He may have found fame as a cheeky Essex boy on TOWIE, but Mario Falcone feels Italian through and through.
And after revisiting the village where he often holidayed as a child, Mario told how he has “never felt so at home”.
The 34-year-old has recently been exploring his roots as part of a new TV show with his sisters, Giovanna Fletcher, 37, and Giorgina Falcone, 39.
The siblings join their dad, ‘Big Mario’, to travel back to Italy where they rediscover their heritage for ITVBe series, Giovanna Fletcher: Made in Italy.
And while Mario says his Italian name attracted unwelcome attention at school in Essex, it’s a very different story when they return to Valva, the village where his Nonna grew up.
“If you walk down the road and shout Mario, about 10 people turn around at the same time,” he says.
“When I was younger, I was bullied for having a name like Mario because it was different.
“People used to call me ‘Super Mario’ or joke about me being Italian but as I’ve got older, I love it.”
Dad-of-one Mario, whose grandmother died five years ago, was touched by the trip to her home town, which is around an hour from Naples. “We Falcones have been there since the 18th century,” he says. “There are only 1,250 to 1,500 people in that village, and pretty much all of them are Falcone… and they are all pretty much called Mario too!
“Being in Valva really made us really look to the future. Parker, my four-year-old son, has a very English name –Parker Jax – but his surname is Falcone. It’s good for him to understand where that comes from.”
In the first episode of the six-part series tonight, the Falcones discuss how Valva was all but destroyed in an earthquake 40 years ago – but the locals came together to rebuild it.
“There’s a real community feeling in Valva,” Mario says.
“All the the elderly people are looked after by the younger people. Everyone looks out for each other.
“I’ve always found going back to Valva like going home because it’s somewhere we’re so familiar with. We spent our childhood going there every summer in the school holidays.
“As soon as we travel up the mountains and see the Valva sign, it takes us back to being kids.” Mario, who married Becky Miesner, 33, in the Italian town of Sorrento in June, reckons his European background is responsible for some of his finer qualities, too. He says: “It’s my Italian side that keeps me grounded, makes me compassionate and makes me a good dad and a good husband.”
Family means a lot to Mario, who struggles with anxiety and has spoken honestly about a suicide attempt several years ago.
He is very close to his father and sisters – and scenes from the new TV series show them sharing a group hug when they return to Valva. Mario, who now works in the financial sector, says: “It was the first time all of us had been back together since Nonna passed away.
“I think Dad was surprised how taken aback he was being back in the house where they lived and where all the memories are.
“There were heightened emotions as well, with us three kids being there with him.”
Mario reckons that connecting with their Italian roots also strengthened the siblings’ bond.
“I was really looking forward to spending time with my sisters when we started filming,” he says.
“I am their little brother so thought I might feel a bit left out, but I didn’t feel like that at all.
“I was actually quite surprised that they are both very funny and I realised how similar we are in terms of our sense of humour, our interests and also how compassionate we are.
“When there were days where we felt homesick and missed the kids, we would rally round each other and pull each other through it.”
Mario turned to his actress and author sister Giovanna after his suicide attempt in 2012.
He credits I’m A Celebrity 2020 winner Giovanna – who is married to McFly’s Tom Fletcher – with supporting him and encouraging him to seek help. Mario says: “We have all been through our own separate trials and we’ve all got through it together.
“I am thankful to TOWIE for everything it gave me but making
this series… it was so nice to film with people that have my back and love me and not have any drama.
“It’s nice to be yourself and know they’re not going to judge you.”
While Mario still has a lot of time for Essex and the “fantastic people” who live there, being back in Italy only served to reinforce his love of the country – and his pride in being Italian.
He says: “I love the fact I am English but at the same time, there is a part of me, my family and now my son, Parker, that is different and that is amazing.
“I love the fact I have Italian in me and I have a different heritage to anyone else. Before we started filming, I got married in Italy. I couldn’t have imagined doing it anywhere else. We looked at other hot countries but Italy made sense because it is part of who I am.
“Now, Italy means that bit more to me because it is where I married my wife.”
Over the coming episodes of the show, viewers will see Mario and his family explore Italy and many of its traditions – including pizza and pasta making with husband and wife team, Maria and Vincenzo, at Villa Maria on the Amalfi Coast.
Reflecting on the experience, he says: “It was just nice to meet people and see how happy they were to have us in their restaurant or their hotel and to cook with us and teach us something new that we could take away and pass it on to our friends and family.
“I haven’t had a chance to cook anything yet – but I brought a lot of wine back, which is a start! I would like to try and recreate some gnocchi we made, but I wouldn’t know where to start. I’d need Dad to help!”
While filming in Italy has given Mario a fresh taste for the country, he has no appetite to appear in front of a camera again any time soon.
When asked if he has any plans for a onscreen comeback, he says: “Not in the TV world. I kind of took a bit of a hiatus from it. I just wanted to focus on stuff that I enjoy, which is money and finance and numbers and athletic stuff.” But the family road trip – in which the Falcones travel along the Amalfi Coast and discover the joys of the Campania region – has made it clear to Mario that the real pleasures in life don’t have to cost money.
He says: “I know a lot of people are worried about everything at the moment. But if you have got a good family and you can laugh together and all that sort of stuff, then you know you’ve got a lot to be thankful for.
“We weren’t anywhere flash – we were in the mountains in Italy – but we were at our happiest with each other. There’s a lot of beautiful things you can go and do and see that actually don’t cost a lot of money.”
Mario does not believe that language is a barrier, either. Remembering his Nonna, who died aged 97 and “never spoke a word of English,” Mario says: “Love had multiple languages and we would communicate in love. It was that simple.”
Giovanna Fletcher: Made in Italy starts on Sunday night on ITVBe at 8pm.
