The Italian stallion, sex guru, world porn king: these are just a handful of the nicknames that have stuck to Rocco Siffredi, one of the biggest stars, creators and tycoons of porn on our planet, whose name has even starred in quite a few songs. In May, Siffredi will celebrate his 60th birthday, which is a great time to reflect.
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"Let's say I never thought this moment would come," said Siffredi, who looked great and preserved in a flattering black designer suit when we met at one of Berlin's elegant luxury hotels. "I feel calm and relaxed. At 60, I think I couldn't have done anything better for myself than what I did in my porn career. People tell me: 'It looks like you love what you do', and that's true."
At your advanced age, do you still enjoy sex?
Siffredi bursts into laughter. "Yes, my sex life is still very active - but it is under control. I'm no longer in a state of lack of control as I once was, so I'm very happy about that."
How are you going to celebrate?
"I will celebrate with my wife and our two sons, probably outside of Italy. My wife knows that I really love gorillas and am interested in them - so she is organizing something so I can see them up close. Since it is very difficult to see gorillas somewhere in Europe, then it will happen in the Congo. I want to sit with and hang out with the gorillas."
In addition to the gorillas, Siffredi is now receiving another great birthday gift for his milestone birthday: a drama series inspired by his turbulent life and dealing with his complex personality, struggling with demons and passions, called "Supersex." Its premiere took place last month at the 74th Berlin Festival, and on Wednesday it will be released on Netflix, with actor Alessandro Borghi stepping into Siffredi's shoes.
"We decided to only tell my unknown story," says Siffredi. "And not the sexual part that is exposed on the internet. Of course, there is also that, but it is not the main subject. The series mainly deals with where I came from, my childhood. At first, I was a little scared of the deep way Francesca Manieri, the director of "Supersex," wanted to show my life. She went much deeper than I usually go on set," he laughs.
"But this time it was about me and it really shook me to the core. At first, I thought some of the narrative would be made up, and we would only get to the truth at the end. But in the end, only 2%-3% were not accurate, and that's basically the part that gives anonymity to my family, to protect them. That was my request, that not everything would be unfiltered truth. And so the plot also ends in 2004."
Lost his virginity at 13
Siffredi's legend begins in Ortona, a small town on the Adriatic Sea. He was born with the name Rocco Antonio Tano, and when he was six his family experienced a tragedy that still haunts him today. "One of my brothers, who was 12, died from an epileptic seizure in the middle of the night - a disease he suffered from in his childhood after being hit in the head. His death greatly affected my mother. She wore black until the day she died. She had to support us for two years, because my father - who was completely obsessed with his dead son - was constantly fired from various jobs on the grounds that he was 'not entirely there.' I grew up with a heavy sense of melancholy."
Supersex - Trailer
(Video: Netflix)
At the age of 11, Siffredi, who was blessed with impressive physical attributes, discovered the charms of sex, thanks to a racy magazine called "Supersex," about the exploits of a horny and mischievous guy, which also gave its name to the series.
"As soon as I first saw the magazine, I wanted to be the guy who starred on the cover," he reveals. "For me, it was the mission, and I knew it wouldn't be easy at first, but in the end, I managed to realize my childhood dreams. I masturbated so much then that I ended up in the hospital with an irritation in my penis."
When did you first sleep with a woman?
"I was 13 and she was 20, and I didn't even know what I was doing, because it lasted three seconds. I understood in those three seconds that I wanted to repeat the experience. Penetration and masturbation are two different things, and penetration was much more comfortable for me than my hand."
Siffredi's mother, a devout Catholic, actually destined him for the priesthood. "I had to go to church, and I went out of respect for the family. To this day I have a lot of reverence for God because of my mother," he said.
"Supersex" often deals with Siffredi's special relationship with his deviant brother (played by Adriano Giannini) - the son of a prostitute who was adopted by his family, and who later moved to and lived in Paris. At the age of 20, Siffredi followed in his brother's footsteps to the City of Lights to realize his dream. "I knew that porn industry people hang out in swingers clubs, and in one of them I met that porn star I once saw in the magazine. He was there with two girls, I stopped him and begged him to help me get into the industry. He said: 'Let's see what you know', and later he introduced me to producers who opened doors for me."
