Christian Vit is a man of many interests. Not only will you see him in the films I’m Not in Love and Summer In Love, but he also has a love for cooking when he’s not in front of the camera. I recently connected with him to learn more about his wide variety of talents; get to know this versatile and engaging actor in our interview!
Brittany Frederick: What interests you in a project? Are there certain things that draw your attention about a film?
Christian Vit: There’s the story, there’s the message that the project delivers and then what my character is. I love comedy and since I arrived in the United Kingdom, comedy is not the first thing you would expect from somebody with a look like mine. They think I like to play the maestro, the bad seed kind of thing, but one of the things I want to experience when I’m working is a variety of genres. Comedy is something that I really look for, because I think it can show some nuances of myself as an actor that not many people would expect.
BF: Does comedy present more of a challenge to you than drama, given that so much of comedy is timing and chemistry?
CV: Timing is kind of everything in comedy, but also sometimes before getting into tears, you have a very big laugh. There are some comedians who have a very dark side so it doesn’t mean necessarily that [if] someone makes people laugh then it’s just something easy and staying on the surface.
To make people laugh is tough, and getting into comedy, I think it’s something you either have or you don’t. Many times when I was younger I didn’t want to be funny at all and people started laughing, so I thought okay, maybe that could be useful in my career. I like this style of comedy. Stand-up comedy, I really respect people that do it, because I find it quite difficult for the challenge of being in front of an audience and improvising. The other kind of comedy, especially sometimes getting into the dark humor, is something that I really enjoy.
BF: Your two latest films, I’m Not in Love and Summer in Love, both have romance stories. Does something like that figure into your process as well? Do you find that certain lanes work for you and go after them, or do you avoid doing projects that are similar if they’re too close together?
CV: Sometimes it depends on the other moments of your career. There are moments where basically nothing happens and you wish for anythingto come along to keep the craft going, even auditions. Auditions keep the craft going; doesn’t matter whether you are on set or not. Then there’s moments where everything comes along so you are able to make a choice.
I try to add variety to what I do, but then it depends what the leverage of the production is, what kind of project it is. In my case what I’ve done so far just came along by itself. I remember the first funny thing I did in the UK was a role in The Job Lot with Russell Tovey. It was a series for ITV, a typical British sitcom, very funny, very sharp and I was a Spaniard who doesn’t speak English at all. He’d just show up at the job center where the lady works because we were making love and she was screaming the name of the job center so it just came along. (laughs)
I went there and these people were professional comedians, very well established, and I found I could fit in so it was a very great experience to work with them. Every time you go to sets where they play a genre that you’re not used to, there’s a lot to learn and the experience can enhance your profile as an actor a lot.
BF: Are there any other projects that are particularly close to your heart? Things you’d recommend for people who want to see more of Christian Vit after these two movies?
CV: There is a project that is not finalized; it’s a short movie that had been conceived during the lockdown and we shot it afterwards. I don’t know why but I got very attached to the story, maybe because I was also involved in the post-production so I watched it so many times. It’s called The Bench and it’s the story of an Italian actor that comes to London for an audition, just when London goes into lockdown on the same day.
Besides that, I got very attached to my role in Holby City. Holby City is like the American ER, so I played a doctor for nearly 44 episodes and [in] a few of them I had to get emotional. When you play a character for a long time, you get in touch with some chords, which is very interesting so character-wise and acting-wise, it was a deep job. I have some episodes, especially the first one where I show up at the hospital for my first shift on a horse, that were quite interesting and fun as well.
BF: What would you like to see come next? Are there aspects of your career that you haven’t been able to explore yet?
CV: I love period drama. I’ve been in Game of Thrones for an episode, so I would like to play a proper movie period drama, something medieval or historical. One of my favorite movies was The Mission; I loved the character Robert de Niro was playing, Mendoza, and if they make a TV series of that, that would be one of my dream roles. Also, I like the sci-fi, superhero kind of thing.
BF: When you’re not acting, you have an interest in cooking. How did that develop?
CV: Since I was a kid I was looked after by my grandma, and in Italy, cooking especially from grandma is a big deal. One of first things I used to make was pizza, because I was a tricky monkey when I was a kid, so it was impossible to keep me quiet except for putting my hands in the dough, and doing something to keep me busy…I enjoyed it so much as we made the dough, we put the toppings on and those kind of things. I used to swim in a team when I was a kid and then on the way back as a snack, I was having this little pizza that we made before I left home to go the swimming pool.
Then I started to make some pasta for my parents, because sometimes it happened that they were both coming back home from work later than I did when I was at school, so I was just tired of just hanging out and waiting for my mom to come back and put the water on the stove. I remember some of the first recipes were not really appealing; I was getting frankfurter and mixing them with crème fraiche, that kind of thing, because I wanted to play gourmet from the beginning. I found that if you cook with love and a little bit of passion so you have good quality ingredients, you just combine two or three things, not too many flavors. Just keep it simple.
I’ve been traveling a lot so I also enjoy the local cuisine, and I’m very curious so sometimes I do experiments. I try to combine some Asian flavors with Italian; I’m very creative from that point of view. I have moments where I feel very inspired and I cook some desserts and bake some cakes, especially in the winter. It’s another side of my creativity.
On top of that, when I was in Rome, I took a professional course as a sommelier because my grandpa used to make wine. There was a very prestigious sommelier school; it was twice a week in the evening, a couple hours, and I found it super-interesting. The final examination was quite hard, it was like being at university. (laughs) I like pairing good wines with nice food. Also, when you are out at the restaurant, knowing a little bit about wine and pairings is always nice.
BF: Is there anything else you want film audiences to know about you?
CV: I moved to the UK about seven years ago; I relocated to London and I didn’t film in Italy until last March. This writer named Sylvain Reynard is a best-selling author and I don’t think people know exactly who he is, and they are doing movies off of [his books]. I happened to shoot this movie called Gabriel’s Rapture, which was filmed in the Borghese Gallery, so during the lockdown we had this huge museum and beautiful place just by ourselves for the crew. It was just an incredible experience because we were in this room with all these beautiful paintings.
It’s part of a trilogy. The first is Gabriel’s Inferno, this one is Gabriel’s Rapture and the next one is Gabriel’s Redemption, so it’s a Dante sort of thing and my character’s [also] going to be in the last movie. I don’t know much about it, but it’s going to be filmed next year probably. There were still some lockdowns, but it was something nice to have on the way to hopefully finish this pandemic.
For more on Christian Vit, visit his website. You can also follow Christian on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Article content is (c)2020-2024 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram.
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