Accademia Nazionale d’Arte Drammatica Silvio D’Amico, one of the most respected drama schools in Italy. He graduated in 2009, after years of training in voice, movement, and the study of classic plays.

The academy taught him discipline. Students there work long hours, they study the great writers of the theatre, and they learn that talent alone is not enough. A good actor must also be reliable, must listen to the other actors on stage, and must be ready to work on a role for weeks before it is ready to show to anyone. Marinelli took those lessons seriously. People who worked with him in those early years remember a young actor who was intense and focused, someone who asked questions and who wanted to understand every detail of a character before he played him.

After graduating, he worked in the theatre and took small film roles, learning how a film set works. A film set is a strange place for a stage actor. The camera is close, the lights are hot, and a scene can be filmed many times from many angles. The actor must give the same feeling again and again, even when the crew stops to move a light or change a lens. Marinelli learned to be patient with that process, and he learned that film acting is often about doing less, not more. A small change in the eyes can say more on screen than a big gesture ever could.

The Solitude of Prime Numbers and the First Big Roles

Marinelli’s first important film role came in 2010, when he played Mattia Balossino in La solitudine dei numeri primi, The Solitude of Prime Numbers, based on the best-selling novel by Paolo Giordano. The story is about two damaged people, Mattia and Alice, who carry the wounds of their childhoods into adult life and who can never quite connect with the world around them. Mattia is a quiet, troubled young man who hides his pain behind numbers and silence. It was a hard role for a young actor, because the character says very little and the audience must understand him from his face and his behaviour.

The film brought Marinelli to the attention of Italian audiences and critics. He did not play Mattia as a hero or a victim. He played him as a real young man who was hurt and who did not know how to ask for help. That honesty became a mark of his work. He would go on to play many characters who were difficult, broken, or dangerous, and in each case he tried to find the human being inside the character rather than judging him from the outside.

In 2012 he appeared in Tutti i santi giorni, All Saints Day, a film by Paolo Virzì, playing a young man in a warm and funny story about love and everyday life in Rome. The role was very different from Mattia, and it showed that Marinelli could be light and charming as well as dark and serious. Directors began to notice that he was not a one-note actor. He could change his energy to fit the story, and he was willing to take risks with parts that other young actors might have avoided.

During these years he also kept working in the theatre, which remained important to him. The theatre gave him a place to practise and to stay sharp between films, and it kept him connected to the kind of acting where the actor and the audience share the same room and the same air. Many film actors leave the stage behind once they become known, but Marinelli kept returning to it, because he believed that the stage was where an actor’s real skill was tested and kept alive.

Jeeg Robot and the Villain Nobody Could Forget

The role that changed everything for Marinelli came in 2015, when he played Fabio, known as Lo Zingaro, the Gypsy, in Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot, They Call Me Jeeg. The film, directed by Gabriele Mainetti, is about a small-time criminal in Rome who gains superpowers after falling into a river, and who must decide what to do with them. Marinelli played the villain, a violent and unpredictable gangster who wants power and who enjoys hurting people. It was the kind of role that could easily have become a cartoon, but Marinelli made Fabio frightening because he made him feel real.

He prepared for the part with great care, changing his body and his way of speaking until he looked and sounded like a man who had lived a hard life on the streets of Rome. His Fabio is not a monster from a comic book. He is a man who has been shaped by violence and by a world that gave him nothing, and who has decided to take what he wants. Audiences were shocked by the performance, and critics praised it as one of the best villain performances in recent Italian cinema. The film became a surprise hit in Italy, and it won many awards.

For this role, Marinelli won the David di Donatello for Best Supporting Actor, one of the highest honours in Italian film. The David is Italy’s version of the Oscar, and winning it put Marinelli among the leading actors of his country. What is striking is that he won it for playing a villain, not a hero. Most young actors want to be loved by the audience. Marinelli was willing to be hated, as long as the character was true. That choice told directors that he was an actor who put the story first and his own image second.

