If anyone was hanging around on the side of a Frecciarossa a few days ago, they might have noticed a boy shedding a few tears while watching a movie on his phone. Well, I admit it, that boy was me, and the movie in question was “Non abbiam bisogno di parole.” The most successful Italian title of the last month, produced by Netflix, so much so that it even made it to the top 10 most watched movies worldwide on the platform. There is not only emotion in seeing those scenes, but a series of personal coincidences in which everyone might not recognize themselves. But on one thing they could certainly all agree: spontaneity. In the specifics of the story, which does not fall into pietism with respect to the events of the Musso family, representing the first film in Italy told to the world of Deaf people and played by Deaf actors. But, on the contrary, it manages to be brilliant in its intent and also extremely enhancing of the performers. Spontaneity also concerns the ability of the protagonist of the film directed by Luca Ribuoli, based on “La Famille Bélier.” I am talking about Sarah Toscano.
That, when it was announced within this project, may have left some people a little doubtful. But how, she is also an actress, wasn’t she just a singer? Here, to those who perhaps had that doubt, the answer is no. Not least because who said you can only do one thing well? Sarah was making her debut on a set, and the result was excellent. Because in her role as Eletta, the only hearing person in the family, there are so many things different from her real character in life, but also one thing in common: the gift. That of singing, in fact, which somehow is a continuous thread in her short life. Because yes, just to remind you, Sarah Toscano turned 20 years old in January.
That healthy and cheerful desire to rock the world can be felt, as well as the talent of this girl who, at her young age and during her short career, has already taken several satisfactions. Winning “Amici” at 18, making her debut in the competition – with excellent results – at Sanremo at 19, debuting in her first film, assisted by Giuliana – aka Serena Rossi -, as a leading lady at 20. Some would say it’s written in her destiny. And in that destiny, she told us just a year ago, before she took the Ariston stage for the first time, she believes in it. Even now that she is gathering consensus upon consensus for her film premiere and is facing a particularly active period between promotion and the tour she is preparing – departing May 9, 2026 from Molfetta, touching the main Italian cities, until she arrives in Milan in May, on the 23rd at Magazzini Generali. We had the pleasure of talking to him, about the film, of course. About the music. About tennis, but also about that gift she has in common with Eletta Musso, a character she plays.
Sarah, when did you really realize that you had a gift-not just that you had a gift, but that it could become something concrete?
I have been singing since I was little, that is, I come from a family where music is at the center of everything. However, I always grew up with music, with piano and dancing, it was always part of my life. I realized that actually it wasn’t just something that I felt, but that other people felt as well, because people told me, basically. The ones who come there and say, “What a beautiful voice, you should do this, you should do that other.”
Then I was singing on weekends, in the villages, at the weekend talent shows, and the head entertainers would come and say, “Geez Sarah, anyway you have to do something in this world because you are really good, you have something.” Until then I met my first manager of the time, who comes to my house, listens to me sing one of my pieces on the piano and says, “You have something, you don’t just have a beautiful voice, in my opinion you could really do something in this world.” And so from there I actually started writing a lot, writing my own pieces, going to the studio. From there the “maybe actually I can do something” kind of started. But I was still so small, not in age, I mean really in thought. It was not something that I thought could materialize. When I actually thought I could make this my life was actually after Amici. Because always with Amici there is clearly a very big exposure, but you have to see if you can handle it, if you can actually make it and if you have it. And since after Amici, with the summer, I sang a lot, I wrote a lot, I said, “Yes, Sarah, I want to do this in life, I can do this.”
So in some ways that manager and the people in the village represented a bit what Giuliana represented in the film, for Eletta. But who is the person who believed in it the most, even maybe before you?
