Tucci’s currently filming Tucci in Great Britain, a sequel to his National Geographic series Tucci in Italy that brings him closer to home: It’s based in the country where he and Blunt live with their two young children.
Trading spaghetti alla Nerano for fish and chips might seem like a downgrade—but Tucci pushes back on that assumption. “Why has a culture that’s been around for 2,000 years had this horrible reputation for food?” he asks, growing noticeably animated now that we’re talking about eating. “Turns out, it’s a perfect storm of loss due to so many different factors—extreme poverty and extreme wealth, a very clear class system, and England being on the forefront of the industrial revolution that took everybody away from farming and into the cities…. Obviously I’m doing Great Britain because I live here. If the food were shit, I wouldn’t do it. But the food isn’t shit. The food is amazing…and things have really, really started to change in the last 20, 25 years.”
Filming food-focused shows around the world has helped shape Tucci’s feelings about the political landscape. “America is in a very, shall we say, interesting place right now,” he says. “Having traveled a lot, talked to so many different people—politicians, artists, farmers, restaurateurs—the divisiveness that is happening now is really disturbing. There’s the old expression, ‘Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you who you are.’ If we look at leaders in the world today, I think that makes things very clear.”
Some of those leaders seem right out of The Hunger Games, which featured Tucci as a vain, preening TV host. A younger version of the character appears in The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, a prequel that hits theaters this November. This time, he’s played by Oscar winner Kieran Culkin. Though Tucci met Culkin a few years ago, he doesn’t seem to have strong feelings about the casting or the film: “I don’t know anything about it,” he says. “I’ll see it, sure.”