The success of Jeeg Robot opened doors for him, but it also created a risk. When an actor plays a famous villain so well, directors may want him to play the same kind of part again and again. Marinelli avoided that trap. His next roles were very different, and he showed that he was not going to be trapped in one kind of character. He played a father, a singer, a sailor, and a soldier, and each time he started from the beginning, building a new person from the ground up.

Martin Eden and the Prize at Venice

In 2019, Marinelli gave the performance that many people consider his finest, playing the title role in Martin Eden, directed by Pietro Marcello and based on the novel by Jack London. The story follows a poor sailor who teaches himself to read and write, becomes a writer, and rises into the world of rich and educated people, only to find that success does not bring him the happiness he expected. It is a long and demanding role, because Martin changes over many years, from a rough young sailor to a famous and disillusioned writer.

Marinelli prepared for the part by transforming his body and by living with the character for a long time. He lost weight and built a different physical presence for the early scenes, and he changed again as Martin grew older and more tired. He also had to carry the film almost alone, because Martin Eden is on screen in nearly every scene. The performance asks the actor to show hope, love, anger, and despair, sometimes within a single scene, and Marinelli did it with a quiet power that made audiences feel they were watching a real life unfold.

The film was shown at the Venice Film Festival in 2019, and Marinelli won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, the festival’s top prize for an actor. It was a major moment for Italian cinema, and it confirmed what many people in Italy already knew: that Marinelli was one of the finest actors of his generation. He also won the David di Donatello for Best Actor for the role, adding the top Italian prize to the Venice honour.

What makes Martin Eden special is that it is not a simple success story. Martin works hard, he achieves his dream, and then he discovers that the dream was empty. Marinelli understood that sadness, and he played it without sentimentality. He did not ask the audience to feel sorry for Martin. He showed a man who had fought for something and who had won it, and who then had to live with the knowledge that winning had not fixed anything. That kind of honesty is rare, and it is why the performance stayed with people long after they left the cinema.

The Old Guard, The Eight Mountains, and the World Stage

After Martin Eden, Marinelli’s career reached a new level, and he began to work on international projects. In 2020 he appeared in The Old Guard, a Netflix action film starring Charlize Theron, playing Nicky, one of a group of immortal warriors who have lived for centuries. The role was very different from his Italian films. It was a big-budget action film, filmed in English, and it reached audiences all over the world. Marinelli played Nicky as a quiet and loyal man, and his scenes with his fellow warrior Joe, played by Marwan Kenzari, gave the film a warmth that many action films lack.

The Old Guard was a huge success for Netflix, and it introduced Marinelli to millions of viewers who had never seen an Italian film. He did not change his way of acting for the bigger budget. He brought the same care and the same attention to detail that he had brought to his small Italian films, and that is part of why the character worked. Nicky feels like a real person, even in a film about people who cannot die.

In 2022 he starred in The Eight Mountains, Le otto montagne, directed by Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch, based on the novel by Paolo Cognetti. Marinelli played Pietro, a man from the city who returns again and again to the mountains and to his friendship with Bruno, a mountain man played by Alessandro Borghi. The film is slow and beautiful, and it is about friendship, about the mountains, and about the choices people make in life. It won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and it was praised around the world.

Working on The Eight Mountains asked Marinelli to spend long periods in the Italian Alps, filming in real mountain villages and in hard weather. He has said that the experience changed him, because the mountains force a person to slow down and to pay attention to small things. The friendship between Pietro and Bruno is the heart of the film, and Marinelli played it with a tenderness that surprised people who knew him only as the villain of Jeeg Robot. It was another reminder that he could play almost anything, as long as the story was true.

Playing Mussolini and the Weight of a Difficult Role

In 2025, Marinelli took on one of the hardest roles of his career, playing Benito Mussolini in M, Il figlio del secolo, a television series based on the novel by Antonio Scurati. Mussolini is one of the most hated figures in Italian history, the dictator who led Italy into fascism and into the Second World War. Playing him is a challenge for any actor, because the audience already knows what he did, and the actor must show how such a man rose to power without making him seem like a hero.

