Some characters end when the director calls cut. Others have a way of following an actor home. For Francesco Dalli Cani, Dr. Heigold was firmly in the second category. The Italian actor first stepped into the therapist’s shoes in Roomination, a short film produced by Doroteja Jurican and Caesar Alvarez. What began as a single character soon became someone Dalli Cani couldn’t quite leave behind. He saw possibilities beyond the original film: new patients, different circumstances, and a therapist whose unconventional approach could sustain an entirely different kind of storytelling.
Now, that instinct has developed into Journey to Hollywood, Season 2: Roominating, a new short-form series produced, written, and directed by Dalli Cani, who also stars in dual roles as Dr. Heigold and a heightened, comedic version of himself.
Part psychological thriller, part comedy, and part increasingly surreal therapy session, the series begins immediately after the events of Dalli Cani’s Journey to Hollywood, Season 1: The Move In. After surviving a decidedly imperfect move into his new Los Angeles apartment, Francesco finally falls asleep on the floor of his new home, without even having a bed.
When he wakes up, however, he isn’t in the apartment. He’s sitting opposite Dr. Heigold.
“What are you thinking? What’s on your mind?” the therapist asks.
What follows is an increasingly unusual therapy session that begins to question why Francesco is there, whether any of what he is experiencing is real, and eventually whether Francesco is actually the protagonist of the story at all. For Dalli Cani, the series represents the unexpected convergence of several different chapters in his career.
A Character That Refused to Leave
The origins of Roominating stretch back to the first version of Roomination.
“I really liked the character from the first time we filmed it,” Dalli Cani recalls. “I always wanted to play more with him and see the therapist in different scenarios.”
When Jurican decided to reshoot Roomination, Dalli Cani was thrilled to return to the role. This time, the therapist had also acquired an identity: Dr. Heigold. By the time the filmmakers began preparing Roomination for festivals, Dalli Cani had become increasingly convinced there was more life in the character. He approached Jurican and Alvarez about eventually using Dr. Heigold in another project.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do with him,” he says. “I just knew that I wasn’t done with him.”
They gave him their blessing. In fact, while preparing the EPK for Roomination, the possibility of the character’s return had already become part of the conversation.
“I felt like I had a solid understanding of the character and could start playing around with different external circumstances,” Dalli Cani says. “I loved the idea of Dr. Heigold interacting with multiple characters, almost like a procedural series with a different guest star.”
At the time, it was simply an idea. Then came Journey to Hollywood.
Season One: Learning by Doing
In June, Dalli Cani had just completed another project with Jurican and Alvarez, Veronika is Thinking, while Roomination had been accepted into the Marina del Rey Film Festival.
At the same time, he had begun experimenting with TikTok and thinking about ways to create his own short-form material.
The result was Journey to Hollywood, Season 1: The Move In, eight quick comedy episodes inspired by Dalli Cani’s own experience of moving into a Los Angeles apartment to pursue acting, only for seemingly everything in the apartment to go wrong. Reality and dream begin to collide as the increasingly exhausted Francesco navigates one minor disaster after another. The project was deliberately simple, but creating it alone proved anything but.
Dalli Cani wrote the episodes, storyboarded them, selected the camera angles, set the lights, performed, edited the footage, created the poster, and ultimately released the finished series on TikTok.
“It was a one-time thing,” he says. “But for some reason, on both the poster and the script, I wrote ‘Season 1.”
That seemingly insignificant decision would prove prophetic. More importantly, making the first season gave Dalli Cani a new appreciation for the filmmaking process.
“No man is an island,” he says. “As simple as something may seem, every production needs talented people to make it run smoothly.”
Rather than emerging from the experience believing he could do everything himself, he came away with greater respect for the directors, producers, crew members, and fellow artists he had worked alongside on previous productions.
“I was humbled, inspired, and really grateful for all the projects I’d worked on and the talented people I’d worked with,” he says.
He also knew that if Journey to Hollywood continued, the format needed to evolve.
Enter Dr. Heigold
Dalli Cani spent much of the summer trying to determine what that evolution might look like.
