ROME — Netflix has officially scheduled the 2023 global release of Italian limited series “Supersex,” based on the life and career of Rocco Siffredi.
The seven-episode “Supersex” is being produced by Fremantle production house The Apartment and Banijay-owned Groenlandia, Dateline reported today.
The show’s synopsis reads: “At the center of the story are unpublished aspects of the pornstar, a profound story that runs through his life since childhood. His family, his origins, his relationship with love, the starting point and the context that led him to embark on his path in pornography.”
Siffredi will be played by Alessandro Borghi, whom the Euro adult icon personally selected. Jasmine Trinca, Adriano Giannini and Saul Nanni, in the roles of Lucia, Tommaso and Rocco as a young man, round out the cast.
Francesca Manieri is the creator and writer of the series, with Matteo Rovere, Francesco Carrozzini and Francesca Mazzoleni directing.
Rocco Speaks About 'Supersex'
Siffredi spoke exclusively with XBIZ from his home base in Budapest, revealing details of the upcoming show and what it means for him.
“It will be shot between September and February,” Siffredi said. “It shoots in Italy — for my childhood and beginnings — and then moves to Paris where I started my actual professional career. There may also be a glimpse of Los Angeles, but remember this is only the first season of what could be several!”
“Supersex,” Siffredi explained, begins with a traumatic childhood incident. “The series starts when my brother died,” he explained. “That was something very important for them to describe, when my mother became really fucked up. Then they describe the moment when I discovered my sexuality, and how I started modeling. The title of the show is because the very first porn magazine I found when I was young was a magazine called ‘Supersex.’ From that moment, it hit me completely the idea to become this guy, who was playing the character of Supersex in the magazine.”
The projected first season of “Supersex,” Siffredi said, then portrays his early career, “with all the good parts and bad parts. They are really going to show how it was in the 1980s, when a bunch of French people were the professional guys and didn’t want to let me in too easily. So we had all the friction — and that provides some dramatic conflict. The first season ends when I meet Rosa, my wife.”
Siffredi clarified that although the series is based on his life, it is not strictly factual. “They also built up stories and change a few things around,” he said.
“For me,” the decorated performer told XBIZ, “The fact that Netflix is getting behind something like ‘Supersex’ means a lot. Being considered ‘only a porn star’ has been always a little controversial. Some people say, ‘You’re not artists, you’re not good for society’ and others say, ‘Man, you’re lucky to do what you do.’ So for a long time I didn’t understand if what I was doing was something good or bad. This kind of feeling was going on in me for quite a while, and then eventually I understood that many people were facing their sexuality really badly, and that’s why they were judging me — and the industry — that way.”
Siffredi recounted that “modern pornography showed me that the whole world needed pornography. The whole world needed to be opened up about their sexuality. I always considered what I do artistic. ‘Supersex,’ even though it's not exactly my life, it’s based on it, and I think it’s very good also for the other talents who come after me. Because if they do this work with passion and loyalty, the people can tell.
“And that's the reason they’re doing the series on me — I’ve always been loyal to what we do, and I’ve always put 1,000% of me in it,” Siffredi concluded.
The Long Road to 'I Love You'
Director Francesca Manieri described “Supersex” to Dateline as “the story of a man who takes seven episodes and 350 minutes to say ‘I love you,’ to accept that the demon in his body is compatible with love. To do this, he must expose the only part of him that we have never seen: his soul.”
Manieri added that the series talks "about our present, 'Supersex' talks about us. What does it mean to be a male? Are we still able to reconcile sexuality and affectivity? These are the questions that, like a kaleidoscope, open up before us as we immerse ourselves in his incredible life until we lose our breath.”
