Fabio Fazio talks about himself in an interview where he retraces the best moments of his television career, also thinking about the possibility of retiring in a few years.
Fabio Fazio he told himself in an interview with Corriere della Sera, retracing important moments in his career and also fearing the idea of leaving TV in a few years: “I’m almost sixty years old, I’ve been working for 40. I’ve done a lot, I’ve seen a lot, I have a beautiful family. Retirement doesn’t scare me“. Indeed, his is a marriage that has lasted happily for years: “Gioia and I met during a school play, think a bit. Or rather, she acted and I was part of the jury that had to give the votes. Evidently those grades were good because we’re still here talking about it.” Meanwhile, the success of Che Tempo che Fa is being enjoyed, a program that in twenty years has managed to attract the attention of the public and which is confirmed as a guarantee for the third Rai network.
The dream of becoming a journalist
The dream as a child was to become a journalist, now he is a television host who, however, is at the helm of a program structured around interviews, even quite in-depth, one of those that Fabio Fazio remembers with great pride is the one with Enzo Biagi: “I have great respect for journalists, so much so that I had the honor of knowing Biagi well“. In 2004 he invited him to show, after two years of absence from the small screen: “He had been ignominiously kicked out. Was it a risk to my career? Of course. Would I do it again? Obvious. I put up with the feel-good label for years, it wasn’t easy, believe me. I’m not a do-gooder, I’m just trying not to be a professional at aggression. Also because I don’t know how to do it“. Fazio says he learned a lot from the well-known journalist, who preferred a certain way of doing interviews, letting the interviewee talk about himself: “There are journalists and journalists who are invited on TV or who write books only because they use the weapon of aggression, of intrusion into the lives of others”.
The best interviews
Among the best memories of his career, in twenty years of broadcasting, there is the moment in which he managed to interview the Pope: “That man is a constant source of comfort to me. The first time he said to me: “Fabio, it’s not the time yet, when it arrives we will both realize it, it will just happen”. Among the most intense interviews was the one with David Grossman, shortly after the disappearance of his son, or the exchange he had with some of the characters he met: “Paul Auster recommended a very good restaurant in Paris where I now go regularly. I don’t only have wonderful memories of Carlo Fruttero, but today I own his typewriter, I have it at home“. In his career, however, there have been episodes that he would have been spared: “When, in Sanremo, I persisted in singing. I did it together with Laetitia Casta and it was a disaster. There I overestimated my abilities and it was a mistake, because I should have been more aware of my limits. But I think the biggest mistakes are the wasted opportunities.”
Fabio Fazio: “I wanted to become a journalist, I try not to be a professional of aggression”