Hollywood legend Sophia Loren has been pictured looking very different from how she usually does while acting in a new film.
The 84-year-old actress is confined to a wheelchair for her part in the film, whose Italian title is The Life Before Us.
In a crimson dress with a gold floral pattern and a red shawl or huge scarf covering it, she was seen filming in Bari, Italy. She hardly resembled herself, her hair messy.
Huge audiences gathered to see the celebrity in action in the new movie, which is being directed by her son Edoardo Ponti. In the Romain Gary novel-to-film adaptation, Loren plays a woman who looks after prostitutes’ kids.
She will reportedly also film sequences over the next month at the Pane e Pomodoro beach and on the San Nicola pier, with production anticipated to wrap up in August.
Although she produced a one-woman short called La Voce Umana in 2014, this will be Loren’s first film appearance since she voiced a character in Cars 2 for non-English speaking nations.
The performer, who hails from Hollywood’s Golden Age and is one of its last remaining stars, started her cinematic career in 1950 when she was just 16 years old.
Her career took off after signing a five-picture contract with Paramount in 1956, which got her roles in films including The Pride and the Passion, Houseboat, and It Started in Naples.
In 1962, she became the first actress to win an Oscar for a foreign-language performance, thanks to her work in Two Women.
She also has a Grammy Award, five special Golden Globes, and a BAFTA to her name, plus honors from the Venice and Cannes Film Festival.
She said to W magazine about aging in Hollywood in 2016: “You are always amazed. Actually, I didn’t believe I’d live to be 80 when I was 20, but you do.”
“You think, ‘My god, all this time went by? I can’t believe it.’