Actress Sophia Loren has starred alongside some of the most iconic actors, but there’s one actor that left a lasting impression on her.
On Tuesday, the 86-year-old reminisced on her decades-long career in Hollywood for the Actors/Directors/Screenwriters issue of The Wrap’s awards magazine.
In the interview, Loren revealed that one of her first English-speaking roles was when she played Dita in 1957’s “Legend of the Lost,” which also starred Western icon John Wayne.
“My English was not great, the crew would sometimes make fun of me, but John Wayne always would stick up for me,” she said.
The Italian icon also recalled her role in 1967’s The Countess from Hong Kong, which was Charlie Chaplin’s last film.
“I was so nervous working with him,” Loren admitted. “He’s such a master. But on the first day on the set, I realized he was just as nervous. If you care and love something, you get nervous. I’m suspicious of people who don’t ever get nervous.”
And then there was one snap from 1966’s Arabesque, in which Loren starred alongside Gregory Peck.
“Gregory Peck was so wonderful and people don’t know how very funny he was,” she said. “It was hard to keep a straight face when working together.”
Even today, Loren is still pursuing her love of acting. She recently starred in 2020’s “The Life Ahead,” directed by her son Edoardo Ponti.
The film centers on a Holocaust survivor who takes in a 12-year-old who previously robbed her.
Sophia Loren: ‘I Think I’m Stuck With Acting Forever’
“Since I was born, I’ve wanted to be an actress,” Loren revealed. “I wanted to work, I wanted to be on the screen, I wanted to do wonderful things in my mind. Just listening to me, it was ridiculous at the time, but it was something I had inside. I think I’m stuck with acting forever.”
In a 2019 interview with Fox News, Loren spoke about her famous striptease scene in the 1963 comedy Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.
“Ah, the strip scene,” she said at the time. “Well, it was part of the picture, part of the scene we had to do. And it was really fun to give Marcello Mastroianni a chance to be terribly funny, as he was, actually. And that was, I think, really the brilliancy of the film. We had a lot of fun bringing that scene to life. And I think that still shows today. I love that people still appreciate it and it makes them laugh a lot. It makes me happy to still make audiences smile.”
