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Playing an extra in “The Young Pope” teaches me the cardinal rules of film business

Director Paolo Sorrentino needed tall Americans. I'm tall. I'm American.

I play an American cardinal, one of the many nameless bodies that form a fluid red or black background as Jude Law maneuvers through scenes. We’re shooting a breakfast scene and I’m sitting two chairs down from a cardinal who’s about to die. My job is to eat slowly, look over calmly and appear expressionless as the cardinal falls to the floor. But did I eat too many grapes? Could Sorrentino tell I was choking? I KNEW I should’ve eaten the breakfast roll!
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My five favorite restaurants in Rome

Mamma Venerina in the historic Borgo Pio neighborhood near the Vatican is inexpensive elegance that reminds you of old Rome.

Cutting down to five required some ground rules. I ruled out pizzerias. I wrote about those in May. I also included nothing that’s listed in Lonely Planet. I trust Lonely Planet’s restaurant recommendations but I’ve walked on every path in Rome. The best restaurants are on the paths less beaten, even by LP. Making it easier is including a disclaimer that these may not be the five best in Rome. They may not even be my five favorite if I went back to all of them with a more critical eye. I have a whole new list by Jan. 1. The depth of restaurants in Rome is that good.
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Italian soccer needs a Colin Kaepernick to illuminate racism problems

A fan holds up a banana, a frequent occurrence in Italian soccer stadiums.

Italy badly needs a Colin Kaepernick. Racism has been as much a part of Italian soccer as corner kicks. Italy doesn’t play its national anthem before Serie A contests but it would illuminate the problem if someone, some time, showed up at a stadium wearing a red Kaepernick jersey. Who could do it?
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A new soccer season beckons and Rome’s fans still disgrace the city

Olympic Stadium's Curva Sud was barely half full for last May's crucial match with Napoli.

This city has the worst soccer fans in Europe.

For a tip of the fan base’s melting iceberg, consider Roma opens its Serie A, or national league, season Saturday at home against Udinese. Roma is picked as the best bet to stop Juventus’ string of five straight titles. It’s the last season for Francesco Totti, the native son who will spend his 25th season wearing the Roma jersey and is the most popular figure in Rome since Augustus. Yet 72,000-seat Olympic Stadium Saturday will not sell out. They are frantically selling individual seats in Curva Sud, which is usually filled cheek to cheek three hours before kickoff. As of Tuesday they had sold only 17,000 season tickets, a shocking number considering the passion I see in this city rivals that of the Denver Broncos’ in my old stomping grounds.
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Think Trump would be disaster? Ask Italy after Bunga Bunga Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi giving the Italian gesture for cheating.

Silvio Berlusconi was Italy’s prime minister three times for nine years, from 1994-95, 2001-06 and 2008-11. He had all the trappings of Donald Trump before he took office — and proceeded to run the entire Italian peninsula into the Mediterranean. I wanted to write this as a warning to all the racist, fascist, sexist, uneducated, angry white men who will vote for Trump what could lay ahead.
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Trastevere: From a violent, fiery past to Rome’s giant souvenir stand

Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere is the heart of the Trastevere neighborhood.

Last week I learned a lot about Trastevere’s history going way past the ‘70s. It goes back to before the birth of Christ, to the height of the Roman Empire. Back then Trastevere was a neighborhood of slaves, violence and graft. I went with Rome Explorers, a wonderful, learned Meetup group dedicated to the history and nature of Rome and beyond. Leading the group again was Massimiliano “Max” Francia (guideromax@virgilio.it), Rome’s ubur guide whose library of Roman history could fill the Colosseum.
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What I miss about U.S. — and what I do to compensate in Rome

College football Saturdays, such as here at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colo., is the one thing I miss most about the U.S.

