Let me tell you something, folks. I’ve been covering this crazy carnival we call Hollywood for twenty years. I’ve seen divas throw cell phones at assistants. I’ve seen Oscar winners cry because the craft services ran out of kale. But nothing—and I mean nothing—prepared me for the existential culinary smackdown I witnessed last week.
I sat down with Stanley Tucci. Yes. That Stanley Tucci. The man who can make sipping a Negroni look like a religious experience. The man who once made a grilled cheese sandwich in a movie and somehow made me cry. The man who, at 65, has the cheekbones of a Roman statue and the appetite of a hungry bear who just discovered pasta.
And he is furious.
Not about politics. Not about the latest Marvel movie bombing. No. Stanley Tucci is furious about the fact that you—yes, you, reading this on your phone while eating a sad, cold protein bar over the sink—have forgotten how to have fun with food.
“Our relationship with food is really messed up,” Tucci told me, his deep brown eyes narrowing with the intensity of a general about to storm the gates of a flavorless fortress. “We overthink it. We’ve let the idea of what we’re supposed to look like ruin the very thing that keeps us alive and happy.”
Now, before we go further, let me set the scene. We’re in a chic little restaurant in New York. Tucci has just finished promoting the second season of Tucci in Italy on Disney+. In this new season, he travels from Sicily to Sardinia, eating his body weight in glistening seafood, handmade mozzarella, and pasta that probably whispers sweet nothings to you as you eat it.
I ask him what the best thing he ate was. He pauses. He looks at the ceiling. He puts a hand over his heart.
“Everything,” he whispers. Then, he leans in. “There was this one pasta… with four types of mozzarella. Four. I saw God, Eric. And God was a globby, melted, glorious mess.”
But then, just as I’m about to order whatever he’s having, his face darkens. He leans forward and grabs my wrist. Hard.
The Wrath of Tucci
“Have you seen what they’re doing out there?” he asks, gesturing wildly toward the window, as if the entire island of Manhattan has become a crime scene. “People are eating to fuel. Fuel! You are not a Toyota Camry, Eric. You are a glorious, messy human who deserves a plate of carbonara that doesn’t involve cream or bacon or—I shudder to even say it—cheddar cheese.”
He’s talking about the rise of weight loss drugs. You know the ones. The shots that make you forget what hunger feels like. The medical miracles that are, apparently, turning the world into a bunch of joyless, well-nourished zombies who look at a fresh-baked croissant the way a robot looks at a toaster.
“It’s taking the joy,” Tucci says, stabbing a fork into a piece of bread. “We’re losing the ritual. The grandmother who shoves a second plate at you even when you say you’re full—that is love. That is culture. You don’t get that from a shot and a protein shake.”
He tells me about filming the new series. Everywhere he went, a Nonna (that’s Italian for “boss lady of the kitchen”) was shoving more food at him. In Rome, in Tuscany, in a tiny fishing village in Sicily where the only words he understood were “Mangia! Mangia!” which roughly translates to “Eat, you skinny Hollywood man, before I call your mother.”
“I’d be like, ‘No, thank you, I’ve had six courses,’ and they’d look at me like I just insulted their dead ancestors,” Tucci laughs. “And then they’d put a seventh course in front of me. And you know what? I ate it. And it was heaven.”
The Crimes Against Pasta (A Rant for the Ages)
At this point, I decide to poke the bear. It’s my job.
“Mr. Tucci,” I say, pulling out a list I found on Reddit. “What about pineapple on pizza?”
He doesn’t flinch. He just stares. The temperature in the room drops ten degrees.
“A crime against God and nature,” he says flatly. “It’s fruit. On bread. With cheese. It’s confused. You don’t want confused food. You want confident food.”
“Okay, okay,” I push further. “What about cracking spaghetti in half before boiling it?”
Now, I’ve seen Stanley Tucci play serial killers. I’ve seen him play gangsters. I have never seen the look of pure, unadulterated disgust that crosses his face right now. It’s the look a cat gives you when you spray it with a garden hose.
“No,” he says, the word landing like a guillotine blade. “Absolutely not. You are ruining the structural integrity of the noodle. You are breaking the heart of the pasta. You might as well just eat wet cardboard.”
“Cappuccino after dinner?”
“Mio Dio, no. That’s breakfast milk. After 11 AM? Forget it. After a meal? You’re a monster.”
“Ketchup on pasta?”
He stands up. For a terrifying second, I think he’s going to walk out. Instead, he just sighs, a deep, soul-crushing sigh. “Eric. Eric, my friend. Why would you do that? Why would you take the glorious, tangy, sweet simplicity of a tomato sauce and replace it with… sugary red goo? Why do you hate Italy?”
“Parmesan on seafood pasta?”
“Absolutely not!” he shouts, throwing his hands up. A nearby diner drops a fork. “The cheese kills the delicate fish! It’s bullying! It’s cheese bullying the shrimp! Stop the violence!”
The Great Un-boring-ing
But here’s the thing about Stanley Tucci. He’s not just angry. He’s hopeful. He’s on a mission. The second season of Tucci in Italy isn’t just a travel show. It’s a rescue operation.
He wants you to look at a tomato that’s lumpy and weird and say, “That’s my guy.” He wants you to spend three hours making a sauce from scratch even if you could buy a jar for two bucks. He wants you to gather your annoying family around a table and argue about politics while passing a bowl of rigatoni.
“We want everything to look the same, taste the same, be generic,” he complains. “No! Celebrate the onion that comes out of the ground looking like a deranged octopus. That onion has personality.”
He’s fighting against the “gray goo” future of food. The bland, the uniform, the convenient. He’s fighting for a world where a meal is an event, a weapon against loneliness, a love letter written in butter.
The Final Bite
Before we part ways, I ask him for one piece of advice. One actionable tip for my readers—most of whom, let’s be honest, are eating cold pizza over a trash can while doom-scrolling.
He looks me dead in the eye. He puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Tomorrow,” he says, “do not eat at your desk. Do not eat in the car. Go to a market. Buy one weird vegetable you’ve never seen before. Burn the garlic by accident. Make a mess. And then sit down with someone you love—or even just someone you tolerate—and eat it slowly.”
He picks up his coat. He pats his (impeccable) stomach.
“And for the love of all that is holy,” he adds, walking out the door, “if I see you breaking a spaghetti noodle in half, I will find you, Eric. I will find you, and I will force-feed you a cappuccino at midnight.”
And you know what? I believe him.
So put down the weight loss shot, people. Pick up a fork. Tucci is watching. And he is hungry.
*Season 2 of “Tucci in Italy” streams now on Disney+. Mangia!*
By Eric Bates – ShowbizzToday