Marinelli approached the role as he approaches every role, by studying the person and trying to understand him from the inside. He changed his appearance again, gaining weight and changing his voice and his way of walking, until he looked like the Mussolini of the photographs and news films from the 1920s. The series follows Mussolini’s rise from a young socialist journalist to the leader of Italy, and it shows the violence, the lies, and the hunger for power that drove him.

The series was one of the most talked-about television events in Italy, and Marinelli’s performance was praised for its courage. It is easy to play a dictator as a shouting monster. It is much harder to play him as a man who was clever, charming, and dangerous, and who knew how to use people’s fears to gain power. Marinelli chose the harder path, and the result was a portrait that made viewers uncomfortable in the right way, because it showed how ordinary human weaknesses can lead to terrible things.

Taking the role also showed something about Marinelli’s attitude to his work. He does not choose easy parts. He chooses parts that ask hard questions, and he trusts the audience to think for themselves. Playing Mussolini could have damaged his career if it had been done badly, but he believed that the story was worth telling, and he gave it everything he had. That willingness to take risks is one of the reasons other actors and directors respect him so much.

A Quiet Life, a Partner, and the Work Ahead

Away from the cameras, Marinelli lives a quiet life. He has been in a long relationship with the German actress Alissa Jung, and the two of them have lived in Berlin as well as in Italy. He does not seek attention in the press, and he rarely talks about his private life. He prefers to let his work speak for him, and he seems most comfortable when he is preparing for a role or working on a film, rather than when he is being celebrated for one.

He has also spoken about the importance of the theatre and of learning. He believes that an actor must keep studying, keep watching people, and keep asking questions about the world. He does not think that winning a prize means the work is finished. In his view, each new role is a new beginning, and the actor must start again from nothing, even if the last film was a success. That attitude keeps him hungry, and it is why his performances never feel lazy or routine.

In recent years he has also worked as a producer and has supported new Italian films, helping younger directors and actors to find their way. He knows how hard it is to start a career in film, and he wants to give something back to the world that gave him his chance. He has worked with some of the most interesting directors in Italy, and he continues to choose projects that are ambitious and different, rather than safe and easy.

The future of his career looks open. He has shown that he can work in Italian films, in international films, and on television, and that he can play heroes, villains, lovers, and historical figures with the same care. Whatever he does next, it is likely to be a role that asks something hard of him, because that is the kind of work he loves. He is still young for an actor, and the best years of his career may still be ahead of him.

The Craft of Disappearing: How Marinelli Builds a Character

What makes Luca Marinelli different from most actors is not only the roles he chooses, but the way he prepares for them. He does not walk onto a set and hope that the character will appear. He builds the character slowly, piece by piece, starting with the body. For Martin Eden, he changed his weight and his posture until he moved like a sailor who had worked with his hands all his life. For Mussolini, he changed again, gaining weight, changing his voice, and learning to walk and to speak like a man from another time. He believes that the body is the first thing an audience sees, and that if the body is wrong, nothing else will feel right.

He also works on the voice. Marinelli’s voice changes from film to film, and it is one of the tools he uses most carefully. In Jeeg Robot, his Fabio speaks in the rough and fast slang of the Roman streets, a voice that is aggressive and nervous at the same time. In Martin Eden, his voice is slower and more thoughtful, the voice of a man who is learning to read and to think. In The Old Guard, he speaks in English, with an accent that is quiet and careful, because Nicky is a man who has lived for centuries and who has learned to listen more than he speaks. Each voice is a choice, and each choice tells the audience something about the man.

His theatre training is the foundation of all of this. At the Accademia Silvio D’Amico, he learned that an actor must be ready to work for weeks on a single scene, to repeat it, to change it, and to find the truth in it. He learned to use his whole body, not just his face, and to project his voice so that it reaches the back row of a theatre without shouting. That training gave him a discipline that many film actors never learn, and it shows in his work. He is never lazy, never vague, and never satisfied with a performance that is only good enough.

