It sounds like a stage name, but Osiride Pevarello shows his identification card to quash any doubt: that’s his real name, registered at the office of vital statistics in Padua. Legend has it that he already had his stage name, Zampanò, in the circus, long before Fellini’s La Strada. Osiride truly was a part of that caravanserai of one-of-a-kinds that feasted in Fellini’s world. As a character actor he worked with many others (Lattuada, Leone, Brass, D’Amato, Lizzani, Bava, Steno…), bringing his enormous body and grumpy face to the screens of an Italian cinema that today no longer exists. Osiride lives with his family in a trailer, and he gets by well enough. Both the individual and the character live in the same body, overflowing with energy and humanity.

Andrea Meneghelli