Valeria Golino is taking a massive swing. Honestly, adapting Goliarda Sapienza's L'arte della gioia (The Art of Joy) is the kind of project that scares most directors away because the source material is just so dense, so provocative, and frankly, so legendary in Italian literature. It’s a story about a woman, Modesta, who is born into poverty in Sicily at the turn of the century and decides she’s going to have everything—sex, power, money, and freedom—regardless of what the church or the fascists have to say about it. To pull that off on screen, you need more than just good actors. You need a cast that can handle the raw, often uncomfortable evolution of a woman who is neither a hero nor a villain, but something much more complicated.
The cast of The Art of Joy had to be perfect. If the chemistry isn't there, the whole thing collapses into a period-piece melodrama, which is exactly what Sapienza’s writing fights against. This Sky Original series, which premiered at Cannes before hitting screens, relies heavily on a mix of established Italian icons and fresh faces who bring a necessary grit to the sun-drenched, often violent Sicilian landscape.
Tecla Insolia: The Fire Behind Modesta
You’ve probably seen Tecla Insolia before if you follow Italian television, but this is the role that defines her career. Period. She plays the younger version of Modesta, and she has this specific kind of intensity that makes you believe she could actually claw her way out of a predatory convent and into a noble estate.
Modesta is a difficult character. She’s manipulative. She’s driven by a desire for "joy" that often comes at a high cost to those around her. Insolia doesn't try to make her "likable" in the traditional sense, which is why it works. She plays her with a quiet, observant stillness that suddenly breaks into action. It’s a performance that centers the cast of The Art of Joy around a singular, vibrating energy. Most viewers will find themselves rooting for her even when she’s doing something objectively questionable, simply because Insolia makes the alternative—submission—seem so much worse.
Jasmine Trinca and the Weight of Tradition
Then you have Jasmine Trinca. If you know anything about modern Italian cinema, you know Trinca is basically royalty. In The Art of Joy, she plays Leonora, the Mother Superior. It is a fascinating bit of casting because Trinca usually plays characters with a lot of internal warmth, but here, she has to embody the restrictive, often hypocritical structures of the Catholic Church in early 20th-century Sicily.
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The dynamic between Trinca and Insolia is the engine of the early episodes. It’s a power struggle. It’s a mentorship. It’s a warning. Trinca brings a layer of sophisticated melancholy to the role that prevents Leonora from being a cardboard-cutout antagonist. You see the tragedy of a woman who has accepted her cage trying to manage a girl who refuses to acknowledge that cages even exist.
The Men of Modesta’s World
The men in this series often serve as milestones in Modesta's journey toward self-actualization. They aren't just love interests; they are obstacles or tools.
- Guido Caprino plays Carmine. Caprino has this rugged, grounded presence that provides a stark contrast to the more aristocratic characters Modesta encounters later. His performance is essential because it grounds the story in the physical reality of Sicilian life—the labor, the dirt, and the unspoken rules of the countryside.
- Valeria Bruni Tedeschi also appears, and honestly, she’s a scene-stealer. While the focus is often on the younger cast, Bruni Tedeschi brings that signature erratic, high-strung elegance that she’s perfected over decades. She plays Princess Gaia, representing the crumbling nobility that Modesta eventually infiltrates.
- Giuseppe Spata and Giovanni Alfieri round out the ensemble, providing the different facets of masculinity that Modesta has to navigate, from the romantic to the revolutionary.
Why This Specific Cast Works for Sapienza’s Vision
Goliarda Sapienza wrote The Art of Joy over several decades, and it wasn't even fully published until after her death. It was considered "too much"—too scandalous, too feminist, too political. Golino’s choice for the cast of The Art of Joy reflects that complexity.
Instead of going for "pretty" period piece aesthetics, the casting directors went for faces with character. You can see the history of Sicily in the background actors and the supporting players. There is a texture to the skin and a sharpness in the eyes that feels authentic to the 1900s.
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The chemistry is also notably non-linear. In many shows, you can predict exactly how two characters will interact based on their first scene. Here, the relationships are fluid. A character who starts as a threat might become an ally, and the actors handle these shifts without making them feel like "plot twists." It feels like life.
The Challenges of Adapting a "Unfilmable" Book
For years, people said this book couldn't be made into a movie or a show. The internal monologue of Modesta is so vital to the experience of the novel. How do you show her "joy" without it looking like she's just being selfish?
The answer lies in the casting of the supporting roles. By surrounding Tecla Insolia with actors like Trinca and Bruni Tedeschi, the production creates a world that is vibrant enough to justify Modesta’s hunger for it. You understand why she wants to own the villas, why she wants to wear the silks, and why she wants to challenge the men in the socialist circles. The cast makes the stakes feel real.
Directorial Influence on the Ensemble
Valeria Golino, being an incredible actress herself, clearly knows how to talk to her performers. You can tell the cast of The Art of Joy was given the freedom to be ugly. Not physically ugly, but emotionally raw. There are moments of greed and spite that many directors would have polished away to make the "protagonist" more palatable for a global streaming audience. Golino leans into the friction.
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She uses the locations—Catania, the wild Sicilian coastline—as if they were members of the cast. The actors react to the heat and the wind. It’s a sensory experience. If you’re watching this, pay attention to how the actors use their bodies. In a society as repressed as the one depicted, a hand on a shoulder or a specific way of sitting down carries the weight of a ten-minute monologue.
What to Watch Next if You Liked the Cast
If you found yourself mesmerized by Tecla Insolia, you should definitely go back and watch her in The King's Gun (La Fuggitiva) or check out her musical work—she’s a talented singer who won Sanremo Young.
For those who were captivated by Jasmine Trinca, The Best of Youth (La meglio gioventù) is mandatory viewing. It’s an epic that covers decades of Italian history and shows why she is one of the most respected performers in Europe.
And if you’re just here for the vibe of "intense Sicilian drama," Guido Caprino’s work in 1992 and its sequels gives a great look at a completely different, but equally volatile, era of Italian power dynamics.
Actionable Insights for Viewers
- Watch with Subtitles, Not Dubbing: To truly appreciate the performance of the cast of The Art of Joy, you need to hear the specific cadence of the Sicilian dialect and the way it shifts into formal Italian. The vocal performances are half the acting here.
- Read the First 50 Pages: If the show feels overwhelming, grab a copy of Goliarda Sapienza's book. Understanding Modesta's childhood trauma (which the show depicts graphically) helps contextualize her later "immoral" choices.
- Track the Costumes: Pay attention to how the cast's wardrobe evolves. It isn't just about fashion; it’s about Modesta’s ascent and the physical manifestation of her "joy."
- Look for the Parallels: Compare the way Jasmine Trinca’s character handles power versus how Tecla Insolia’s character seeks it. It’s a brilliant study in the generational divide of feminist thought before "feminism" was a mainstream term.
The series is a sprawling, beautiful, and often jarring look at a woman who refused to be a footnote in her own life. The cast of The Art of Joy successfully carries that heavy mantle, turning a "unfilmable" book into a visceral, living piece of television that demands your full attention.