"I hate woke culture, I want to laugh at everything. I will do it in the new film with Depp about Satan"

"Leaving the EU was a horrible idea and the reality is even worse than the idea. I arrived in England in 1967 and immediately fell in love with British society for its intelligence and pragmatism. Brexit is the opposite of pragmatism, it is madness. I am still suffering'.

Also for the situation in the United States?

"It sounds crazy to me, but people still want Trump, who is very good at selling himself as the ideal candidate for people who are angry with the current government. In fact Trump doesn't administrate: he sticks his friends where he can, he tries to make money for himself, he creates a lot of confusion and of course this has a very bad influence on the rest of the world. With Trump came Bolsonaro in Brazil and Orbán in Hungary: he is like a mushroom spawning a colony of beings similar to him'. He forgot Milei in Argentina... "Ah, but that one is so bizarre, that at least he is much funnier than Trump".

His films have always been an anthem against authoritarianism and bureaucracy. If you were to make a new play on this theme, who would you choose as the protagonist, Trump, Bolsonaro or Orbán?

"But those are already ridiculous in themselves! In fact, they are obscene and absurd. If I turned them into the heroes of a film I would bring them closer to people and that would be dangerous."

You are a director, screenwriter, comedian, writer, film producer and set designer. But you started out in animation. Do you still draw?

"By now only postcards for my family. I make them for my wife (make-up artist Maggie Weston, to whom he has been married since 1973 and by whom he has had three children n.d.r.) for Valentine's Day and for our anniversary. The problem is that I lost my hand. But I discovered Photoshop and my life got better'.

Do you therefore love digital?

"It makes things easier, but I use it in a primitive way. I only read the first page of the manual,' he sniggers.

So you are not involved in the debate on the consequences of Artificial Intelligence on our lives?

"I don't know what people are afraid of: artificial intelligence is already in our lives. My computer controls me and demands that I behave only in the way it is programmed. I hate my computer, but I am completely dependent on it. At the top of my idiosyncrasies, however, is my mobile phone, because if I lose it I go crazy: all my memory is there. We are now working for the machines'.

Have you ever thought of making a film on this subject?

He sighs. "No. That territory is already occupied."

Well, you deal, in your own way, with far more complicated subjects, such as religion, starting with Monty Python and the Holy Grail from 1975, co-directed with Terry Jones. Or Brian of Nazareth, in which he starred.A film about digital can be no more complex than the struggle between Good and Evil, on which she likes to engage. For example, your next film The Carnival at the end of days will feature Johnny Depp as Satan and Jeff Bridges as God. Can you tell us more?

"It is a satire on the world we live in. God is angry with mankind and has decided to kick it out of Eden, but Satan is desperate and is the only one who does his best to save it so that it will not be out of work for eternity. What a bore! So Satan goes in search of new Adam and Eve. It is a metaphor for this age, in which people fight for trivial causes. I am referring to the woke culture, which would like to be an attitude aware of social injustice and instead is reduced to just being stifling. The exponents of woke culture claim to be inclusive and attentive to diversity and instead are not at all. I have christened them neo-Calvinists because of their rigidity. And they are also aggressive if you disagree with them. My intention is to poke fun at the dogmas of politically correct and make sure that people are never afraid to poke fun at any subject. In a healthy society, one must be able to confront everything. For example, I do not like Ms Meloni's politics, but I appreciate her intelligent and rather witty attitude. I was very amused how she dismissed her partner when it became a political issue'.

Back to the movies, will Adam Driver be his Adam?

"No," he says resolutely. "He's already Adam in Coppola's new film," he sneers, referring to Megalopolis, just presented at Cannes, where Driver stars as Cesar Catilina. "The new Adam will be Asa Butterfield, Martin Scorsese's little Hugo Cabret, now an adult. We are still looking for Eva. We will shoot in Saudi Arabia and Spain'.

In Spain, Terry Gilliam made the longest gestation film of his life, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, starring Driver. It was released in cinemas in 2018, but Gilliam started working on it in 1998: twenty years of untold misfortune and delays. A real Don Quixote-like tenacity. Is it anything like that?

"Above all, I am as stupid as he is. It is very nice to think that there is someone with such a dreamy view of humanity. That is actually a film about the glory of failure. The best part is when you get back up. It's easy for me to identify with Don Quixote. When I make a film, I myself become the film and lose myself, just like Don Quixote does with his exploits'.

What do you think of his form of humour? Do you consider it European or more American?

"I think by now my humor is very british because I love the fact of how the British can laugh at themselves. They were part of the greatest empire in the world, more magnificent even than the Roman empire, and the only way they can survive that collapse is to make fun of themselves. If you have been defeated so abnormally, you can only survive by mocking yourself. In America, on the other hand, they only know how to laugh at others, without recognising their own faults.

And what do you think of Italian humour?

"Your civilisation has such ancient roots that people have necessarily learnt to be pragmatic, even more so than the British. I think Italy is the most humane country in Europe, if not the world. They understand each other and they understand the flow of humanity. They know how to live, eat, laugh better than anyone else. I like being in Umbria because there is no tourism.But as soon as you set foot in Tuscany, uh!, you find all those people! I love the mountain temperament of the Umbrians, who are used to living in small communities. My only regret was seeing them turn from good socialists into right-wing voters. But I also understand the origins of this vote: the death of ideology left these poor people at the bottom of an abyss and when they got up thanks to a job they became bourgeois (in Italian, n.d.r.) and when you are bourgeois you vote right-wing'.

Turning to humour, what do you think of the current Italian comedy?

"I haven't seen too many of them recently, after having unhappily seen two or three horrible ones. Italy was the ultimate expression of fun in cinema with the Italian Comedy of the 1960s. The directors of that time knew how to mix an incredible dramatic vein with a surrealist one. When I think of Fellini's Vitelloni, I always drop dead. But if you all want to laugh, come to Montone. It is a beautiful place. For example, during screenings in the piazza, the shadows of people drinking at the bar mingle with those of the film. Seeing the real world enter the cinema is simply fantastic'.