Iconic Actress Sophia Loren on “The Life Ahead”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: What is it like directing your mother? I know it’s not the first time. But it’s been 10 years since she did a feature film on the screen. What is it like directing her?

EDOARDO PONTI, DIRECTOR: Yes. Many people, as you can imagine, have asked me that question. And it’s very hard to capture in words that really satisfy me. Maybe, in a few years, I will be able to answer in a way that really satisfied me. But what I can say is that it fulfills the deepest part of my soul to be able to experience this woman, not only as a mother, but as an actress, and not only as an actress, but as an artist. And by artist, I really mean, my mother is 85. She’s 86 now. She was 85 years old when she made the movie. She has nothing to prove. But instead of resting under the laurels of her legacy, she decided to risk. She decided to do a role that is so demanding, both physical with — both physically and emotionally. And to see her at the height of her powers is really something that I’m in awe of. And I only hope that not even at 85, but at 65, I will have the stamina that she has, honestly. It’s been such a pleasure, so beautiful.

AMANPOUR: It’s such a moving answer. I definitely ask the obvious questions, but your answers are very moving.

PONTI: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: I want to ask you, Sophia Loren, what is it that made you decide to take this role, after all these years? Why this role?

SOPHIA LOREN, ACTRESS: Well, I think that, when you are an actress, and you have stopped for such a long time, you try again without telling anybody that you have a kind of — you suffer a little bit because you are not on the screen anymore. And then I was also reading the book of Romain Gary. And that really excited me so much, and because I was always asking myself why nobody did the film about this. And then I started to talk about it with Edoardo. And he already knew that, by reading the book, I was going to be really suffering a little bit not to be on the screen, because it was the right role for me. And I did tell him that I love the story very much, and I think that we would have done something together wonderful about this story that really — I believed so much in it, so much. And so we started to talk about it. And we started to think about doing the film.