On ‘Luca’ and the Power of Italian People
Pixar's latest feature reminded me of one of the most influential persons I've ever known
I met Fabio when I was 24 years old, but he was already a legend to me before I first saw him in person. My Hungarian childhood friend told me several larger-than-life stories about him before he introduced us. In those anecdotes, he was a statue of coolness and fun — the type of person you don’t get to meet too often in real life.
He was a more authentic Italian than anyone I’ve met or seen on TV by that point (including the entire cast of The Sopranos). He smoked vehemently, loved football, and called every coffee that wasn’t Italian dirty water. He cursed with such passion that I could’ve sworn he was reading a love poem out loud every time. For a brief year, Fabio and I worked together in an Italian restaurant in London. He was so amusing to be around that it stuck on me. As we got to know each other, he made me look at mistakes and failures as these small, insignificant things that don’t matter much. You face them and move on immediately, period.
He once told me, if you attempt to hook up with twenty girls at a party in one night, and one of them goes home with you, then who the hell cares about the other nineteen that didn't. Sure, he was cocky, brash, and got slapped in the face by more women than your average guy. Yet, it was so liberating to see the way he looked at life. For him, it was an opportunity to relish every moment and not care about anything else. That’s a mentality that is hard to learn. Italians often have it in their blood and upbringing.
The funny thing is that he was a couple of years younger than me, but it never felt that way. He was a joker who's never taken anything seriously, and yet, he also had wisdom. His worldview was positive and unique, and he never let anything or anyone compromise it. That was something I haven't encountered before with such intensity. We've never become extremely close and weren't best friends — yet, somehow, he had the greatest impact on me as a person.