Sophia Loren Returning To The Big Screen For First Starring Role In Nearly A Decade

Sophia Loren is launching a comeback. The 78-year-old Italian acting icon has announced plans to return to the big screen with her first starring role in nearly a decade. Loren is set to play the lead in the forthcoming film, “La Voce Umana (The Human Voice),” according to the Hollywood Reporter. Edoardo Ponti, the 40-year-old son of Loren and producer Carlo Ponti, will direct the movie.

The picture’s story is based on a noted one-woman play first performed in 1930, written by French poet and novelist Jean Cocteau. The plot is centered on the mental breakdown of a woman whose lover of five years is about to leave her and marry somebody else. The stage adaptation is a monologue performed by an actress speaking to her former lover on a telephone. Given the nature of the material, it’s unclear how the plot will be adjusted for the screen.

Filming will reportedly take place this month in multiple locations throughout Italy, including Rome, Naples and Ostia. The shoot is expected to last roughly three weeks.

As E Online pointed out, this will be Loren’s first theatrical release since 2009, when she played the mother of the Daniel Day-Lewis character in the musical “Nine.” The new film will also mark her first starring role since the 2004 comedy “Peperoni Ripieni e Pesci in Faccia (Too Much Romance ... It’s Time for Stuffed Peppers).” In the past decade, Loren has kept busy filming the Italian miniseries “Lives of the Saints” in 2004 and the autobiographical television film “La Mia Casa E’ Piena di Specchi (My House Is Full of Mirrors)” in 2010.

This isn’t the first time that Loren has worked with her son. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the legendary actress also appeared in “Between Strangers,” Ponti’s 2002 feature film debut starring Loren, Mira Sorvino and Deborah Kara Unger.