Directors who have worked with him say that he asks many questions. He wants to know why a character does what he does, what he ate for breakfast, how he sleeps, and what he is afraid of. He fills notebooks with details about the character’s life, most of which will never appear on screen, but which help him to feel that the character is real. He believes that an actor must know more about a character than the audience will ever see, because that knowledge gives the performance a depth that cannot be faked.

He is also known for his patience on set. Film acting is slow work, with long waits between takes, with lights to move and cameras to set up, and many actors become bored or impatient. Marinelli uses the waiting time to stay in character, to think about the next scene, and to watch the other actors. He has said that the waiting is part of the work, and that an actor who cannot wait cannot act, because acting is mostly about being ready when the moment comes.

Another part of his craft is his willingness to be ugly, to be frightening, and to be unlikeable. Many actors want the audience to love them, and they choose roles that make them look good. Marinelli chooses roles that make him look true, even when the truth is ugly. His Fabio in Jeeg Robot is a violent and cruel man, and Marinelli does not soften him. His Mussolini is a clever and dangerous man, and Marinelli does not make him a cartoon. He trusts the audience to see the character clearly, and to make up their own minds, and that trust is one of the things that makes his work so powerful.

He has also learned from the great actors he has worked with, and from the directors who have trusted him with difficult roles. He watches how they work, he listens to their advice, and he takes what is useful and leaves the rest. He is a student of acting, even now, after winning the Volpi Cup and the David di Donatello, and he has said that he still has much to learn. That humility is rare in a famous actor, and it is one of the reasons his performances keep getting better.

In the end, Marinelli’s craft is simple to describe and hard to copy. He prepares, he listens, he changes his body and his voice, and he tells the truth. He does not rely on charm, on good looks, or on fame. He relies on work, and on the belief that an actor’s job is to disappear into a character, so completely that the audience forgets they are watching an actor at all. That is what he does, film after film, and it is why his name now stands among the finest actors in Italy, and among the finest in the world.

My Take:

When I think about Luca Marinelli, the first thing that strikes me is how little he seems to care about being a star. Most actors who reach his level start to protect their image. They choose safe roles, they smile for the cameras, and they avoid parts that might make the audience dislike them. Marinelli did the opposite. He won his first big prize for playing a violent criminal, and then he went on to play a disillusioned sailor, an immortal soldier, and a fascist dictator. That tells me he cares more about the work than about being liked, and I admire that more than almost anything else in an actor.

I think his performance in Martin Eden is the best example of what he can do. I have watched actors try to play a character who changes over many years, and most of them fail, because they show the change from the outside, with a different haircut or a different coat. Marinelli shows the change from the inside. You can see Martin’s hope in the early scenes, in the way he holds himself and the way he looks at the world, and then you can see that hope slowly drain away as he gets what he wanted and finds it empty. That is not a trick. That is the result of long, hard work, and of an actor who has thought deeply about what the story means.

What I find most interesting about him is his theatre training, because I think it explains everything else. On stage, an actor cannot hide. There is no editing, no second take, and no close-up to save a weak moment. You must be ready every night, and you must listen to the other actors, and you must earn the audience’s attention with your voice and your body. Marinelli learned that discipline when he was young, and he has carried it into film. That is why his performances feel solid. He is not guessing. He has done the work, and it shows in every scene.

I also think about the way he changes his body for his roles, and I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it is impressive. He lost weight for Martin Eden, he changed his whole shape for Mussolini, and he built a different physical presence for Jeeg Robot. That kind of commitment shows how seriously he takes the work. On the other hand, I worry about it, because changing your body again and again is hard on a person’s health, and I hope he takes care of himself. An actor’s body is his instrument, and it needs to be looked after. I admire the dedication, but I also hope he knows when to stop and rest.

There is something else I respect about him, and that is his quietness. He does not fill the newspapers with stories about his private life. He does not seem to want to be famous for being famous. He lives with his partner, he works, and he goes home. In a world where so many actors spend as much time promoting themselves as they do acting, that quietness feels honest. It tells me that he knows what matters to him, and that what matters is the work, not the noise around it.

