You can call her Lolita Lobosco, the detective who made Italy fall in love. You can call her Maria Callas, or the mother of Maria Goretti, or the principal of Caivano who never stopped believing in beauty. You can see her in black and white for Sorrentino, in colour for Ozpetek, in period costume for Johnny Depp. You can meet her on the street in Rome, hear her speak of her mother’s Sunday ragù, imagine her reading at the kitchen table after the children have gone to sleep. You can even think you know her.
We are speaking of Luisa Ranieri.
But what, really, is a career? How do you measure a life spent wearing clothes that are not your own, crying tears you had to find somewhere inside yourself, speaking with voices you had to learn from nothing? And if you are afraid of the stage, if you are so shy that Naples, your own city, terrified you with its volume—how did you become the girl of summer, the face of the commercial everyone remembers, the woman who has entered Italian homes for twenty-five years?
Do we have enough of her? Or do we never have enough? Naples, 1995. A student apartment, a civil code open to the wrong page. Exams piled up, words that would not stay on the paper. Her friends say: laziness. Her professors say: lack of vocation. But Luisa knows the truth: it is not the law she is afraid of. It is the sound of her own voice. “Go and learn to speak”, a friend tells her. She goes. She learns to speak. And twenty-five years later, she has not stopped.
“Theatre gave me the superpower I needed,” she says today. “That of telling stories that concern us as human beings, through the words of great writers and great authors. Stepping onto a stage and feeling that, for an instant, an entire community breathes together, recognises itself, questions itself.
That is where I understood: going against your own nature is not a weakness, but a strength.” The sea never left her. “I grew up in a city of the sea,” she says, “and certain roots never leave you.” She speaks of the sound of waves, the scent of salt, that feeling of infinity the sea places before your eyes. She speaks of Castel dell’Ovo at sunset, with a roasted corncob bought just before along the seafront. She speaks of Sant’Angelo d’Ischia out of season, of Pantelleria, of Vesuvius.
These are not postcards. They are emotional coordinates. “They are places that are not only geographical,” she explains, “but emotional: spaces where you can still feel the authentic heart of Italy beating—the quieter, truer, deeper one.” She left Naples because the city’s volume frightened her. Today, she has become its silent ambassador. Luisa Ranieri never raises her voice.
Not even when she plays a woman who must be heard. Her strength is something else: a presence that has no need to shout. “You have to navigate them,” she says. “Find similar emotions inside yourself, to be able to portray them truthfully.” Each role asks her for a different piece of herself, and in return offers a new perspective on the world and on people.
She cannot say which she has loved most. She has loved them all. Even the ones who did not resemble her. Perhaps especially those.
There was the diva (Callas), the saint (Maria Goretti’s mother), the detective (Lolita Lobosco), the woman in love (Il principe e il pirata), the grieving mother (The Hand of God), the nymph Parthenope, the jeweller in Ozpetek’s Diamanti. There was, in 2024, Johnny Depp choosing her for his Modi. There is the David di Donatello, the Nastro d’Argento, the Ciak d’Oro. There are thirty films, and they are not enough to contain her. Because cinema alone is never enough to hold an entire life.
Shy by mature, Luisa admits to being both incredulous and thrilled to be invited to take part in this year’s iconic Pirelli Calendar, embodying the natural element of “wind”—a role she feels perfectly mirrors her own spirit.
The campaign was shot by Sølve Sundsbø, the Norway-born, London-based fashion photographer and filmmaker renowned worldwide for his surreal concepts, stylistic range, and innovative embrace of new technologies, from 3-D scanning to hand-painted retouching. Ranieri describes the experience of working with him as “being embraced.” For an actress with over 30 films to her name, the true challenge on set was not in performing, but in finally revealing her authentic self after 25 years spent “hiding it” behind the camera.
Luisa’s latest role may be her most powerful yet: a real woman who refused to let an entire generation disappear. In January 2026, Italy met Eugenia Liguori. She is not a glamorous opera singer. She is not a tragic heroine. She is a high school principal from Caivano, a town on the outskirts of Naples that has become shorthand for neglect.
