In the fourth season of “My Brilliant Friend,” premiering Monday on HBO, the childhood friends and fierce rivals Lila and Lenù navigate marriage and divorce, motherhood, loss and middle age.
This is the final chapter, catapulting the protagonists from the 1970s to the 21st century against the background of Italy’s upheavals, and is based on “The Story of the Lost Child,” the fourth book in Elena Ferrante’s wildly popular Neapolitan series.
Writing in The Times, James Poniewozik called the show “one of the most incisive portraits of a lifelong relationship ever made for TV.” But this final season also ends a production project that started in 2016 and which all of its lead actresses agreed was the most important of their careers.
Margherita Mazzucco, 21, played Elena “Lenù” Greco, and Gaia Girace, 20, played Raffaella “Lila” Cerullo, through three seasons — from the characters’ adolescence to their 30s. Neither had acted before they were cast in 2017, but they are both now stopped on the street at home and abroad.
For the seasoned actress Irene Maiorino, 39, who plays Lila in Season 4, the show offered a chance to become better known outside Italy. And the already internationally acclaimed Alba Rohrwacher, 45, who narrated the series before being cast as the grown Lenù. Rohrwacher described the role as an “incredible journey” that “can only happen once in a lifetime.”
The four women met together for the first time on a recent muggy afternoon in Rome, to discuss passing the baton from one pair of Lenùs and Lilas to the next and whether there were heightened expectations now that Ferrante’s “My Brilliant Friend” had been named the best book of the 21st century in a recent New York Times survey. (They all laughed: They’d heard.)
These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Season 4 opens with new actors cast in the majority of the principal roles. For the younger actresses, how difficult was it to give up the roles of Lenù and Lila and, for those stepping into the characters, what was it like to play a role developed by another actress?
GIRACE There’s a common thread, in the sense that we had the same idea of Lila’s character, even though Maiorino and I didn’t talk to each other before. I saw her as an extension, but obviously with different nuances.
MAIORINO I’d begun the audition process years ago, and nurtured the role, behind the scenes, until I was cast. With respect to the work Gaia did, clearly there’s a certain physical resemblance, but I also sought out specific characteristics that I decided to maintain.
I never asked to meet Gaia, and the production didn’t suggest that we meet, and in the end I thought it was right like this. I did things on my own, but also thanks to her, in a kind of mystical way.
MAZZUCCO It was a little strange at first. But then I was very happy that they had cast Alba, it was always in the air because she was the narrator. Alba and I have a really special relationship, I’m sure that only she could understand some aspects of Elena. The first episode was a bit strange, and then you slowly enter into this new chapter, and it was nice.
ROHRWACHER It was a very natural thing in the sense that I was already involved, and Elena Ferrante is in a pantheon of writers who have nourished my training as an actor. When the time came, I was already Elena’s voice. And I had a connection with Margherita, as if Margherita were my daughter.
But I studied like crazy because I’m not Neapolitan, and even though Elena loses her accent, I became obsessed with getting it right.
Ferrante’s real identity is unknown, but she was nonetheless involved in the show, supervising the script and signing off on the cast. Was that evident on set?
ROHRWACHER Everything starts with the book. Whenever we were in difficulty, when we weren’t sure what to do, or where our character was, the book would help us find the right path. Because the writing is so exceptional.
GIRACE It was our Bible.
MAIORINO In that way it’s like Shakespeare: you don’t have to invent something when a script supports you and provides you with the basic foundation. We paid a lot of attention to detail.
MAZZUCCO When we’d arrive on set in the morning and got the day’s script, there was always the printed pages from the book. Sometimes we’d say, ‘Let’s use the dialogue in the book, it’s better.’
Did you ever meet Ferrante?
MAIORINO I never had any contact with her.
MAZZUCCO Do you remember when we were trying to discover who she was?
GIRACE Yeah, at one point we were investigating.
MAZZUCCO We were going crazy, we were convinced she was on set.
GIRACE At one point we thought everyone was Elena Ferrante.
ROHRWACHER She was a sort of spirit guide, a writer who guides us through the story of another writer, who is narrated by a voice off screen who is a spiritual guide of the character. For me Elena Ferrante is this beacon.
And what has it meant for you, as actresses, to be a part of “My Brilliant Friend”?
ROHRWACHER The incredible thing is that this project has been in my life for seven years, really since it started. As the narrator, I was almost always on set, and I saw Margherita Mazzuco and Gaia Girace become actors. It’s been an incredible journey. I dedicated my life to it, in a way I never have before. And I never got to know a character as intimately as Elena. She changed my life.
GIRACE Alba gave us so much, she was our coach, a mentor.
MAZZUCCO She was the only one who could understand, and so sweet too. She taught us everything.
ROHRWACHER Not everything, I think.
MAZZUCCO Even when you weren’t there, I felt the things that you told us, and taught us, and I did them.
ROHRWACHER Clearly under the guidance of Saverio [Costanzo, the showrunner and Rohrwacher’s partner] who chose you, and transformed you. We created this small family.
GIRACE I can’t begin to express my gratitude. He discovered so many things in me. I can’t stop myself from crying when I speak of you both.
So how did you feel when it ended?
MAIORINO There are some roles that end, and you’re grateful for the work, but it’s over. And then there are those roles where you get something from the characters. Even though it’s up to the actor to create the conditions that bring a role to life, in some cases it’s the other way around.
MAZZUCCO I haven’t really come out of it. Until the series airs, I am still inside, I’m still tied to it.
GIRACE We spent so many years on set, and Lila was more than a character to me. Apart from the fact that it was my first role, it was something more. I grew up on that set, and it will be part of me forever.
ROHRWACHER These characters are so archetypical, they’ve taught us so much about how to be in life in such an intelligent manner, thanks to Elena, the brilliant writer. This is the miracle, an incredible opportunity that the four of us share.