Stanley Tucciguest of this episode of Hollywood Reporter‘s Awards talks Podcast, is the ultimate representative of personality and The ultimate guide to food and culture in Italy. The two professions may seem completely unrelated, but in reality they are not.
Tucci, who was raised on the Italian cooking of his parents — both sons of immigrants from Italy, who took him to live in Furness for a year when he was 12 — saw some of his greatest success as an actor in food-related projects. It includes the year 1996 Big nighta low-budget independent film about Italian immigrant brothers who open a diner in the 1950s, which he co-wrote and co-directed at a time when he was “desperate” and “humiliated” by being repeatedly portrayed as Italian-American criminals, hoping to create greater opportunities for himself (Mission: Accomplished); And 2009 Julie and Juliain which he gave one of his most iconic performances as Julia Child’s husband opposite no less a scene partner than Meryl Streep.
Meanwhile, Tucci, who played everything from a gay art director to a fashion magazine in 2006 The devil wears Prada and the 2026 sequel to 2009’s Serial Killer Beautiful bones (who received his only Oscar nomination), proved every bit as volatile as a TV host, managing to charm and please Italian chefs, restaurateurs and locals of all backgrounds on both CNN channels. Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italywhich he hosted from 2021 through 2022, and Nat Geo’s Tucci in Italythe first season of which was released in 2025 and the second of which is being released now.
After decades of playing other people, Tucci had no particular desire to appear on screen as himself – until that was one of the darkest times of his life. In 2017, after being misdiagnosed for two years, he was found to have oral cancer — specifically, a tumor at the base of his tongue, which, fortunately, had not spread. He immediately began treatment with a high dose of radiation that left him bedridden for six months, barely able to swallow, and forced to eat through a tube in his stomach. “It was a really scary time,” he admits. “I lost 30 pounds. I could barely walk. You take morphine for a while because the pain in your mouth is so painful. It was terrible.”
Ironically, it was around this time that Tucci became fascinated with food-related television shows, absorbed in seeing things that he himself could not eat. All of this reminds him of “an idea I had about 20 years ago, which was to break down each region in Italy and talk about that region through food, because no one had ever done that before,” he says. Coincidentally, while he was still regaining his strength and flair, CNN reached out to him and asked if he would be interested in doing a show with them. He pitched them on the above idea, they agreed, and soon he was crossing Italy followed by a camera crew. “I was off treatment for a year and a half and I couldn’t even eat half the amount. I could barely swallow it,” he admits.
when Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy It went on the air, quickly establishing its host as a sort of Julia Child and Anthony Bourdain of the 2020s — and bringing him three consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Reality Series Hosted or Special. But in late 2022, CNN, during Chris Licht’s short but tumultuous tenure as network president, canceled it for “an unknown reason,” Tucci said. To make matters worse, he says, CNN made it nearly impossible for him to continue the show elsewhere. “So CNN dropped us, and we said, ‘Oh no,’ and then there was one company that was interested in it, and I was happy to do business with it. “But the problem is that the people at CNN wouldn’t let us keep the name and wouldn’t let us have the back catalog.”
Meanwhile, Tucci remained engaged in food and drink. He caused a stir when his wife posted videos of him making cocktails during the lockdown. He wrote a well-received food memoir, Taste: My life through food. Then the TV came calling again: “Finally, Nat Geo said, ‘Okay, we’ll do it.’ We had to change the name, and we don’t have access to those other episodes. But Tucci returned to Italy to talk about food, but with a different focus than his previous show. on Tucci in Italy“What I want to see is the relationship between people,” he explains, “I want to see people eating together. It’s not food porn, this is different. It’s about interaction, and the food is a character, but the thing that makes the whole play is the three people, or the four people, or whatever, and that food.”
Last year for the first season of Tucci in ItalyTucci was again nominated for Outstanding Reality Series Hosted or Special Emmy Award. This year, for season two, he’s on the cusp of getting another nomination. Will there be a third season? Could it be so? Tucci in…For example, somewhere other than Italy? “My interest in food is everywhere,” he asserts. “But I would only do it if I felt connected to the place. Otherwise, he’s just a guy walking around who doesn’t speak the language and doesn’t really know the food. That could be good, depending on who he is, but that’s not me.”
