Interview: Marco Sorbino
Photography: Yuri Sokolov & Elena van Gallen
Interviewer: Elena Volk
Setting: A private terrace overlooking the Mediterranean at dusk.

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ELENA VOLK: Marco, welcome. The “Hardcore Heritage” issue is about fearlessness. But I want to start with the fear. What was the hardest part of standing naked for the first time in front of the DIFUSIE lens?

MARCO SORBINO: The hardest part? Trying not to look like a scared little boy with a soft dick. (He lights a cigarette, his hands steady now, though he admits they weren’t then.) You’re just… flesh. No costume, no character. Just you and your fucking heartbeat. For a second, you feel like meat. Then you look over and see Tom Grant, not giving a single fuck, his body looking like it was carved for this. And you think, ‘Okay. Either I rise to this or I walk out a whore who couldn’t handle it.’ So you make a choice. You let the fear turn into fuel.

EV: You mention Tom Grant. The chemistry between the models in this issue was electric. Did that energy stay confined to the set?

MS: (A wide, knowing grin spreads across his face.) Confined? Fuck no. The set is where the tension builds. It’s all looks and angles and this… charged silence. You’re touching for the shot, breathing the same air, completely exposed. By the time they say ‘wrap,’ the energy isn’t gone—it’s boiling over. You need to release it. And we did.

EV: Be explicit, Marco. What happened?

MS: What didn’t? The first night after the cliff shoot in Amalfi. We were all at the villa, adrenaline still screaming through us. Emilio [Barzini] was pouring whiskey, his cool façade finally cracked, just this raw hunger underneath. We didn’t even speak. I just walked up to him, took the glass from his hand, and kissed him. It was a fight and a fuck all at once—biting, grabbing, no tenderness, just pure fucking need. I bent him over the same limestone countertop we’d been shooting near all day. It was brutal. It was perfect. He wasn’t “Emilio the model” anymore. He was just this incredible, willing animal, and I was the same. We weren’t making love. We were claiming territory.

EV: And Tom Grant?

MS: Tom was different. Tom is… a quiet storm. It happened later, in Mykonos. After a long, silent swim under the stars, just the two of us. There was no aggression. It was this intense, focused… transaction of power. Back in his room, it was all about control. I fucked him slow and deep, and he took every inch of it without a sound, just this intense eye contact that was more intimate than anything I’ve ever experienced. It wasn’t about domination. It was about recognition. Two men who’d seen each other’s most vulnerable point and found strength there instead of weakness. After, he just said, “Yeah.” That was it. And it was everything.

EV: This is a raw depiction of the “brotherhood” people sense in these images. Is this sexual dynamic a necessary part of the “hardcore heritage”?

MS: Necessary? It’s fucking inevitable. The “heritage” isn’t just the photo. It’s the entire experience—the fear, the conquest of that fear, and the way you celebrate that conquest with the only other people on earth who understand what you just went through. You share a nakedness that goes deeper than skin. So yeah, you fuck. You jerk off together in the sauna to relieve the tension before a shoot. You grab someone’s dick and say ‘good job’ after a tough shot. It breaks the last taboo. It makes the brotherhood real. It’s the unspoken rule of the gene pool with no lifeguard: we don’t just see each other. We know each other. And that knowledge is physical. It’s honest. It’s hardcore.

EV: Do you think this truth should be part of the magazine’s story?

MS: The magazine is about truth, no? The pictures show the body. But the real heritage—the trust, the tension, the release—that happens in the shadows. That’s the real fucking art. We gave you the beautiful, sculpted image for the pages. What we did after… that was for us. That was the prize.

EV: A powerful note to end on. Thank you for your breathtaking honesty, Marco.

MS: Anytime. Just tell it true. The rest is bullshit.