Backstage 5 With...
Sophia Loren By Casey Mink
Her name is synonymous with film royalty, yet Sophia Loren feels the way many actors do about auditioning: horrified. In fact, the Oscar winner has never booked a job through an audition— though, as we know, that hasn’t stopped her from working for more than seven decades. Her latest, “The Life Ahead,” is another notch in her illustrious career, and a special one: The Netflix feature allowed Loren to both act in her native Neapolitan dialect and work with her son, director Edoardo Ponti.
ILLUSTRATION: NATHAN ARIZONA/PHOTO: KATHY HUTCHINS/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
What is one screen performance every actor should see and why? Everything Meryl Streep does, you should watch. I am in awe of her—of her versatility, her emotional range, but also how she infuses every role with such authenticity, heart, and soul. And on top of it all, she makes it all look so easy. Bless her. I never had the opportunity to go to acting school, but when I see Meryl, I feel she’s my teacher!
It was a role I wanted very badly, but the character had to be a great swimmer. That was a problem because I could not swim for the life of me. But when asked by the casting director and producer if I could swim, I replied, “Like a fish.” When it came time to shoot my first swimming scene, I dove in the water, and instead of swimming like a fish, I sank like a rock. Two PAs had to rescue me. I got lucky. I didn’t drown, and the production was very nice; they didn’t fire me. Instead, they changed the schedule around so I could take swimming lessons. To this day, I am not a very good swimmer.
Do you have an audition horror story you could share with us? Is there any other type? All auditions are horrible. I never got a role I auditioned for. The cameramen would tell me that my face was “unlightable” because my nose was too long and my mouth too large. I never felt I could give the directors what they wanted because the whole process felt so forced and fake. The first big role I got was in “The Gold of Naples” [in 1954], and I didn’t audition for it. I bumped into [director] Vittorio De Sica at the commissary of Cinecittà [Studios], and we hit it off. We were both Neapolitan, we spoke our dialect together, and I made him laugh a lot. At the end of our lunch, he offered me a role in his next film, and the rest is history. I ended up making over 20 films with him, and I never auditioned for him, thank goodness.
How did you first get your SAG-AFTRA card? I believe I got it on that film, “Boy on a Dolphin,” as it was an American production. If not on that film, then it was on “Desire Under the Elms” in 1958 with Anthony Perkins. What advice would you give your younger self? Believe in yourself. Stop wasting your time trying to be and look like everybody else. What makes you unique is the secret that will help make your dreams come true.
What’s the wildest thing you ever did to get a role? There was a role I was up for in a [1957] film called “Boy on a Dolphin.”
“I was born on the streets of Naples, and that means that I am at my most free when I act in Neapolitan.”
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