HOLLYWOOD—The life of Italian porn superstar Rocco Siffredi will be dramatized in new seven-part Netflix limited series Supersex, which just began production in Rome.
Entertainment trade journal Variety broke the news early Tuesday morning about the series, co-produced by Fremantle company The Apartment and Groenlandia, and created and written by Italian screenwriter Francesca Manieri, whom the outlet says "is known to be a militant feminist." According to a Netflix statement, the project, starring top Italian actor Alessandro Borghi, portrays "a profound story that runs through [Siffredi's] life since childhood" and delves into "the starting point and the context that led him to embark on his path in pornography."
Supersex is being directed by Matteo Rovere, Francesco Carrozzini and Francesca Mazzoleni, and co-stars Jasmine Trinca, Adriano Giannini and Saul Nanni as Lucia, Tommaso and the young Siffredi, respectively.
"Supersex is the story of a man who takes seven episodes and 350 minutes to say ‘I love you,’ to accept that the demon in his body is compatible with love. To do this, he must expose the only part of him that we have never seen: his soul,” Manieri commented. "Supersex talks about our present, Supersex talks about us. What does it mean to be a male? Are we still able to reconcile sexuality and affectivity? These are the questions that, like a kaleidoscope, open up before us as we immerse ourselves in his incredible life until we lose our breath."
Speaking with AVN Tuesday morning, Siffredi related, "On the first of September they start [production] and they will finish end of February. They start the first part from my childhood and then they move on when I start in the business until I meet my wife. So that means all the Paris time, when I start, all the business from the '80s and '90s. … They go from when I was 8 years old til ’94 when I met my wife. Pretty interesting, but the whole story is based on my life. Some of the things are a little bit romanced. Like they build up some new stories to make interesting, more different but it’s based on my life.
"What is going through my mind is I’m very pleased. I’m very proud," he enthused. "If I think about 38 years ago when I started that they would make a series on me, no, I wouldn’t put one fucking penny out of there. I can tell you working on real passion and real loyalty to the work, loyalty to what you’re doing, not doing it just because you are paid in the end, pays.
"Another thing I can tell you is the beginning of my career was not always easy. Society make you feel you always do something wrong," he continued. "Most of the people always point finger towards you saying what you do is not good. I remember my first movies in America you have units, different movie units can’t work with straight movie because they do porn. Also technical people, same problem. To me that was terrible to see this difference—like you know you come from porn so you are not good person.
"And then nowadays where everybody watch porn … porn is the most click and watch the thing in internet, so in the whole world that show me we were right. We were right because people need to understand how they built with sexuality. We help a lot of people—a million, billion of people. That’s what I know. To me that’s very good for the whole industry that they start to make series on people like us. Of course I feel pleased because it seems I did something which stayed there and people love it. But I think it’s going to be good for the business, good for the future that media, big media recognize also this. I think this is incredible. It’s really nice, basically."
The series is slated to premiere on Netflix globally in 2023.
Dan Miller contributed to this story.
