Stanley Tucci Talks THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2, Aging, Internet Adoration and More for TOWN & COUNTRY Magazine

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Stanley Tucci is the May cover star of TOWN & COUNTRY, which is celebrating its 180^th anniversary this year. In advance of THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2 (opening on May 1), writer Jessica Pressler talks with the actor, memoirist, and painter/sculptor about how he has handled personal trials, professional triumphs, and internet adoration. Gird your loins. “Tucci? For Spring. Groundbreaking.” is on townandcountrymag.com now and in the May issue, available everywhere by May 5.

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On returning to the role of Nigel Kipling in The Devil Wears Prada 2, and what’s changed since: He thinks the script is a “great commentary on the state of where we are now,” and he loves playing Nigel, who he has said is the character in his oeuvre most like himself. “I always think that acting is like you’re taking bits and pieces of your personality and you’re heightening them,” he says. “So you’re taking the part of me that loves fashion and is a bit of a peacock, the quippy parts, and amping it up a bit. Then you just make sure it remains real and true and that it always has a center, that it has a core, that it has a heart. Other­wise it’s just a pastiche.”

On landing Nigel in The Devil Wears Prada: Tucci likes to say he landed his role “after they tried to cast, literally, every other actor in Christen­dom,” including John Leguizamo, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s Carson Kressley, and ostensibly someone British, because the character is called Nigel. “I did realize this time around, Oh, he’s more British than American, isn’t he?” Tucci says.

On aging in Hollywood: “I’m definitely entering a new phase,” he says. “As I get older, as everybody gets older, you’re bored more easily. And making movies is very repetitive. Now, when I’m on a movie set, I realize that by three o’clock in the afternoon I’m like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to get out of here because there’s this place for dinner that I like,’ or ‘I’m going to invite so-and-so from the cast over.’ I have become slightly more impatient. You’re like, ‘Okay, I did that. Now what?’”

On getting older: “I’m entering the winter of my years. There’s no question about it, but you can’t stop it. You can only try to make yourself enjoy it—and look as good as you can while it’s happening.” He laughs. “I mean, otherwise it’s f**king hopeless.”

On battling throat cancer and its impact on his family: “I mean, it was horrible,” Tucci says of the ensuing treatment, which was psychologically traumatizing given the experiences he’d had with his first wife [Kate Spath-Tucci], in addition to being physically debilitating. “I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t do anything for myself,” he recalls. “And Felicity—we had a three-year-old and she was about to give birth.” Their daughter Millie was born in 2018. “She gave birth in the same hospital that I was being treated in. That was awful for her.”

On what’s next: “I want to do so much,” he says. “I want to direct another play, I want to cook more, I’m interested in clothing design. And I’m really interested in devoting a significant amount of time to painting and sculpting.”

[Photo Credit: Platon, Courtesy of Town & Country Magazine]

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