I just can't watch Stanley Tucci go to Italy

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The first Stanley Tucci movie I ever saw was The Daytrippers, Greg Mottola’s 1996 directorial debut, starring Hope Davis as a Long Island woman who discovers a love letter to her husband (Tucci), written by someone named Sandy. Concerned and upset, she heads into Manhattan to look for Tucci, accompanied by her mother (Anne Meara), her sister (Parker Posey), and the sister’s boyfriend (Liev Schreiber). Helluva cast, right? There are a lot of mid-’90s NYC high jinks throughout their search, but the movie culminates in a well-earned emotional encounter between Davis and Tucci that caught my attention for its honesty and ferocity. Tucci doesn’t get a ton of screen time, but when he’s on, he’s magnetic. I became a fan.

1996 was also, of course, the year of Big Night, the movie about two brothers (Tucci² and Tony Shalhoub) trying to make a go of a serious Italian restaurant in 1950s red-sauce America. Among indie-film fans and whatever we’re calling foodies these days instead of “foodies,” Big Night was “a cultural milestone,” not least for showcasing, at length, Tucci’s considerable talents.

Still, for more than a decade afterward, Tucci remained an indie actor, a relative unknown who appeared in a bunch of films few people bothered to watch, along with a Woody Allen picture and a handful of action movies (The Core, Lucky Number Slevin). It was only with The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and especially Julie & Julia (2009) that he really broke through into the mainstream, and the wider world discovered what many of us had known since the 20th century: Stanley Tucci is awesome. He radiates thoughtfulness and warmth, even while playing a role as obsequious as Caesar Flickerman in the Hunger Games movies. His screen personae make him appear to be the kind of guy you not only want to but could actually share a cocktail or a bowl of orecchiette with—he’s skilled and knowledgeable and worldly, and hot enough to be “the Internet’s boyfriend,” but he’s also real. Who now wouldn’t want to watch him traipse around Italy, eating all kinds of wonderful foods, in his new, aptly named NatGeo show, Tucci in Italy?

Me, that’s who.

Because as much as I love the guy, I cannot bear to watch his show, or any of the shows of its ilk: Somebody Feed Phil, The Reluctant Traveler (with Eugene Levy), Eva Longoria: Searching for Mexico. There are others, I bet, and they’re all terrible.

To be clear, this is not a judgment of Tucci’s skill as a travel host. I’m sure he’s fine, charming, self-deprecating, maybe even quite good. As are Rosenthal, Longoria, and maybe even Levy. Nah, probably not Levy¹ .

But none of them should be hosting a travel show. And that’s because, as celebrities—as people wealthy and successful and famous enough that production companies and streaming networks are willing to bankroll their televised vacations—they can’t help but be utterly insulated from the places they’re visiting. When Stanley Tucci goes to Italy, his every move, his every encounter must be planned out; there are fixers and experts to guarantee the food is incredible, the chefs’ stories moving, the vistas jaw-dropping. Tucci is surely a pleasant guide through Tuscany, Lombardia, Alto Adige, Lazio, and Abruzzo, but what could this mean to him? Is anything at stake here? What could possibly happen, in such a controlled, star-oriented vehicle, that would produce a moment of transcendent reality—the kind of experience that so many of us travel in search of?

I know, I know: I have a skewed sense of travel. I tend to linger on the challenges, the difficulties, the disappointments. I wrote a whole book whose every chapter homes in on these negatives—the chance of getting sick, getting lost, being alone, being poor, being confused, and generally not knowing what the fuck you’re doing. But the point of the book, the point of all my travel writing, is that these pitfalls must be confronted, and confronted honestly and directly, if we’re to break through to the sunnier, more rewarding side of travel—the friends and meals and moments that make us feel like we’re a part of an enormous and dazzling world.

And more than confronted, these pitfalls must first be risked. If there’s no chance of failure, no possibility of a shit meal or crap weather or cold hosts, then you’re just executing a script. And to then put that on TV? It’s a glossy infomercial, free of drama and of revelation.

I’m under no illusions: I know that’s what the mass of viewers want these days, especially from travel media—easy beauty and vicarious gluttony with an A-list star. And if I were Stanley Tucci, I’d probably gladly sign up. It’s a delightful vacation with a reasonable call time.

What I lament is the lack of alternatives. Surely, with video production costs as low as they are, and with 10 billion streaming channels to choose among, a few intrepid, telegenic wanderers could embark on adventures that would risk more, and reveal infinitely more, than the current crop of celebrity travelogues. Without getting all old-man about it, I need to say that there used to be shows like this. BBC’s Globe Trekkers had a rotating series of hosts who did things like eat seal poop in Inuit lands. Survivorman was like Bear Grylls minus the dashing looks and sexy accent—a lone cameraman struggling to endure the Canadian Arctic and the Arizona desert. That guy Anthony Bourdain, I’ve heard, was pretty good at taking risks that paid off.

At least one celebrity has gotten it mostly right: Ewan McGregor. His new show, Long Way Home, which premiered May 9 on Apple TV+, follows him and his friend Charley Boorman on a motorbike journey from Scotland to England—but going clockwise through Scandinavia and Eastern and Central Europe. This is their fourth such show, and while it looks tamer than the one in which they motorbiked from London east to New York, I give them props for adhering to the most classic of all travel tropes: Can they actually make it? Their bikes are janky, the roads aren’t always paved, and what lies ahead is, or at least feels, unknown. While there’s surely enough money in this project that neither McGregor nor Boorman is going to die, or even lose a limb (come on!), the gentle uncertainty of their endeavor is enough to maintain some drama.

Or maybe it’s too gentle. Had you even heard of this show until today? I hadn’t!

My big worry is that Stanley Tucci may have outgrown that sort of misadventure. In his transition from Big Night to Conclave, he has polished the persona that once merely lurked under his eager, ambitious surface, and he now may only be the sexy Negroni-shaker we know from Instagram and NatGeo. He’s too good at Tucci. What I’d love to see on a travel show is the vulnerable character of his early days, confident in his knowledge and his taste but struggling to fit in to the world of lesser, messier beings around him. In other words, send Tucci anywhere but Italy. Drop him in Mongolia, ship him to Tierra del Fuego, pack him off to Moldova or Cameroon, Kunming or the Canadian Arctic, and let’s see how suavely he gets along. Not that I wish him to fail! No, I want the hardships of travel to make him question his core, and to bring out new facets that not even he knows are lurking inside. Now that’s something I’d watch—and I think he’d appreciate it, too. I think we all would. 🪨🪨🪨

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1  His performances are too self-conscious and schtick for me.

2  Who co-directed the movie with Campbell Scott.