Pasquale Aleardi - Multitalent & Dreamer

Multitalent & Dreamer
Zurich all-rounder performs in clubs and on Broadway

Pasquale Aleardi (48) expresses his passion for acting and music to the fullest. He personifies Kommissar Dupin in the tv series of the same name, tours with the band Die Phonauten through clubs and is one of the main actors in the first Cirque-du-soleil-Musical “Paramour”.

Multitalent Pasquale Aleardi is in his home town of Zurich as he intended to stage two concerts in Switzerland while touring with his band, die Phonauten, diffusing good vibes through funk, soul and pop. As the concerts had to be postponed due to one of his fellow musicians coming down with pneumonia, he, his wife Petra Auer (35) and their sons Leonardo (3) and Armando (1) took the opportunity to visit relatives and friends. The couple first met at their home of choice, Berlin, where she and he had moved to pursue their acting careers.

«At a birthday party I heard a woman speaking with a Grisons accent which immediately grabbed my attention as I have a thing for that accent », he recalls. «Ultimately her appearance and her kind aura bowled me over.» Since they have become parents, Auer has taken a step back from acting, enabling Aleardi to continue to follow his diverse talents successfully and to provide for his family. As his father was born in Italy, his mother in Greece and he works for the most part in Germany, only few of his followers will be aware that this protagonist is actually Swiss.

Aleardi never considered getting into the immigrant family business of trade and production of culinary specialities. «As a boy I was fascinated by the fact that there were people who made themselves small and could slip into the TV», he explains how he began to get enthusiastic about acting. «And later I wanted to be like «Starsky & Hutch» driving around in a police car all day!» He began to play the piano at the age of 11, later he took up school theatre and finally completed his studies at the Academy of Theatre in Zurich.

After earning his spurs in German theatres and playing in cinema and TV productions alongside stars such as Til  Schweiger, Heike Makatsch and Veronica Ferres and being co-pilot in the Swissair drama «Grounding», Aleardi started to get major, leading roles in particular since the series «Schicksalsjahre» (2011, with Maria Furtwängler). The series «Kommissar Dupin» is based on crime thriller bestsellers about the eccentric Inspector Dupin and has already been sold to over 40 countries while boosting tourism figures in Brittany. Aleardi received the Swiss Television Film Award for his role as the leader of the tunnel builders in the co-production «Gotthard». And in the film version of Udo Jürgen’s musical «Ich war noch niemals in New York» he joins a high-ranking cast to play the gay ship’s magician, Costa.

Aleardi made it big as a musical actor as early as 2015, when he was asked to sing in English on Broadway as the lawyer Billy Flynn, following just one season of «Chicago» in Stuttgart. It was clear to him then: simply unbeatable. However, something else was to turn up that would mean even more to him on an emotional level. «The first time I saw a Cirque Du Soleil show live at the beginning of the nineties in Paris, it aroused a crazy dream inside me to take part in it myself one day, although I have absolutely no artistic talent », reveals Aleardi with a grin. And indeed, at the end of 2018 he was asked to play the main role as the director AJ Golden in the first European Cirque Du Soleil musical production «Paramour». «It is so spectacular on a musical, dance and artistic level that I am going to extend my stay in Hamburg by two months in the spring.»

His family, who generally accompany him, will presumably move with him to the next Dupin filming. It is no big deal for them anymore. «We have become highly efficient and only take the essentials with us», emphasises Aleardi proudly. «Three suitcases. It’s liberating!»