This marked the beginning of a glamorous, world-spanning, award-winning career, with hordes of fans. Siffredi's family initially opposed his chosen profession, but they couldn't stop him.
"My mother forced me to go to a doctor, and he told me I would face darkness and die unpleasantly. After listening to the doctor, I left the room and said: 'Go screw yourselves. I want to live my life.' One of my brothers forbade me to touch his children. And my father always asked me: 'Why do you want to get into porn?' Then, in 1993, I brought him for the first time to the pornography awards ceremony in Cannes. I introduced him at the ceremony as 'the biggest fan of mine in the whole world'. Everyone stood and clapped for over 10 minutes. My father left the event and said: 'Now I understand and can die knowing why you wanted to do this.' It was an unforgettable moment."
In the last 20 years, Siffredi has focused on directing and producing films. His production company is based in Budapest and is considered a powerhouse in the porn industry. "Fans from Iran, Arab countries, Africa write to me that they want to be porn stars and I'm like: 'What's going on?' The freedom to be what brings you happiness - that's the main reason why I love my job today - you have to do what you really love, without the restrictions of 'you can't do this anymore because it's not legal,' as they are trying to do today in places like Russia, trying to push porn out and suddenly put it in the same category as child pornography. Everything is the same to them. Unfortunately, people are becoming more and more rigid and conservative all over the world, and that's how we are losing the freedom we have gained so far."
What is the secret of your success, apart from your personal charm and impressive physical attributes?
"I succeeded because I love women, which helps. I simply have a passion for this world, for this work, for women, but honestly, I'm not that successful without a camera - I give my best performance only in front of the camera. When I came to America to work, John Stagliano, a well-known porn director and producer, declared: 'Here's this guy who came from Europe and completely changed porn.' And in this context, I want to give credit and tell you that I had a girlfriend, Tina from England, who taught me a different way to have sex with women. She simply taught me there is something beyond penetration. Before I met her, I used the pull-push method, I thought that was the recipe. And then when I slept with Tina, she really hit me hard. I hit her back and asked her: 'Why are you hitting me?' - and then she climaxed. From that point on, I understood that something is definitely different about women's sexuality. And therefore, all the American girls wanted to work with me. All of them."
"When I was once asked why I'm in porn, I would say that the reason is primarily to have sex with as many women as possible in life. Because that's really what was most interesting to me then. How many women have I slept with? A lot. I made more than 1,700 films, and I had three to four different partners in each film. There were some I worked with several times, but there were also movies where I was with a hundred women. A hundred girls sounds fun - but it's not. It took eight hours and it was a disaster."
Have you also slept with Israeli girls?
"It could be. It's possible. Some were probably good."
Do you usually watch the movies you starred in?
"No. I never masturbate to my films, no. It's impossible. I can watch some of the dialogues in the comedic scenes I've done and sometimes I tell myself: 'Wow, I'm really bad.' But masturbate to myself? That's way too much."
Siffredi, who starred in several reality shows, commercials and mainstream films in recent years, lives happily and wealthily with his wife Rosa Caracciolo, the mother of his two sons. Rosa is a former Hungarian porn star and model, whom he met in 1993 at the Cannes Festival. "When we met, I told Rosa that I would never leave my job, for no girl, not even for my wife, so don't ask me to leave the job. And she agreed and that's why we're still together," he reveals.
"The only thing that's hard in the porn industry is maintaining a career alongside personal life with the family. That's always been the only difficulty. All my doubts, all my problems. And that's what developed a bit of a guilt feeling in me, which is purely related to one person only: my wife. Not toward anyone else. I had no guilt feelings toward my brothers and my parents. Freedom is the most important part of life and what I do. For me, it's always been: 'No one can tell me how I can be happy.' But there's one person who's always there waiting for me, at home, every day - my wife Rosa, so for me, she's always been the main source of doubts. And today also my two sons, because they didn't choose to be my sons. My sons and my wife came to the premiere of the series in Berlin, and it was a full circle. They understand now how much I wanted to be in the profession."
