The only actor Federico Fellini was “symbiotically” connected to: “We have such a profound rapport”

Posted On September 1, 2025September 1, 2025

The connection between a director and an actor of choice can be a defining one: many men and women who have helmed major movies will go back time and again to a single actor, believing only they can properly convey the message of the film or give the performance required for it to be a success.

Cinema has many examples; Scorsese and De Niro, Spielberg and Tom Hanks, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, and another is Italian director Federico Fellini and his leading man Marcello Mastroianni.

The pair worked together on five films, a few of which are now regarded among the greatest works ever committed to celluloid, beginning with La Dolce Vita in 1960. A comedy telling the story of a young screenwriter traversing Rome over the course of seven days looking for love and with it ‘the good life’, the film was a huge hit with audiences and critics alike, scooping several major awards including the Cannes Palme d’Or that year.

Despite it being their first film together, Fellini had fallen out with his producer on the movie Dino De Lorentiis over his insistence that Mastroianni play the lead rather than De Lorentiis’ personal choice of Paul Newman. The movie has proved to be hugely influential over the decades, with references and tributes played in everything from Steve Martin’s L.A. Story to The Sopranos.

Fellini and Mastroianni next teamed up on another truly iconic film, this time 8 ½, which hit cinemas in 1963. Another comedy drama, it focused on Mastoianni’s film director who suffers from writer’s block as he attempts to film a science fiction movie. It was another rampant success for the duo, earning an Oscar for Best Foreign Film and now regularly ranks in top ten lists of the greatest films ever made.

There then came a long period where the two didn’t make another movie together for around 17 years, until 1980’s City of Women. A fantasy comedy, it was made after Fellini had gone through a period of experimentation with LSD and existential literature, and it showed how hard it was to recapture the magic of almost two decades passing. While it had limited box office success, some critics felt it edged toward parody of the likes of 8 ½.

Later in the 1980s Fellini and Mastroianni would come together twice more, for the comedy musical Ginger and Fred and then finally for the 1987 biographical mockumentary Intervista, in which Fellini took a Japanese documentary crew on a journey toward discovering his next movie project.

Back in 1966, Fellaini spoke of his relationship and connection with Mastroianni to Playboy, and when asked if he was close to the actor, he replied: “Almost symbiotically so. Even though we seldom see each other outside of our work periods, we have such a profound rapport that it is like a mirror before me saying, ‘It’s me. It’s not me…’ and so on. It’s uncanny.”

Mastroianni was eventually nominated for three Academy Awards and acted right up until his death in 1996. Fellini, meanwhile, goes down as one of the greats; a four-time Oscar winner and a winner of a lifetime achievement award, often listed as either the finest or second-finest director in history. But he admittedly would not have achieved what he did without Mastroianni. Fellini confessed to Playboy:

“This (connection) is the basic bond of our friendship; but he’s also very humanly simpatico. I see in him a charge of enthusiasm, innocence and charlatanry—like a smaller brother. And I’m no less an admirer of his professionalism. He’s a very gifted actor.”

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