Alba Rohrwacher (“The Lost Daughter,” “The Wonders”) is set to play Elena, aka Lenù, in the fourth and final season of RAI/HBO show “My Brilliant Friend.”
Just as season three of the Elena Ferrante adaptation, directed by Daniele Luchetti, kicks off in the U.S. where it debuted on Feb. 28. on HBO and HBO Max to positive reviews, Italian viewers of the final episode of the show’s third instalment, aired locally on pubcaster RAI, have found out that going forward Lenù will no longer be played by young Neapolitan actor Margherita Mazzucco.
Without spoilers, suffice it to say that in a final cliffhanger scene when Lenù, played by Mazzucco, looks in a mirror and sees herself in the future, Rohrwacher’s face appears.
Alba Rohrwacher, who is among Italy’s A-listers, is not entirely new to “Brilliant Friend.” She has been performing the voiceover for the series since the first season of the show produced by The Apartment and Wildside, both Fremantle companies, along with FremantleMedia Italia and Fandango Production, in collaboration with Rai Fiction and HBO Entertainment.
A Fremantle spokesperson on Tuesday confirmed plans for Rohrwacher to take over Lenù’s role from Mazzucco in the fourth season of the Elena Ferrante quadrilogy, titled “The Story of the Lost Child.”
She added, however, that, though the show’s fourth and final season is in pre-production, it has not been officially greenlit and that all other cast, and also director, elements are being kept under wraps. An official announcement about season four is expected in coming months.
Producer Lorenzo Mieli at the show’s Rome press conference in January had noted that the third season of “My Brilliant Friend” posed several challenges, one being that the leads, who are both 18, had to play older women.
It’s clear that replacing Mazzucco as Lenù with Alba Rohrwacher also means recasting her “brilliant friend” Lila, played from the first season by Gaia Gerace. A likely candidate for the Lila role, according to the Italian press, is Luisa Ranieri who plays the emotionally troubled aunt Patrizia in Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-nominated “The Hand of God.”
Both Mazzucco and Gerace were Neapolitan non-professionals chosen in 2017 to play the show’s leads among 9,000 kids between the ages of 7 and 16.