Her school is crumbling. Her students are dropping out. The institutions have turned their backs. And she said yes. La preside, directed by Luca Miniero (Benvenuti al Sud, Amiche mie), is inspired by the true story of Eugenia Carfora—a woman who, in 2018, took the helm of the Istituto Professionale “Anna Maria Ortese” in Caivano. The school was a fortress of decay: peeling walls, empty desks, children who had stopped believing that education belonged to them.
Every other candidate for the headship had refused. Eugenia accepted. Why would anyone walk into a fire that everyone else was fleeing? This is the question at the heart of La preside. And the answer, according to Luisa Ranieri, is deceptively simple: love. For Ranieri, the role of Eugenia Liguori is a return to her deepest roots—not just geographical (she is Neapolitan), but emotional.
Eugenia is not a woman who seeks the spotlight. She is a woman who seeks results. She arrives at the school not with grand speeches, but with a broom. “She passes through her love for her work and her desire to give these kids a future,” Ranieri says. “I think it’s a beautiful thing. Teachers, more than anyone, can shape the lives of young people.
They notice the shadows, the smiles, the things left unsaid outside the family context.” This is not the first time Ranieri has played a real woman. She was Maria Goretti’s mother. She was Maria Callas. But those were figures frozen in history, their tragedies already written. Eugenia Carfora is alive. Her battle is ongoing. The stakes are not operatic—they are civic.
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Ranieri spent time observing Carfora before filming. What struck her was not the woman’s resilience, but her normality. “In real life,” Ranieri explains, “I saw that she operates through love for her job. She believes that beauty matters. That if a child lives in a difficult situation, seeing a world that is beautiful, that takes care of people, tells them: you are important.” The actress’s voice carries the weight of someone who has spent 25 years hiding behind characters.
In La preside, she reveals herself differently. Not through confession, but through conviction. “The school is a sacred place,” she says. “Because inside it is the life of young people, the life of new generations. We must set a good example. Keep it clean, dignified, decent—to welcome the lives that will come.” Caivano became national news again in 2023, when two cousins were raped in a public garden.
The town, already stigmatised, was held up as a symbol of Italian institutional failure. But Eugenia Carfora had been working there for years. Her school—now renamed after the writer Anna Maria Ortese—has become a small miracle: a place where dropout rates have fallen, where students have begun to dream again of university, of work, of dignity. La preside is a reminder that change does not begin with laws or ministers. It begins with one person who refuses to accept that things must stay as they are. “You change things by building beauty,” she says. It is a line that could serve as her own artistic and educational manifesto beyond fiction.
Luisa Ranieri on the set of La Preside
What are the smells and sounds of your childhood that you still feel you can perceive today?
I grew up in a seaside town, and I believe certain roots never really leave you. The sound of the waves, the salty scent in the air, that feeling of infinity the sea puts before your eyes: they are physical memories, not just emotional ones. And then there’s another smell that for me means home: my mother’s Sunday ragù, which filled the whole house and set the rhythm of the day. Those are scents that even now instantly bring me back to who I am, even before reminding me of what I do.
Is there one encounter, among the many in your career, that you remember with particular gratitude?
I honestly believe that every person, every artist, every human being I have met along my path has been important. Every encounter always leaves you something: sometimes it’s an obvious gift, other times it’s a silent lesson, but just as precious.
Which character you’ve played do you feel you loved the most, or that changed you?
Characters are gifts to me. You have to navigate them, go through them, find similar emotions inside yourself to be able to portray them truthfully. I don’t know if there’s one in particular that left me more than the others, because I love them — and I have loved them — all. Each one asked a different piece of me, and in return gave me a new perspective on the world and on people.
What did theatre give you that you didn’t have before?
Theatre gave me the superpower I needed: that of telling stories that concern us as human beings, through the words of great writers and great authors. It’s a wonderful feeling: stepping onto a stage and feeling that, for an instant, an entire community breathes together, recognizes itself, questions itself. That’s where I understood that going against my shy nature was not a weakness, but a strength.
When the spotlights go off, what are your spaces of quiet?
