Filippo Timi

Filippo Timi (born 27 February 1974) is an Italian actor, director and writer.

Biography Acting career

Filippo Timi was born in Perugia and studied acting in Bologna.

Filippo Timi was discovered as a film actor by the prominent Italian underground director Tonino De Bernardi. Timi debuted in De Bernardi's 1999 movie Appassionata, which was selected for the Venice Film Festival. After Appassionata he played in De Bernardi's Rosatigre (2000) and Farelavita (2001), both of which became classics of Italian underground cinema.

Despite his stutter and partial blindness, he has become a star of the big screen thanks to his wide range of activities as an author and entrepreneur for television, film, theater, magazines, and music shows. On stage he has been Orpheus, Danton, Perceval, Cupid, Hamlet and Satan. He has performed three different roles in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House directed by Andrée Ruth Shammah in 2016.

Timi made his debut as a theater director in 2009, directing a Shakespeare adaptation of Amleto². Timi has also played the lead role. Tickets for the play sold out two years in advance. The play cemented Timi's reputation as one of the most recognized and talented writers of contemporary Italian theater. In 2025, the play returned to the stage of the Teatro Nazionale di Genova.

His film career continued with roles in Ferzan Ozpetek's multiple award winning Saturn in Opposition and Saverio Costanzo's In Memory of Me, for which he was nominated for the Italian Syndicate of Film Journalists Award for Best Supporting Actor. He later starred in Wilma Labate's Miss F, and played in Giuliano Montaldo's The Demons of St. Petersberg alongside Isabella Rossellini. At the 2009 Moscow International Film Festival, Timi won the Best Actor award for his role in Gabriele Salvatores's As God Commands.

Since 2009 Timi's films have been selected to compete in major festivals. He played the young Benito Mussolini in Vincere by Marco Bellocchio, the only Italian film in competition at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Timi played the lead role in Giuseppe Capotondi's debut The Double Hour, which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival. He has performed in both dramatic (Vallanzasca, Angel of Evil, Rust (2011)) and comedic roles (Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia).

Timi had his English-language debut acting alongside George Clooney in Anton Corbijn's action film The American. Favola's sequel, Mrs. Fairytale - Non si torna indietro dalla felicità, premiered in 2021.

Writing career In 2006, Timi published his debut novel Tuttalpiù muoio, co-written with Edoardo Albinati. It is a partially autobiographical coming-of-age story that was a great success with critics and the public. It was followed by E lasciamole cadere queste stelle, a collection of short stories dedicated to female characters. His third book, Peggio che diventare famoso, was published in 2008. The book followed the filming of As God Commands, a 2008 drama directed by Gabriele Salvatores. In the trilogy, Timi recalls his humble origins and through a vividly ironic and phantasmagorical lens, shows how he managed to transform youthful problems into a powerful and intense love of life.

In 2023, he published "Marilyn", a novel, a novel dedicated to one of Hollywood's most famous blondes. In Timi's book, she survives a suicide attempt and escapes to Rome.

Personal life Timi is openly gay. In 2016, he married his longtime boyfriend, the artist and writer Sebastiano Mauri, in a civil ceremony in New York City. By 2022, they were already divorced.

Filmography Films

Television

Selected plays • Fuoco centrale, by Cesare Ronconi (1995) • G.A. story, by Robert Wilson (1996) • La rabbia, study by Pippo Delbono (1996) • Medea, by Filippo Timi e Federica Santoro; produced by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti (1999) • F. di O., by Filippo Timi, produced by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti (1999) • La tempesta, by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti (1999) • Il Graal, by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti (2000) • Woyzeck, by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti (2001) • Il gabbiano, by Anton Milenin (2001) • La morte di Danton, by Aleksandr Popowski (2004) • La vita bestia, by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti (2006) • Il colore bianco, by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti (2006) • Il popolo non ha il pane? Diamogli le brioche, by Filippo Timi (2009) • Favola. C'era una volta una bambina, e dico c'era perché ora non c'è più, by Filippo Timi (2011) • Giuliett'e Romeo. M'engolfi 'l core, amore, by Filippo Timi (2011) • Il Don Giovanni: vivere è un abuso, mai un diritto, by Filippo Timi (2013) • Skianto, by Filippo Timi (2014) • Una casa di bambola, by Andrée Ruth Shammah, (2015–16)