Enjoying the razzle dazzle of fame, Stanley Tucci is still on a high from the Met Gala Ball, as he wows audiences with his performance in The Devil Wears Prada 2
Buzzing after getting his star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, 65-year-old actor Stanley Tucci makes a startling confession. While the original The Devil Wears Prada movie won Meryl Streep a best actress Golden Globe, it did him no favours at all. He says: “After The Devil Wears Prada I could not get a job. I know that sounds weird, but it is true. I had a family, I had a mortgage. My late wife [Kate Tucci] was ill and I needed to find something that was satisfying but would also bring me money. There are lots of ebbs and flows in showbusiness.”
But Stanley has no regrets and is lapping up Devil 2’s reflected glory – it’s already raked in $233.6 million at the box office. He’s even planning to take his character, Runway fashion editor Nigel Kipling’s new catchphrase “gird your loins,” with him into the afterlife. He says: “The line was not in the first script. We came up with something to say. I would have changed the rating of the film if they had used my idea. That line is going to be on my tombstone!”
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He is also very proud to have integrated his Devil family into his real life family, by marrying Emily Blunt’s sister, literary agent Felicity Blunt, 45, 14 years ago. He and Emily, 43, who plays Emily Charlton, even received their Hollywood stars together. Stanley says: “It was very exciting.” Of being recognised after enjoying 40 years in the business, he adds: “It took them long enough!”
Meryl Streep, 76, joined her Devil co-stars on Hollywood Boulevard for the ceremony, where she made a speech, saying of Stanley: “I’ve just been around the world and truly the affection hurled at him globally, he’s just marinating in it.” Calling him “urbane, sly, funny, bitchy,” he was thrilled by her words. He says: “Meryl’s speech was amazing,” also describing having a star next to Emily’s as “lovely.”
Promoting Devil Wears Prada 2 has meant a global whirlwind of engagements during the last month. Stanley admits: “It is tiring.” But he has only positive things to say about the two films, recalling this 2006 movie, directed by David Frankel – a satire about the inner workings of the fashion industry also starring Anne Hathaway – with huge affection. He says: “I met Emily, who became my dear friend and now my sister-in-law. I also got to work with Meryl. It was great. We knew we were making a good movie, but we had no idea it would become a Hollywood classic.”
Stanley, who was at a 927 Talks event in New York, says of Meryl: “She is fantastic to work with. She is that perfect dichotomy of an artist where there is this incredible technique, intellect, but complete spontaneity.” Witnessing her stage performance when he was younger, he says he was “gobsmacked by that extreme talent.”
Brought up in Katonah, New York, by his mother Joan, a secretary and writer, and his father Stanley Snr, an art teacher, he thanks them for his success. He says: “I was not nearly as talented as my parents, but they gave me a lot of tools and they gave me a vision and a palette.
“They knew I wanted to be an architect, but my maths skills are tragic, so that was not going to happen. I said I wanted to be an actor and they were incredibly supportive. My mother still worries. Last year I had a little time off and she was like ‘well, how are you? So what are you doing? ‘ I said ‘I am just taking time being with the kids and having meetings or charity stuff.’ There was a pause and I was like ‘she thinks I am never going to work again!’”
In fact, Stanley is looking forward to the second series of his Disney+ travel and food series, Tucci in Italy, which will see him cover food and culture in Naples, Campania, Sicily, Le Marche, Sardinia, and Veneto. The actor, who starred in the 2024 religious thriller The Conclave, about a plot within The Vatican, fell in love with Italy as a teenager.
And he looks to the country for inspiration, despite now living in south west London with Felicity and their two children Matteo, 11, and Emilia, eight. Father of five Stanley, whose first wife, Kate, died in 2009, aged 47, from breast cancer, says: “I spent time in Italy growing up and lived in Florence when I was 12 or 13. It was incredible coming from West Chester, New York.
“It was life changing and that, without question, informed how I saw the world and what kind of world I wanted to live in. I felt more comfortable in Europe than I did living in America. There is something truly magical about Italy and those people who have survived countless invasions and countless inept, corrupt governments and yet they persevere. My Italian is sh*te, as they say.”
Now boasting his own cookware collection, thanks to his popular series, Stanley is a big foodie. He says: “One of the most difficult dishes to make is a risotto. If a restaurant can make a good risotto it means they can make anything else pretty well.” Of his travel critiques, he adds: “If I don’t like a restaurant, I don’t name it.”
The outspoken star is ambivalent when it comes to cookery competitions. He says: “I have said no to a lot of cooking competitions because of my show, I guess. When it comes to art and food I find it false and weird. To me, cooking should be the opposite of that. It should be something that brings people together and not separates them. It is the same with the arts. I find competition in the arts strange. It is wonderful when you get an award, but my dad was a teacher and did not know how to grade people. It is subjective ,so how do you grade that? How do you say ‘you are the best actor?’ It does not make any sense.”
For now, Stanley is happy to bask in the glory of his well-deserved The Devil Wears Prada 2 success. If he could, he would love to turn The Devil Wears Prada into a trilogy – although he doesn’t want to wait for another 20 years for the next instalment. He laughs: “It will take place in a nursing home. It will be Emily and Annie coming to visit our tombstones. I would like it to happen, but a little sooner – while I can still walk.”
*The Devil Wears Prada 2 is in cinemas now. Tucci in Italy will be released in the UK on May 12 on Disney+.
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