People ask me that all the time. What do you miss? They are little things, not big things. I never knew happiness until I woke up with a cappuccino on my terrace looking out at the Tiber River with birds chirping and then deciding what pizzeria I want to eat at that night.
But some things America can provide that Italy can not. However, I have learned to compensate.
So for those dreaming of a life in the bella paese, here’s a list of things that occasionally cross my mind, like the train passing your window every day back home and you always took for granted.
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Police ride around Rome a glimpse inside a non-violent city — but watch your wallet

Gerardo Mastrangelo and Gian Cristian Salimbene before their Saturday night shift.

Salimbene and Mastrangelo were going to further impress upon me the safety of my adopted city. I’ve always been fascinated by the soft underbelly of touristy towns. What’s it like behind the back-lit monuments, art galleries and romantic piazzas? Where’s the graft? The violence? The danger?
Growing up in America, you can find that in any city. Every metropolitan area in the U.S. has neighborhoods where guns are rampant and murder is common. For the last 10 years, Detroit, a city of 700,000 people, has averaged 345 murders. Oakland, Calif., (pop. 404,000) has averaged 106, Baltimore (pop. 622,000) 234. From 1990-2014 I lived in Denver. It averaged about 150 murders a year.
Rome, with a population of 2.6 million, has averaged 35. Two years ago it had only 27.
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Monti Sibillini is Italy’s answer to New England in fall

Il Rifugio Colle Le Cese is one of nine huts on a 75-mile loop around Monti Sibillini.

I just returned from three days in one of many areas of Italy that Americans have not overrun. The 270-square-mile park straddles the underrated regions of Umbria and Le Marche east of Tuscany. Sibillini has massive green meadows stretching between mountains bearing trees with multi-colored leaves. Purple, red and yellow wildflowers line a hiking path that forms a 75-mile loop around the entire park. Spaced somewhat evenly around the park are nine rifugios, an Italian shelter with great beds and fantastic meals.
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My five best pizzerias in Rome: 72 Ore tops the list

72 Ore in the Don Bosco neighborhood levitates its down for 72 hours, nearly a day more than others.

In Rome, all the ingredients are fresh. The tomatoes taste like apples. The mozzarella has bite. The prosciutto is lean. Finish a pizza and the tin plate does not have a spot of grease. You could wash a doily on it. In Rome, pizza is almost like health food. So here are the five pizzerias I go when I get a craving, which hits only slightly less often than a heroin addict itches the inside of his arm. Keep in mind, some places are based on just one favorite pizza. I have gone to these many times and some dropped off the list and others were added. It’s kind of like a college football poll. Except my pizza poll is more important.
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Love Italian style: Positano is the Sirens’ call to celebrate an anniversary

Every anniversary is worth celebrating in Positano, even a first date. A year ago April 29 Marina Pascucci and I had ours.

I’m standing behind a small table for two on our balcony. Below us is a turquoise swimming pool and beyond is a forest of trees leading down a steep cliff to the cobalt blue Tyrrhenian Sea below. The sun is setting behind the cliff to our right, bathing the sea in a soft orange glow. A bottle of Falanghina white wine is chilling in the mini bar next to a plastic tub of goat cheese and lean prosciutto.
A year ago Friday I had my first date with my drop-dead gorgeous and talented girlfriend, the photographer Marina Pascucci. I needed to find a suitable place to celebrate our one-year anniversary.
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A.S. Roma’s season breaks and swells the heart of this die-hard fan

The front page of Tuesday's Corriere dello Sport, writing how Roma's win over Napoli gave Juventus its fifth straight Serie A title.

I now understand what it feels like to have so much emotion riding on one sports event. I no longer look at sports as a launch pad for writing. I look at Roma games as a boost to a great mood the rest of the day. I care. I really care. Before, all I cared about was my deadline.

It’s with this in mind that I write an early season review of A.S. Roma. I say “early” because my lupi, my wolves, my giallorosso (yellow and red), are taking its dwindling mob of fans (more on that later) for a wild ride all the way to the final day. I went to Stadio Olimpico Monday to watch third-place Roma play second-place Napoli.
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