ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to Scott Foley and Maia Reficco about the new Netflix romantic comedy movie La Dolce Villa. Foley and Reficco discussed playing father-daughter in the movie, getting into character for difficult scenes, and more.
“Successful businessman Eric travels to Italy to stop his daydreaming daughter Olivia from restoring a crumbling villa,” the official synopsis reads. “Italy, however, has different plans for him as it delivers on its legendary promise of beauty, magic, and romance.”
La Dolce Villa will be released on Netflix on Thursday, February 13, 2025.
Brandon Schreur: Scott, you’re playing a really interesting character in this movie. He’s a really well-rounded guy, he’s super nice, he loves his daughter and is trying to reconnect with her and all that. We also learn some stuff about him; he’s going through some stuff and has some stuff that happened to him in his past. Can you tell me a little bit about what it was like trying to tap into Eric’s mindset for all this? Was there something about the character you really connected with when reading the script?
Scott Foley: Yeah, look, one of the reasons that I took this film is that I love the journey that he goes on. The major point I want to make note of, here, is the relationship, itself, with Maia’s character. They start in a not-great place, which I think is always an interesting place to jump off from, right? So, Eric has this opportunity to not just grow himself, but to grow their relationship and reconnect with a daughter who he used to be really close with.
Unfortunately, he lost his wife, and she her mother, and so there are a lot of emotions they have to work through before they figure out where they’re going to land or before they figure out their new normal, if you will. I think, for me, I’m a dad of three, my oldest is a 15-year-old girl. It was very easy getting there, but hard to wrestle with.
A lot of the scenes that we had where we talk about the passing of her mom and how we dealt with it, I was always sort of looking at [Reficco] as my daughter, if you will, which she played in the movie, of course. It brought another level of emotion to it, which I was so thankful for.
Totally. And I loved watching the two of you explore that relationship. That’s kind of what I wanted to ask about next because the scenes with the two of you are so great. I loved the one scene where you guys start singing the song from Jaws.
Foley: Show me the way to go home! Yeah, man.
I loved that part! I was just wondering, Maia, if you can tell me a little about what it was like working together and exploring that relationship. Was there a scene, either when you’re singing or a different moment, that was especially fun to film with the both of you?
Maia Reficco: Absolutely. Working with Scott, that and Italy were the highlights of this experience for me. I really, truly learned a lot in many capacities. I think it was very special to progress the characters’ relationships as we were obviously getting to know each other. Like, building our rapport and the camaraderie. It’s always really fun to work with people that you look up to, but it’s that much more special to do it when you get along and are finding your own version of what this relationship is going to be like and how that would translate to on-camera or off-camera. It was really special. I really enjoyed the bench scene — I keep calling it that, but where we yap for a while.
Foley: Oh, yeah, where we talk about sort of what happened, how did we lose our way, and how did we find our way back. It’s the scene where we end on that bench sort of looking over the Italian countryside. That was a hard one for me to film. I was trying to hold back my emotions because something in it really spoke to me.
Reficco: Yeah. And it was also towards the end [of filming], so we were quite comfortable with each other, already, and making so many jokes. The same joke over and over, but I would laugh genuinely most of the time.
Foley: Listen. Everybody loves a fart joke. You know that, Brandon. And she was the same way.
Thanks to Scott Foley and Maia Reficco for taking the time to discuss La Dolce Villa.
