We had the good fortune of connecting with Giulia Asquino and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Giulia, do you have a favorite quote or affirmation?
“I want to make people cry even when they don’t understand my words” – Edith Piaf Edith Piaf was the first character I worked on. When I was at Susan Batson Studio in New York, at the end of an emotional journey on ourselves we then had to adapt and work on a character that Susan Batson herself entrusted to us because it was akin to our personality. And well, Edith and I are very similar, great fighters and workers, but above all passionate and sensitive. For me, this quote has a lot of meaning, because like her I want to make myself known outside my country, and this can be very difficult but what matters to me is to tell a story, to give emotion, something that can change you, that makes you grow, that makes you love being alive especially all those times when the pain is so strong that it seems to kill you but only when you feel it do you understand that you feel alive. We want to bring the raw and inebriating truth of human emotions and relationships. And then I also created my affirmation “The Innocence of a lion’s heart”, if you want to know who I am this line is all you need!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
From the time I was a little girl, I used to demand that my mum set up a camera for me so that I could act, dance, and sing in front of a camera, and the moment I was finished with my grand performance I would demand immediately that she shared off. This is the first vivid memory I have of myself as a child. I have always found a safe haven in art, a world where my feelings mattered and with which I could create something magical. The first art form I approached was classical dance, which I still continue to cultivate. It was a way for me to talk because when I was little I was very exuberant and chatty but over the years, also because of my family history, I became more silent and introverted, and only the dance gave me the opportunity to return that little girl who was not ashamed of anything, not even what she felt. In the same period when I was studying classical dance I had the opportunity to enter an important conservatory in Rome to study singing because obviously, I had to pester my mom even singing in the car, not just moving the furniture in the living room to dance! And after a series of auditions, at the age of 8, I entered this conservatory. I was so amazed that they chose me, but I was so happy. Over the years, however, I had to make a choice, to continue dancing or singing, as the two disciplines had begun to intersect too much and the beginning of high school had certainly not helped. So I chose to continue with the dance because it was a world that I felt closer at that moment. After my first professional experience as a dancer in New York in 2018, I had the realization that maybe dancing was part of me but it wasn’t really what I wanted to do. It was one of the hardest times of my life because I was sure I wanted it, I fought to get there, I trained every day for 15 years to be there and all of a sudden, it wasn’t what I really wanted. From there I realized that I needed to work with my emotions 100%. So I took my first acting lesson, and the road was immediately clear and bright. I immediately decided to leave again for New York, because I wanted to study in the best possible places, and that’s where I had my first satisfaction. I will never forget the words of Alexander Rockwell, a very renowned independent director who after only 2 months of study I had the opportunity to act in his presence, who told me that he thought I had studied acting since I was a child and that I had a gift. It was one of the best days of my life. The thing I am most proud of in my path is the courage with which I faced it and I am continuing to do it, leaving home at 20, on the other side of the world is not easy, but I never had doubts about throwing myself into chasing this inner strength that took me so far. They still tell me a lot that it is impossible to become an artist outside your country, but on the other hand, if you tell me that it is impossible I have to try in every way to make it possible!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Just a month ago I graduated from the Stella Adler Summer Conservatory here in Los Angeles, and one of the best things that happened to me was to find some amazing friends and colleagues. I would like to take them to my hometown of Rome in Italy. I would like to show him the beauty of my city, the narrow streets where you can smell the scent of freshly baked bread or white pizza with mortadella, become aware of the fact that the greats of history passed through those streets centuries before. See the sunset from the highest point of the city and be enchanted by the elegant and provocative beauty of an eternal city. But I would also take them a bit outside, show them the hills of Tuscany where I spend my holidays, I call it “My happy place” because that’s where I really regenerate myself, among the sunflowers and the smell of wheat. I would let him taste my grandmother’s cooking because you know how Italian grandmothers cook, it’s poetry!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
The person to whom I surely owe everything is my mother. I could not imagine my life without her, she has always been the person who supported and encouraged me in all the steps of my life. Even when I made the decision to leave my country she never held me back, she never had the fear of losing me, even if it is difficult for a parent to leave their child, she immediately encouraged me to follow my dream and my ambitions.

Website: https://www.giuliaasquino.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_giuliaasquino_/

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/giuliaasquino

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Giulia69103322

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/giulia.asquino.79/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWMc3vdlLoFbqVdTZhiqcYA

Other: https://linktr.ee/Giuliaasquino

Image Credits
Mark Atteberry, Alessandro Pensini.

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