Photo credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
AE: I totally understand that and respect
when people don’t want to go there. You are such a gregarious, energetic
personality on television. I’m curious, are you like that all the time?
BT: (laughing) No, not at all. That is an aspect of your personality, but
actually I love sitting and reading a book. I’m much more introspective than
what you see. On television you see one aspect – obviously I can fire away and
I’m pretty quick – but it’s almost you’re working with an aspect of your
personality and you make it bigger because obviously you have to put a point
across. But as I speak to you now, it’s more, how you call it – multi-faceted
personality.
AE: That’s your television personality.
BT: Well, it’s my Dancing with the Stars personality, because when I
did the other show, you play a different – depends what you do. You see what I
mean? It’s not acting, but it is – any one of us, you define a certain
character to a certain extent, because in these shows you have like 30 seconds
to make a point, so you have to be pretty defined and you assume a certain
identity that works within the show.
AE: In another interview you talked about
growing up in Ferrara
and using humor to survive because the other boys . . .
BT: Yes because of what it was. It was a very small, provincial town. I was
very young. I was about 17, 18 and I was a very pretty boy and I didn’t really
know what I was doing there. I felt like I was out of Mars. I had always all
the prettiest girls in town always around me, and for that reason, I was
attracting a lot of attention – sometimes unpleasant – from certain older boys
of my age. “What are you doing with all the girls, you faggot ...” and all of
that. You have to sometimes turn it around and say, “Well, they’re with me
because I’m richer than you!” You have to kind of confront things in a way that
is – bounce it back and have a bit of a laugh with it to diffuse sometimes
difficult situations.
AE: Have you been back?
BT: Not in a long time, because I left in 1974. I left a very, very long
time (ago).
AE: And you haven’t been back?
BT: I haven’t been back – no, not at all because my career developed
outside Italy and I never
ever worked in Italy
since my first job.
AE: So do you think you’re better known
outside of Italy?
BT: Oh, yes! In Italy
I’m not known at all. I’m well known in the UK,
Australia, South Africa –
in all the English-speaking world. But in Italy, I never work. I did my first
job, which was my debut, in Milan, then I left
the country and I never – well, I went back obviously when my parents were
alive – but I never worked in Italy.
I worked all over the world, name it – from France
to Spain to South America to
Australia, Germany,
everywhere . . .
AE: Their loss was our gain.
BT: Well, it’s like surfing. You have to go with the wave.
AE: You couldn’t have ever dreamed that it
would be a dancing show that would make you famous around the world.
BT: No, that is quite incredible because I was doing choreography. I did
lots of films and a lot of stuff. I did Hollywood
stuff like Ella Enchanted, Little Voice.
When they came up with the casting for this in the UK
– where the show started in London
– they had this list of anybody credible that functioned in the industry and I
said, “What is this about, should I do it? Ballroom? Is this gonna work?” I’ve
never done so many screen tests in my life. Do it with this and do it with the
other. And just a week before the premier they asked Len, myself and the others
to do the show, so we went on.
We had no
idea, absolutely no idea. But there was one thing … I know the first show
wasn’t perfect, but from the reaction of the live audience in the studio we
somehow knew we had touched a nerve. You know when you feel something is
happening that is kind of – it happens sometimes. It’s kind of unique and
special. It’s very simple, but it touches audiences. Audiences got very
involved and we felt, “Okay, I think there is something here.” We did the first
show, then they tweaked a few things in London,
and that’s it. It became a massive hit.
AE: Going back a bit. That outfit you wear
in an Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing”
video ... Did you come up with that yourself?
BT: That’s what I’m not wearing!
No, there was a stylist, but all those costumes were made up as we went along
because the original concept of the video wasn’t supposed to be that. It was
actually supposed to be one of the storyline videos and I was actually supposed
to play a boy, supposed to be Elton when he was ... there was a whole story in
the original concept.
Tonioli with Elton John (right) in the "I'm Still Standing" video
