Stanley Tucci says he's a 'big believer' in cutting entire lines of dialogue because 'a lot of writers will overwrite'
- Stanley Tucci stars as Frank Wild on AMC+'s new miniseries "La Fortuna," which premiered Thursday.
- Tucci told Insider that he's a proponent of cutting lines in favor of body language.
Stanley Tucci said that as an actor, he's frequently in favor of cutting his character's lines, communicating instead through body language.
The actor is currently starring as deep-sea treasure hunter Frank Wild in director Alejandro Amenábar's six-episode miniseries "La Fortuna." The AMC+ show is a drama about a legal battle between Tucci's Wild and the Spanish government over ownership of the biggest sunken treasure ever.
"La Fortuna" is an adaptation of the Spanish graphic novel "El tesoro del Cisne Negro" ("The Treasure of the Black Swan"), itself loosely based on the real story of a Spanish ship that was sunk in 1804 and later recovered by a Florida-based exploration company.
Tucci told Insider that "La Fortuna" was "really well-written," leaving him little more to do other than "access" what was on the page. His character, Wild, starts the series with overflowing charisma and confidence. By the end, he's turned to desperation in a bid to keep the treasure he found, destroying his relationships in the process.
In approaching Wild, Tucci said that he wanted to make his performances as "truthful" as possible.
Tucci told Insider that while it didn't happen frequently on "La Fortuna," he would go through the show's script with Amenábar, cutting or changing lines if something "rang false" or didn't feel right.
In one sequence in the series' fourth episode, Wild goes verbally head-to-head with Clark Peter's Jonas Pierce, a maritime lawyer with whom Wild shares a fraught personal history.
"I think we whittled it down a bit because it just felt too much. A lot of times the emotion is sufficient," Tucci said.
"People are so angry a lot of times they can't speak articulately," Tucci said. "Here's a guy who really is very articulate, but at that moment he really isn't."
The first two episodes of "La Fortuna" are currently streaming on AMC+, with new episodes releasing weekly on Thursdays.