Italian screen siren Sophia Loren is set to make her movie comeback, taking on her first starring role in nearly a decade.
Loren, 78, will star in La voce umana (The Human Voice), based on the solo-performer, 1930 Jean Cocteau play. It is the latest feature directed by her younger son, Edoardo Ponti.
Shooting for the Italian-language adaptation of the French play will begin later this month in Rome, Naples and in the port city of Ostia. It is expected to take several weeks.
The iconic actress previously appeared in her son’s 2002 feature film debut, Between Strangers.
Though Loren had a small turn as Daniel Day-Lewis’ mother in the 2009 movie musical Nine and played her own mother in the biographical 2010 TV miniseries My House is Full of Mirrors, she has not accepted a major onscreen role since the 2004 comedy Peperoni Ripieni E Pesci In Faccia (Too Much Romance… It’s Time For Stuffed Peppers).
Rome-born Loren won kudos at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and became the first actress to win an Oscar for a foreign film role for her performance in Vittorio De Sica’s wartime drama Two Women.
Famously voluptuous and quick with a quip, Loren is a noted figure of the Italian cinema community and considered a Hollywood veteran as well for turns in films such as The Fall of the Roman Empire, Houseboat, Arabesque, The Pride and The Passion, Man of La Mancha and It Started in Naples.
