"Accepting the offer to play Salvo Montalbano in ''The Young Montalbano'' all happened when I was on the set of ''We Believed''. I played a soldier from Garibaldi's army and I had a very scruffy look: unkempt beard, matted hair, mud stains on my face. The film producer was Carlo Degli Esposti, the same producer of ''Inspector Montalbano'', who seeing me in that state had, as he puts it, an intuition. () A few days later I received a phone call from my agent who told me about a phone conversation with Degli Esposti and how he had been impressed by my look. He told me that Carlo had in mind having young Montalbano as somewhat of a Che Guevara and that my red shirt soldier had convinced him I could be him. I was extremely flattered by the proposal but I didn't accept immediately. It took me several months before I managed to convince myself. Montalbano was always Luca Zingaretti. () I feared some sort of media attack, since changing the face of the detective was almost blasphemy to some".