He wanted to continue creating social media content but remained unsure whether he could produce it sustainably on his own. An unlikely source of inspiration arrived through creator “dillydoggers,” whose Pokémon-focused TikTok and Instagram videos caught Dalli Cani’s attention.
The subject matter was completely different from anything he intended to make. The simplicity of the format, however, unlocked something creatively.
“Suddenly, it all clicked.”
Dalli Cani called Jurican and Alvarez and explained his idea. Both were enthusiastic. He began writing. There were several characters he wanted Dr. Heigold to eventually encounter, but one choice became obvious: his first patient would be Francesco Dalli Cani himself. Or, at least, a heightened version of him.
“It was a way of not taking myself too seriously and also feeling closer to the audience,” he explains. “The Francesco I play is obviously a heightened comedic version of myself, but I thought it would be fun for him to become a recurring character.”
That decision also provided the missing link between Roomination and Journey to Hollywood.
Season One concludes with Francesco falling asleep on the carpet of his freezing new apartment. Season Two begins with him waking up in Dr. Heigold’s office, unable to understand how, or why, he got there. It’s both a continuation of Journey to Hollywood and a deliberate nod to the original Roomination.
Acting Opposite Himself
There was, however, one fairly obvious production problem. Dalli Cani had to play both characters. And he wanted to do it alone
“I had one worry while writing the script: How am I going to film both characters all on my own?”
The solution partly came from another previous acting experience. On Fallen, produced by Robert Hughes and directed by Madison Champine, Dalli Cani had portrayed two characters. Working with Champine during pre-production taught him techniques for differentiating performances and navigating scenes in which he effectively had to work opposite himself.
When it came time to shoot Roominating, those lessons resurfaced. For the missing scene partner, Dalli Cani turned to the software he normally uses for auditions. He uploaded the script and programmed it to read the opposite character’s dialogue, allowing him to perform each side of the conversation separately. He shot the entire series over two evenings at AVA Toluca Hills, the sole location used for Dr. Heigold’s therapy office. On Friday, he filmed Francesco’s coverage. The following evening, he became Dr. Heigold and filmed the therapist’s side. The intentionally stripped-down production proved creatively liberating.
“It was easy, low stress, low energy, and I didn’t spend any money,” he says. “Creating that kind of environment really allowed me to play with the acting and just have fun with the characters.”
Post-production followed the same philosophy. Dalli Cani edited the complete series in less than four hours, experimenting with music and comedic rhythm as the episodes came together. His favorite soundtrack choice appears in Episode Six. Not everything worked quite as seamlessly as the finished episodes suggest.
The computerized scene partner occasionally failed to cooperate, cutting him off, missing cues, or delivering the wrong dialogue. During one take, it even began reading the lines Dalli Cani himself was supposed to perform.
“The final videos don’t show my frustration,” he says, “but the footage of me getting annoyed with the computer was hilarious—especially in the editing room.”
From Actor to Creator
Beneath the comedy, Journey to Hollywood, Season 2: Roominating represents something more significant in Dalli Cani’s development. He remains an actor first, but the project allowed him to apply skills he had absorbed while watching filmmakers around him: writing, directing, visual planning, lighting, editing, and producing.
He doesn’t view those skills as something developed in isolation. Quite the opposite.
“This project couldn’t have been made without the people I’ve met on previous projects and everything I learned from them,” he says. “Especially Fallen, Roomination, and the first season of Journey to Hollywood. I watched and learned. I felt inspired, and I wanted to give it my own try.”
That evolution makes Roominating more than a spin-off of an earlier role. It’s an example of how one acting opportunity can spark another creative idea, how lessons learned on one set can solve problems on another, and how collaboration can continue influencing an artist even when they’re eventually working alone.
The original Roomination continues its festival journey after screenings at the Marina del Rey Film Festival and The Great Film Club, while Dalli Cani’s Dr. Heigold is now beginning a journey of his own. And if the actor’s original instinct about the character proves correct, Francesco may only be the first of many patients to find themselves sitting across from him.
After all, Dalli Cani knew from the beginning that he wasn’t quite done with Dr. Heigold. It turns out Dr. Heigold wasn’t done with him either.
Dive into “Journey to Hollywood, Season 2: Roominating” here.
