Castell, Lou

Born May 28, 1943 in Colombia (Bogotá), father - Swede , diplomat, mother - Irish , British citizen (played episodic roles in Italian author films in the 60s) ^[1] . Real name and surname - Ulv Quarzel . He spent his childhood in Jamaica , in New York and Stockholm .

At a young age he moved from Bogota to Rome . He studied acting at the Center for Experimental Cinematography in Rome, but was expelled. Considers himself a supporter of the Stanislavsky system. He says ^[2] :

“The most important thing is a complete merger with the character. I played both villains and kind, right characters. I like to look for positive aspects in negative heroes and vice versa. ”

Castel has always chosen roles that reflect his warlike leftist beliefs. In 1972, Roman police arrested him immediately after a press conference to forcibly deport him by plane to Sweden.

He made his film debut in 1963 in a cameo in the film Lucino Visconti "Leopard" .

Lou Castell gained international fame after starring in Marco Bellocchio's film Fists in Your Pocket ( 1965 ). He played a teenager from the first post-war generation, whose main form of protest against bourgeois society is murder. The hero concentrates anger, neurosis, anger, arrogance and mortal danger to others ^[3] . In the wake of the success of this film, he played in several films of the “Contestation Film”, in particular, in the film “Thanks, Aunt” (1968) ^[4] . Castel professed radical leftist views, communicated a lot with workers and peasants, took part in the activities of the Marxist organization, and spent the money earned on the shoots to support it. He played the title role in the television movie Liliana Cavani “Francis of Assisi”, perceiving the saint as a rebel against the system.

He played the most significant roles in commercial films in the second half of the 60s: Nino Tate in the Damiano Damiani Western “ Golden Bullet ” ( 1966 ), in the spaghetti western Carlo Lidzani “Rest in Peace!” ( 1967 ) ^[5] .

Since 1990, lives in Paris . He continued to work on television and in films as an actor and director. In 1999, he acted as the director of the short film Just On Time.

Lou Castell worked with eminent filmmakers - Rainer Werner Fassbinder (“Caution to the Holy Harlot”), Wim Wenders , Claude Chabrol (“Nada”), Philippe Garrell (“She spent a lot of time in the light of spotlights”) ...

He temporarily interrupted his film career to become a professional politician. Disappointed with politics, he returned to the shootings in the film Stoning Etienne with stones ( 2012 ). The painting "Stoning of Saint Etienne" was included in the program "Divine Euphoria" at the XXVI Moscow International Film Festival. The actor himself gave a master class and showed him his own short film ^[6] .

Castel has a son - actor Rocco Quarzel (born in 1974 ) ^[7] from actress and singer Marcella Michelangeli (born 1943), with whom he was married.

• Young Film Festival IFF in Turin , Italy, 1998, - Award for best actor in the short film Pietro D'Agostino, Il Piano dell'uomo di sotto ( 1998 ).

• In an interview, the actor admitted his hatred of directors, although he several times played the role of director in the films of Garrel ^[8] and Fassbinder (and Fassbinder played the role of producer in this film):

“I hated them in my life, so I could understand my hero. But still, in order to find motivation, energy for this role, I needed additional funds. I tried to think about something that annoyed me very much: I thought about Hitler, thought about my generation, about the generation of Germans who were sandwiched between Nazi ideas and American influence ^[9] . ”

• Interview with Spaghetti Western star Lou Castel, from such classics as “Kill and Pray” (1967) and “Matalo!” (1970). YouTube

• Lou Castell on the Internet Movie Database