I think about his role as Mussolini a lot, because it is the kind of role that makes people argue. Some people say that no actor should play a dictator, because it might make him seem human, and that is dangerous. I disagree with that view. I think it is more dangerous to pretend that dictators were monsters from another world, because then we never learn how they rose to power. Marinelli played Mussolini as a man, a clever and dangerous man, but a man, and that is the honest way to tell the story. If we understand how a man like that can win power, we are better prepared to stop the next one. That is why I think the role was brave, and why I think it was worth doing.

His work in The Old Guard also interests me, because it shows a different side of him. In that film he plays a man who has lived for centuries and who loves another man deeply and quietly. There is a scene where Nicky talks about his love, and it is one of the most moving moments in the film, because it is played without any fuss. Marinelli does not make a big speech about it. He just says what he feels, simply and directly, and that simplicity makes it powerful. I think that scene reached a lot of people around the world, and I am glad that a big action film had room for a moment like that.

I also love what he did in The Eight Mountains, because that film is about friendship, and friendship is something I think about a lot. Pietro and Bruno are very different men. One leaves the mountains and comes back, the other stays and builds a life there. Their friendship lasts for decades, even though their lives go in different directions. Marinelli plays Pietro as a man who is always searching, always a little bit lost, and who keeps coming back to the one place where he feels at home. I think many people feel that way about a place or a person from their youth, and the film captures that feeling without explaining it too much. It just shows it, and lets the audience feel it.

One thing I notice about Marinelli is that he never seems to repeat himself. After Jeeg Robot, he could have played villains for the rest of his life, and he would have been paid well for it. After Martin Eden, he could have played sad, serious heroes for the rest of his life. He did neither. He went from a villain to a sailor to an immortal warrior to a mountain friend to a dictator. That takes courage, because each new role means starting again, and starting again means risking failure. I think that is the mark of a real artist. A safe actor repeats what worked. A brave actor tries something new, even when it might not work.

I also think about his age and his future. He was born in 1985, which means he is still in the middle of his career, with many years ahead of him. Some actors peak early and then fade. Others get better as they get older, because they have more life to draw on. I think Marinelli will be one of the second kind. He already has the skill, and as he gets older he will have more experience of life, more understanding of people, and more to bring to his roles. I am looking forward to seeing what he does in his forties and fifties, because I think his best work may still be ahead of him.

There is a lesson in his story for young people who want to act, and it is a simple one. Do the work. Go to a good school, learn the craft, take small parts, and be patient. Do not chase fame first. Chase the skill, and let the fame come later, if it comes at all. Marinelli did not become famous overnight. He studied for years, he worked in the theatre, he took small film roles, and he built his career one role at a time. That is slow, and it is hard, but it is the honest way, and it is why his work lasts.

I also think his story teaches something about Italy. Italian cinema has a long and great history, from the days of Fellini to the present, and sometimes people say that the best days are over. Marinelli’s career proves that is not true. He is part of a new generation of Italian actors and directors who are making films that the whole world watches, and he is doing it without leaving Italy behind. He works in Italian, he works with Italian directors, and he tells Italian stories, and the world comes to him. That is something to be proud of, and I think it gives hope to young Italian artists who want to tell their own stories in their own language.

In the end, what I admire most about Luca Marinelli is his seriousness. He treats acting as a craft, not as a game. He prepares, he studies, he changes himself for a role, and he takes risks. He does not ask the audience to love him. He asks the audience to watch, to think, and to feel. That is a high standard, and it is not easy to meet, but he meets it again and again. I think that is why people who love cinema respect him so much, and why his name now stands among the finest actors working in Italy today. I will keep watching his films, because I know that each one will ask something new of him, and I trust him to give it everything he has.

There is one more thing I want to say about Marinelli, and it is about the kind of actor he is when no one is watching. I think about the young actors in Italy who look up to him, who see his films and who want to be like him, and I hope they understand that his secret is not talent alone. It is work, patience, and the willingness to start again with every role. That is a hard message, because it does not promise fame, and it does not promise money. It promises only that if you work honestly, the work will be good, and that is enough. I think Marinelli would agree with that, and I think that is why he is a good example for young people.