In the series, there is a contrast between sex and love, is that how you felt in your life?
"I can tell you that, for me, sex accompanied by a loving sentiment is the best thing there is. You can't get anything better than that. For that, I have my wife. I love her and when we sleep together I don't think, we just become one. But I can tell you that I can do the same thing without love, just as a person who uses sex for pleasure - like anything else you enjoy. My wife can't do that, I guarantee it. I don't have that difficulty. For me, on set, I could 'love' so many different women, but I chose not to, because then I couldn't be a professional porn actor - you can't love every girl in this profession. So you start the 'love' when the camera turns on, and you stop with that sentiment the second it turns off."
Masculinity as a cultural construct
To shoot a series like "Supersex" and recreate Siffredi's story is no small matter in the era of MeToo. "We used intimacy coordinators during filming," says Francesca Manieri, the director of "Supersex," who joins the conversation. "In general, I faced a big question: How should I portray the sex scenes? Because anyone who has seen Rocco so many times has seen how he does it, so I decided to use sex as a source of knowledge. The character learns things through sex. Each sex scene is a conscious step forward. That's why another goal of the series was to contemplate the relationship between sex and love in 2024 and whether it's possible to love the person with whom we are having sex. Is it possible to build that bridge?
"The most significant contribution of this series to the current discussion about sex is that we really tried to approach the topic from the perspective of masculinity, to delve deep into 'masculinity' as a cultural construct, and to expose the mechanism behind the concept. The big question is the status of men and women in a relationship - which can be very toxic, precisely because of this status gap between the sexes. In 'Supersex' we tried to break down this cultural paradigm and change it by creating a new encounter between women and men. We simply wanted to raise the question, not necessarily solve it. I hope that, after watching the series, viewers will try to answer the biggest question about men in general."
Rocco, did the show change the way you view machoism in your life?
"Often, I was described as an 'excellent performer who sometimes engages in violent sex,' but it was never a problem for me because I always described the situation to my partner. In porn film shoots, we always talk and decide to do a certain type of scene, so I never felt like I was exploiting someone, because everything was always done in collaboration with the partners and other people. Let's say I took a step to better understand women. But I never really thought: 'Ah, I'm doing something wrong and today I'm improving.' For me, the point of view has not changed. A New York journalist once told me: 'After watching your films, I see from how you have sex with women that you have a woman's mind.' And that was the biggest compliment I've ever been given in my life. It also hit me suddenly. It shocked me a little. I suddenly realized that I have a big feminine part. And that, for me, as a conclusion, is the reason I became what I became.
"Also, the respected French artistic director Catherine Breillat, in whose two films - 'Romance' (1999) and 'Anatomy of Hell' (2004) - I appeared, told me the same thing. It's very strange. It seems like I'm the most macho man in the world representing this industry, and also because of the way I present my sexuality, but in the end, women see a very feminine part in me. Now, I'm not a psychologist who understands who I am, but it puts me in a strange situation. By the way, today there are a lot of women in porn who play the dominant role and people love it. Also, in porn films we now use intimacy coordinators."
How would you describe your reaction when watching the show?
"I experienced an emotional whirlwind that is hard for me to articulate. The series, in my view, was impactful, emotionally gripping and deeply moving. It illuminated the human aspect, and the price of opting for such a life – which is undoubtedly challenging. I belong to the rare group of people who have the opportunity to see their life being portrayed in a television series. We typically reflect on our life journey through our memories, but this time I have the unique chance to witness my life unfolding on screen. I feel blessed. I must admit that, prior to this series, I had a limited understanding of my own personality; but after spending seven hours watching and reflecting on my life journey - I gained a deeper insight into myself."