adminNEW YORK. — Hollywood veteran Sophia Loren, who has picked her favourite female-focused movies and television shows for Netflix in recognition of International Women’s Day, discusses her choices, the challenges facing female directors, and her love for pizza.
Long before ‘‘Parasite’’ triumphed at the Oscars last month, Sophia Loren became the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English speaking role.
The year was 1961 and the film was ‘‘Two Women’’, a powerful World War Two drama. By that stage, Loren was a veteran of almost 50 films, but the role changed her life.
“Before I made ‘Two Women’, I was a performer,” she once said. “Afterward, I was an actress.”
‘‘Two Women’’ was one of a dozen films she made with director Vittorio De Sica, who she credits with unlocking her acting talents.
“He taught me to believe in myself and to understand that, no matter how many people wanted to control my destiny, I and only I was the captain of my own ship,” says the star.
The admiration was mutual. Loren “was created differently, behaved differently, affected me differently from any woman I have known”, De Sica once said. “I looked at that face, those unbelievable eyes, and I saw it all as a miracle.”
After ‘‘Two Women’’, Loren starred opposite Hollywood stars like Cary Grant (‘‘Houseboat’’, 1968) and Paul Newman (‘‘Lady L’’, 1965), and received a second Oscar nomination for 1964’s ‘‘Marriage Italian Style’’. In her home country, she has earned six David di Donatello Awards for Best Actress — a record that stands today.
But her ascent to stardom was far from assured. She was born into extreme poverty in Naples in 1934; raised by a single, unwed mother in a staunchly Catholic country at the height of fascism.
Nicknamed “toothpick” on account of her skinny legs, her life changed when she entered a beauty pageant at 15. Loren got to the final and ended up taking acting classes, leading to her first film role in 1950.
She went on to be hailed as one of cinema’s great beauties alongside the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner — but in her best roles, she played downtrodden, salt-of-the-earth women.That theme continues in her latest film, “The Life Ahead”, in which she plays a Holocaust survivor who forges a bond with a 12-year-old Senegalese immigrant.
Directed by her son, Edoardo Ponti, the film will be distributed by Netflix — with whom Loren has also teamed up to celebrate International Women’s Day (March 8), by picking her favourite movies and television shows that celebrate women.
The 85-year-old’s choices are her 1954 film The Gold of Naples and TV drama “The Crown”.
Other stars who have taken part in Netflix’s “Because She Watched” initiative include Ava DuVernay, Salma Hayek, Janet Mock, Laverne Cox, Cecilia Suárez and Millie Bobby Brown — whose selections include titles like “Marriage Story”, “Paris Is Burning”, “Miss Americana and Roma”. — BBC
Online Reporter