I feed on walks in the open air, on silence and on reading. They are simple moments, but essential. That’s where I put things in order, where I listen to what I really feel, where I regenerate. When the spotlights go out, that empty space becomes my true inner home.
How did your attention towards food and health come about?
The turning point came when I met Dr. Sara Farnetti, back in 2013. It was an encounter that profoundly changed the way I look at food, health, the body. From there a personal, almost daily need arose, which then naturally transformed into a larger project to be shared.
What is your philosophy at the table, today?
For me, health is not just eating bland food or following strict rules. Thanks to Sara’s teachings, I understood that what is truly healthy is what works well for you, for your body, for your balance. Food as care, not as punishment. My table is first and foremost a place of love, where well-being never excludes pleasure, but accompanies it.
What is the key concept you learned from Sara Farnetti and that you carry forward with Food Wizards?
The true magic of Sara’s teachings — which we then bring into both the cartoon and the book Food Wizards — is understanding that food has a chemical function in our body: to every action there is a reaction in our system. So yes, we really are what we eat, but also how we eat it, with what awareness and what emotional relationship with food.
What message do you hope to leave with Food Wizards?
The deepest message of this small creative process is that, as human beings, we must start taking care of ourselves more responsibly. Food is fundamental because, through a daily and individual gesture, we can better understand — and perhaps modify — what we are doing not only to our bodies, but also to our planet. It is an act of love that starts from oneself and reaches much further.
What are the Italian places where you feel the truest heart of our country beats?
Sant’Angelo d’Ischia out of season, Pantelleria. Castel dell’Ovo at sunset, with a roasted corncob bought just before along the seafront. And then Vesuvius. They are places that are not only geographical, but emotional: spaces where you can still feel the authentic heart of Italy beating — the quieter, truer, deeper one.
What is the most precious piece of advice you have learned to give yourself?
Love yourself. This is truly the heart of everything. Love yourself first, because only then can you choose better, protect yourself better, and also love others better.
CHAMPIONING FOOD AS CARE NOT PUNISHMENT
If her art is an expression of her soul, a parallel, deeply personal revolution began at her own table. This transformation merits its own chapter, for it represents not a hobby, but a fundamental reorientation of her life’s philosophy. The catalyst was a meeting in 2013 with Dr. Sara Farnetti, world-leading specialist in functional medicine. “It was a meeting that profoundly changed my way of looking at food, health, and the body,” Ranieri states, marking it as a clear before-and-after.
What began as an intimate, personal quest naturally evolved into a project meant for sharing, culminating in her role as creator and producer of the animated series Food Wizards for RaiPlay in 2022, and later, the 2025 book A tavola con i Food Wizards, co-authored with Farnetti.
At the heart of this philosophy is a radical, liberating idea. “For me, health is not just eating bland food or following rigid rules,” she clarifies. “Thanks to Sara’s teachings, I understood that the truly healthy thing is what works well for you, for your body, for your balance.” This dismantles the punishing, guilt-ridden narratives surrounding diet. In Ranieri’s world, nourishment is an act of love, not penance. “Food as care, not as punishment.
My table is a place of love, first and foremost, where well-being never excludes pleasure, but accompanies it.” The project’s genius lies in its elegant simplification of a powerful truth. “The real magic of Sara’s teachings—which we then report both in the cartoon and in the book Food Wizards—is understanding that food has a chemical function in our body: to every action corresponds a reaction from our system.” Ranieri articulates this with the clarity of a convert. “So yes, we are really what we eat, but also how we eat it, with what awareness and with what emotional relationship to food.” This shifts the focus from mere calorie counts to a holistic dialogue with one’s own body.
For Ranieri, this journey transcended personal wellness to become a metaphor for a more responsible existence. “The deepest message of this small creative process is that, as human beings, we must begin to take care of ourselves more responsibly.
Food is fundamental because, through a daily and individual gesture, we can better understand—and perhaps change—what we are doing not only to our body, but also to our planet. It is an act of love that starts from the self and arrives much farther.” Here, the actress, the mother, and the producer merge. The same meticulous care she uses to build a character is now applied to the act of nourishment and creating content for children, viewing it as an ethical, ecological, and deeply personal gesture of integrity.