I would definitely say, as I said before, my first manager. He was the person, because he was outside my family. I have a family that is always on my side, so that certainly helps me a lot, but they always told me the truth: if they didn’t like something, they would tell me. But you know what it is though, as long as you get complimented in the family and they push you, that’s one thing. Because they love you anyway, you are their daughter, so there is a bond of a certain kind. When, on the other hand, someone who has nothing to do with you, who gets nothing in return, comes to you and says, “You can do this in life,” then there you really start to think you can do it. I don’t know, even in the movie. It’s one thing for you to say it to yourself or for someone close to you to say it to you. It’s one thing if Giuliana tells you and you think, what does Giuliana get out of this in saying, “You’re good, you can do this”? Nothing, she doesn’t tell you that just to. So I’ve always been fortunate to have precisely my family, who are my first fans and supporters. But the moment it then also came from that other person outside of my life, who had nothing to do with me, then there actually I started to think maybe something was stirring in me.
The last time we spoke you were about to make your debut on the Ariston stage. More than a year has passed: can you realize how much has happened in such a short time, or does it still seem to hang in the balance?
It still feels a little bit like that, all a dream. I have done an avalanche of things, one more incredible than the other. To think that it’s been two years is crazy. I mean I’ve done a lot of things that two years ago I would never have thought of doing. So I kind of always still live in that dream where I think, “Man, what incredible things I’m doing.” It seems like a lifetime ago, though.
How does it feel to star in a movie that has been in the top 10 most watched movies in the world on Netflix?
Overjoyed is putting it mildly. I am thrilled, I am honored to have been a part of this film. But it is not something that could have been expected. We talk about it, I talk about it every day with the director, with all the cast of the film, we are on the moon. Nobody ever expected this kind of result, so it’s incredible. Then it’s my first film, so to see that the first film has such an achievement is an incredible pride.
I wanted to ask you: how did you feel instead the first time in front of the camera, on the set, on the first take? Because the impression you gave me was very natural.
It depended on the scenes, clearly. There were scenes where I had to bring out emotions, a tone of speech just totally different from what you use every day, and other scenes where maybe it was much easier instead. Maybe the relationship with my brother. I have a beautiful relationship with my brother in real life, so even the scenes with the brother trivially came much easier to me than others. It was good for me, let’s say, that the first clapperboard was the bicycle scene, where I was carrying Martina on the front bike and it was amazing. Because first take of the whole movie and we fall off the bike. The director went crazy and said, no, we’re keeping this one. I wasn’t supposed to fall off the bike, at one point she was supposed to quietly get off and walk. Only it was really uphill, that is, I started uphill on the bike with another person and I fell off. So we burst out laughing and it started out really well, let’s say. It wasn’t the most difficult scene in the world, basically (laughs, ed.).
You broke the ice like that, in short.
Exactly, falling off the bike, making the director laugh. And we kept that scene at the end.
There’s a phrase that recurs often in your interviews that has stuck with me: “I thought sign language was based on looking at hands, but instead the first thing is looking into each other’s eyes.” Has it also changed you in the way you communicate, onstage and off?
Well, definitely yes. The other day I went back to Chris Nolan, who is the producer of “Atlantis” -the film’s soundtrack, ed. I came back from the studio, I was singing a song we had written there, he looks at me and says, “By the way, this film has really helped you. You are different, you sing much better, you feel it much more, you are different. You need to make more films.” I laughed, but yes, it definitely changed me so much. I said it very often, in the film clearly Eletta is not me, I have other emotions, I have another life. I had to bring out just some emotions that I don’t feel normally and that thing there I carried with me. I also said that I don’t shed a lot of tears, I’m not an easy cryer. And instead, I’m getting a little bit sensitized-some more tears I’m shedding. It’s strange to me, because I’m not used to it. Now I cry even for trivial things, trivially I see a video and I cry, I feel really stupid. Instead it’s a beautiful thing, because now I get more emotional.
Beyond the film and its title, if you had to find one word-even not a perfect one-to describe these past two years, what would it be?
Turbo. We turbocharge everything, yes. It makes me laugh a lot because whenever there was a particularly busy period we used to say, come on, as soon as this period ends we’ll take a breather. But no, hell no. You go, you push, you work, as long as you can stand it. I think we always have to do things as long as we feel it, as long as our body and our head feel it. I’m in a phase where I want to go 3000 mph and do as many things as I can because I feel like doing it.
