About Matteo Leoni
Hey! I’m Matteo Leoni, an Italian-Colombian actor, raised between Milan and Colombia with a suitcase that’s always half-unpacked and a constant pull toward being in front of a camera.
Disney
I’m one of the lucky ones, the kind Andy Warhol would have recognized: my “15 minutes of fame” lasted 7 years, all of them at Disney.
Tinelli was, and in some ways still is, my alter ego for a long time. A character I loved on set, but one that made every encounter off set a little unpredictable: fame at that age is not easy to handle.
Years later people still recognize me as Tinelli, and that tells me how much that show meant to an entire generation. With time and perspective, I’ve come to be genuinely proud of it and I’m always happy to stop and chat with anyone who recognizes me.
Rome
After Disney, where everything was handed to me to express myself and work almost as if it were a game, I wanted to prove myself in the world of cinema.
I wanted to make the leap: Rome, the big screen, real acting.
The beginning was promising: I got into the CSC at Cinecittà, where I studied for three years surrounded by young people with the same hunger as me.
Along the way I worked on important sets with directors such as Pupi Avati, Alessandro D’Alatri, the Vanzina brothers and Daniele Luchetti.
New cultures
But I felt that world wasn’t enough.
There was this unstoppable desire to discover new cultures, to live somewhere I could speak Spanish or improve my English, all while trying to grow as an actor.
I studied filmmaking with Miguel Bardem in Spain, had the pleasure of working in the workshop of Victoria Hernandez, a renowned Latin American acting coach, in Bogotá, and finally specialized in the Meisner technique in Los Angeles.
The climax
Those experiences brought me to what I consider the climax of my career so far:
working with Oscar winner Robert “Bobby” Moresco and shooting a film in English with an Italian-Hollywood production.
Disney again
Meanwhile Disney came knocking again.
Together with my old friend Romolo Guerreri, a colleague from the days of Quelli dell’Intervallo, and Nicola Conversa, a new friendship as much professional as human, we developed a new sit-com: modern, in English, in the spirit of QdI but looking forward.
We were given the artistic direction, the directing and the screenplay.
An enormous project, full of responsibility, but also full of laughs and creativity. Quite a challenge for three guys who, at least by Italian standards, were still considered “young”.
Fuerteventura
Then Covid arrived.
I found myself happily stranded in Fuerteventura and what was meant to be a sabbatical year dedicated to surfing turned into a way of life.
I collaborated with a small local production company, directed and wrote the story for a music video, opened a coworking space for digital nomads, and above all started teaching pedagogical theatre.
But I never lost touch with the audiovisual world: castings, keeping up with the Italian, Spanish and international industry, always keeping my head in the game.
My dream is to live in balance between the ocean and a set, telling stories through characters both similar and distant from me.
Because acting, when you think about it, is the only art that asks you to be completely someone else while remaining deeply yourself. And I haven’t finished exploring how far that can go.
If you’ve made it this far, it means we speak the same language. You choose which one.