I also think about what his films mean for Italy. Italian cinema has always been one of the great cinemas of the world, but sometimes people say that its best days are over, that the time of Fellini and De Sica is gone. Marinelli’s career proves that is not true. He is part of a new generation, a generation of actors and directors who are making films that the whole world watches, and he is doing it in Italian, with Italian stories, and with an Italian heart. That matters, because it shows that a country does not need to copy Hollywood to be great. It needs to tell its own stories, in its own way, and the world will come to listen.

If I could ask Marinelli one question, I would ask him which role was the hardest, not the most famous, but the hardest, the one that kept him awake at night, the one that made him doubt himself. I think he would say Martin Eden, because it asked him to carry a whole film on his shoulders, or Mussolini, because it asked him to play a man the whole country hates. But I also think he might say that the hardest role is always the next one, because the next one is the one you have not done yet, and the one that might fail. That is the fear every artist lives with, and I respect him for living with it, and for working anyway.

I also want to say something honest about his fame outside Italy. He is known around the world now, but he is not a Hollywood star, and he does not try to be one. He works in Italian films, he works with Italian directors, and he tells Italian stories, and the world comes to him. I think that is the right way to do it. Hollywood is not the only place where great films are made, and an actor does not need to leave his home to be great. Marinelli proves that, and I hope he stays in Italy, making Italian films, for many years to come.

Another thought that stays with me is about his partner, Alissa Jung, and about the quiet life they have built together. In a world where famous people share everything on social media, Marinelli shares almost nothing, and I respect that. He keeps his private life private, and he lets his work speak for him. That is a rare thing today, and it is a brave thing, because the world rewards people who share everything, and it punishes people who do not. Marinelli does not care. He knows what matters to him, and he protects it, and I think that is a good example for all of us, famous or not.

I also think about the future of Italian acting, and about the actors who will come after Marinelli. I hope they learn from him, not just from his performances, but from his attitude: the patience, the preparation, the willingness to play a villain, and the refusal to chase fame. If they learn that, Italian cinema will be in good hands for many years. If they learn only to copy his roles, without understanding his work, they will fail. The lesson is not to be like Marinelli. The lesson is to work like him, honestly and hard, and to find your own way.

Finally, I want to say why I will keep watching his films. It is not because he is famous, or because he has won prizes, or because the critics praise him. It is because I trust him. When I see his name in a film, I know that he has prepared, that he has thought about the character, and that he will give me something true. That trust is the most valuable thing an actor can earn, and it is earned slowly, film by film, over many years. Marinelli has earned it, and I do not think he will lose it, because he cares too much about the work to let it go.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was Luca Marinelli born and where is he from?

Luca Marinelli was born on 22 October 1985 in Rome, Italy. He grew up in Rome and later studied acting at the Accademia Nazionale d’Arte Drammatica Silvio D’Amico, graduating in 2009.

What was Luca Marinelli’s breakthrough film role?

His breakthrough came with Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot in 2015, where he played the villain Fabio, known as Lo Zingaro. The role won him the David di Donatello for Best Supporting Actor and made him one of Italy’s most talked-about actors.

Which award did Luca Marinelli win for Martin Eden?

He won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival in 2019 for his performance as Martin Eden. He also won the David di Donatello for Best Actor for the same role.

Who did Luca Marinelli play in The Old Guard?

He played Nicky, one of a group of immortal warriors, in the 2020 Netflix action film The Old Guard, starring Charlize Theron. His character is in a long and loving relationship with his fellow warrior Joe.

What is The Eight Mountains about?

The Eight Mountains is a 2022 film in which Marinelli plays Pietro, a man from the city who keeps returning to the Italian Alps and to his lifelong friendship with Bruno, a mountain man played by Alessandro Borghi. It won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Did Luca Marinelli play Mussolini on television?

Yes, in 2025 he played Benito Mussolini in M, Il figlio del secolo, a television series based on the novel by Antonio Scurati about Mussolini’s rise to power in Italy.