International
Sebastian Maniscalco and father Salvo share hilarious stories
Mumbai: Tale padre, tale figlio (Like father, like son). O no? Lionsgate’s upcoming theatrical About My Father starring Robert De Niro and Sebastian Maniscalco is the whimsical tale of a father-son duo that are nothing alike. Torn between impressing his fiance’s parents and leaving his father alone on fourth July, a son decides his best bet is bringing the two together. However, when Italian meets American; chaos is sure to ensue. Full of hilarious instances and riotous moments, About My Father is set to hit your screens on 26 May 2023. Inspired by the true story of Sebastian Maniscalco and his father Salvo Maniscalco, the film also sees Leslie Bibb and Kim Catrall in titular roles.
Talking about his early days in the US, Sebastian Maniscalco’s real-life father, Salvo Maniscalco said, “I came to the United States, from Sicily, when I was 15 years old. School really wasn’t for me, so I told my father, who was a barber, that I wanted to be a hairdresser. So, I’ve been working as a hairdresser since the age of 18.”
Giving a sweet tribute to his father, lead actor Sebastian Maniscalco said, “Salvo has been instrumental in my career. He’s been supportive as my biggest fan and critic. We’ve had this journey together, starting during my high school years, when we shared a passion for soccer. Then, once I became a stand-up (comedian), he jumped onto that. Salvo’s still vocal on what he likes and dislikes about my act. Now, he’s joined me on this journey with ‘About My Father.’” Salvo quickly added, “I’m the consultant on the film. I was on set to make sure they were doing justice to me!”
Of course, with the casting of Robert De Niro as Salvo, the elder Maniscalco had nothing to worry about – “Obviously, De Niro was my number one choice for the role of Salvo, and when we learned he was interested, we were like, ‘wow,’” remembered Sebastian.
Helmed by Laura Terruso and written by Austen Earl and Sebastian Maniscalco, the movie will be released by Lionsgate and PVRINOX Pictures.
LOS ANGELES: Acting has never been an easy profession, but in recent years, it has acquired a new existential anxiety. Artificial intelligence can now mimic faces, clone voices and, in theory at least, speak any language it is fed. The fear that actors may soon be replaced by algorithms no longer belongs exclusively to science fiction. And yet, despite the rise of digital inauthenticity, some performers remain stubbornly resistant to replacement. The reason is not celebrity, nor even talent. It is language.
On paper, this should not be a problem. AI can translate. It can imitate accents. It can string together grammatically correct sentences in dozens of languages. But acting, inconveniently, is not about grammatical correctness. It is about meaning, and meaning is where AI still falters.
Machine translation offers a cautionary tale. Google Translate, now powered by neural AI, has improved markedly since its debut in 2006. It can manage menus, emails and airport signage with impressive efficiency. What it struggles with, however, are the moments that matter most: idioms, metaphors, irony, and cultural shorthand. Ask it to translate a joke, a threat disguised as politeness, or a line heavy with emotional subtext, and it begins to unravel. Acting lives precisely in those gaps.
This matters because film language is rarely literal. Scripts, particularly in independent cinema, rely on figurative speech and symbolism to convey what characters cannot say outright. Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver is a useful example. The film’s recurring use of red operates on multiple levels: grief, desire, repression, liberation, and memory. These meanings are inseparable from the Spanish cultural context and emotional cadence. A translation may convey the words, but not the weight they carry. An AI-generated performance might replicate the sound, but not the sense.
This is where multilingual actors gain their edge. Performers such as Penélope Cruz and Sofía Vergara do not simply switch between languages; they move between cultural logics. Their fluency allows them to inhabit characters without flattening them for international consumption. Language, for them, is not an accessory but a structuring force.
Beyond European cinema, this becomes even more pronounced. Languages such as Hindi, Arabic and Mandarin are spoken by hundreds of millions of people and underpin vast cinematic traditions. As global audiences grow more interconnected, the demand for authenticity increases rather than diminishes. Viewers can tell when a performance has been filtered through approximation. Subtle errors, misplaced emphasis, and an unnatural rhythm break the illusion.
There is also a practical dimension. Multilingualism expands opportunity. Sofía Vergara has spoken openly about how learning English enabled her to work beyond Colombia and access Hollywood roles. But this movement is not a one-way export of talent into English-speaking cinema. Multilingual actors carry stories, styles and sensibilities back with them, enriching multiple industries at once.
Cinema has always thrived on such hybridity. Denzel Washington’s performances, for instance, draw on the cultural realities of growing up African American in the United States, while also reflecting stylistic influences from classic Hollywood and Westerns. His work demonstrates how identity and influence intersect on screen. Multilingual actors extend this intersection further, embodying multiple cultural frameworks simultaneously.
At times, linguistic authenticity is not merely artistic but ethical. Films that confront historical trauma, such as Schindler’s List, rely on language to anchor their moral seriousness. When Jewish actors perform in German, the choice is not incidental. Language becomes a site of memory and confrontation. It is difficult to imagine an automated voice carrying that responsibility without hollowing it out.
This is why claims that AI heralds the death of language miss the point. Language is not just a delivery system for information. It is a repository of history, humour, power and pain. Fluency is not only about knowing what to say, but when to hesitate, when to understate, and when to let silence do the work. These are not technical problems waiting to be solved; they are human instincts shaped by lived experience.
AI may one day improve its grasp of metaphor and nuance. It may even learn to sound convincing. But acting is not about sounding convincing; it is about being convincing. Until algorithms can acquire memory, cultural inheritance and emotional intuition, multilingual actors will remain irreplaceable. AI may learn to speak. But it cannot yet learn to mean.
In an industry increasingly tempted by shortcuts, language remains stubbornly resistant to automation. And for actors who can move between worlds, linguistic, cultural, and emotional, that resistance is not a weakness, but a quiet, enduring advantage.