I remember before we recorded the film, I was having dinner with what is my personal, Allegra, an angel who is also my best friend, just the night before the first day of filming, we looked at each other and said, “So, if we can make it through this summer, since we now also have the film during-because in the meantime I was making the album and rehearsing for the summer tour and then during the last days of filming, we also had dates actually, so it was up and down, in which I didn’t sleep-we take a little attimino. A nice vacation.” Instead, nothing, zero, summer over, we got off to a great start again. Just a week of summer vacation, as it should be, but we went off again at full speed right away.
We wanted to go somewhere exotic like Bali, Thailand, to really detox, turn off the phone. We had so much adrenaline, though, that we couldn’t even make it, even if we wanted to. But there’s time, as long as our brain tells us it’s okay. The moment I feel that I am doing too much, that I need a break, I would have no problem in stopping, but right now I feel like running.
And instead, is there a word or sign in LIS that you learned-since I know you studied it-that really moved you?
I learned the whole script of course, then outside of that even more everyday words. More than the most exciting word or the most beautiful word, I would tell you a very popular phrase. Ever since the movie came out, everyone has been asking me, “Teach me something in LIS, please.” I the first thing I teach is “farm,” because that is one of the first words I learned for the movie. And I swear to you, I will never forget it, there are people who still today, when they see me, they make the sign of “farm” because it’s amazing, it’s a beautiful sign. You have to make like horns and then you make the house, basically animals and house. It’s beautiful, it’s an incredible sign.
There is a very powerful moment in the film: the moment when your parents agree to let you go so you can pursue your dream. In your life-you mentioned earlier how important your parents have been in your journey-what is the most valuable advice they have given you over the years?
There is one thing my parents always repeat to me, even now, because I don’t live with them. I am in Milan, I went to visit them the other day, and they repeat it to me every time: as long as you are happy, we are happy. There are maybe days when I answer them that I’m a little more down, and they immediately ask “what’s going on?”, “are you okay?”, “do you want to come home?”, but clearly it depends on the situations. Instead, when I am happy, the call ends with my father and mother saying, “Anyway we are very happy because we feel you are really happy and enthusiastic about what you are doing.” It’s nice to do a thousand things, it’s beautiful the world I live in, but it’s also a very difficult world. There have also been so many occasions when the person mentally broke down a little bit, and clearly you always pay attention. Particularly the parents who care about you, they take care, you are their life, but the thing my parents always tell me is, “As long as you are happy, you are content, you are peaceful and calm, go.”
I’ll let you choose without much thought: Met Gala, Sanremo Festival (again), a tennis tournament or another movie. If you had to choose where to see yourself tomorrow?
Tomorrow? No, tennis tournament, all my life. Because for Sanremo I have to prepare properly, for the Met Gala also, ditto for movies. Instead for tennis go, take, push, I get as angry as you want, but at least I let off steam. Then unfortunately I’m playing very little lately, rarely. That’s why I say, if I could choose what to do tomorrow I would choose a nice tennis tournament. Because here in Milan I have a lot to do and when I have days off I go to my family, I disconnect. So time these last two years has been short.
After the first few dates you are returning live in May. Without spoiling too much: what kind of experience do you want to build this time for those who will come to see you?
I’m looking forward to it (laughs, ed.). I will definitely also sing “Atlantis,” I want to bring it live as well, in a somewhat special version. Let’s say we take up the October live shows, from Milan and Rome, adding some little details, a little something extra. I don’t want to say who knows how much, but it’s kind of a continuation of the live shows from before with some upgrades.
A year ago you said, “I expect to show new sides of me all the time.” Looking at what you have done so far: can we say it is a promise kept?
In my opinion, yes, absolutely. The film is a new side of me, no one had ever seen me in that key. “Atlantis” is also a piece that I totally wrote, in which I show my intimacy, I show my emotions. It is always an extra piece for me, whenever there is something new, it always shows something more in the end.
So I raise again: what is the side you haven’t shown yet that you feel you could give in the near future?
Well I have a lot of them. I’m working on it. I’m working on it in the studio, I’m working on it outside the studio, but you don’t say anything, you have to find out as you go.
But will we find out soon?
Eh, probably (laughs, ed.). I’m not one to give a lot of spoilers, I know.
[Courtesy of Golin, Netflix Italy].
