“Posaman was an extraordinary success, but it was impossible to make a series about that character”. This is how Lillo Petrolo explains to Today the idea of I’m Lilloa TV series produced by Lucky Red in collaboration with Prime Video, which sees him as the protagonist: “The idea that came to us and that interested me a lot was to tell the life of a comedian, how he feels, how he is perceived by others, how some people make him feel. I liked the idea of telling how a comedian who is not successful can feel a bit tossed around – he says – because if it works it’s your job, you understand that you are useful to society, but if it doesn’t work what kind of job is it fundamentally? The first series is about this”.
Lillo, who we met at the presentation of the second season – available on Prime Video from September 19 – continues: “Posaman is my immature alter ego, essential to have to do the job I do and that I deny because I am a man of a certain age and I cannot be immature, or at least I think that my immaturity creates problems for me. This is the theme of the first season. In the second we realized that we have created a group of fun characters, beyond the title ‘I am Lillo’, it is a choral situation. They are characters that work, the relationships between them work. We like this world that we have created and we carry it forward by putting it in other adventures. This is something I like a lot, because I have series that I love and if I analyze them they are always series with interesting characters, more than interesting stories. For better or worse everything has been told in the history of cinema or theater, what I like and what surprises me is when the characters and the relationships between them are empathetic and original”.
Pietro Sermonti: “When I read the story I said ‘he’s crazy'”
Among the most beloved protagonists of the series is Pietro Sermonti, who plays Sergio, Lillo’s agent. “From Stanis onwards, they often make me play demented roles and I’m asking myself questions” he says ironically, going back to the beginning of this adventure: “When Lillo, who I had known as a viewer for 25 years but with whom I had worked for the first time only after Covid, sent me the subjects talking to me about this series, I said ‘he’s crazy, it can’t be done’. Instead, he was wonderfully right and I hope to make two hundred of them”.
The third season
There is not only total openness about the third season, but also a deep desire: “Gladly – Lillo says – If the public wants it, we are here, available. We will really make 110, also for the work group that is very happy”.
