Legendary screen siren Sophia Loren has been working for over 75 years, and has no plans to slow down despite her 90 years of age, as she revealed in her latest interview.
Sophia told Deadline on Thursday that she never wants to retire, even after enjoying a nearly eight decades-long career.
"I don't want to think about legacy," she told the publication. "I want to think about my next movie. I'll think of legacy once I retire, and I hope never to retire."
It's a heck of a legacy indeed; Sophia's work is showing at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in November in a screening series aptly named "La Diva di Napoli", with the Two Women actress planning to appear at a Q&A for the film which won her the Oscar for Best Actress in 1962.
The 90-year-old's win for Two Women made her the first performer to win an Academy Award for a foreign-language role, firmly cementing her status as a Hollywood star.
"Playing Two Women was a turning point in my career, no question about that," she said, "but it wasn't so much about defying that label as it was proving to myself that I could be the kind of actress that I had always aspired to."
"An actress who could immerse herself in a character in as authentic and real a way as possible while at the same time speak a truth of emotion that was universal. That film showed me that my emotions, if authentic and heartfelt, could travel the world."
Sophia actually skipped the ceremony where she was due to receive her Oscar, as she didn't believe she had a chance of winning.
Instead, the call that she had won came from another Hollywood legend, Cary Grant, she remembered.
"With my husband Carlo, we were in Rome, and we stayed up all night waiting for a call that never came," she said. "So we thought I hadn't won, which frankly didn't surprise us. And just as we were about to call it a night, the phone rang."
"I answered, it was Cary, and the only two words he uttered were, 'You won.' I had him repeat it five times because I couldn't believe it. Those two little words changed my life."
She told the publication that over 60 years later, the moment had stayed with her. "You never forget the feeling of winning an Oscar," she said. "It is so many emotions at once."
"It is crazy, empowering, destabilizing, amazing, scary, inspiring and humbling. It means a great deal not only because it is given to you by your peers but you then enter a family of actors, all of which you have admired and respected your whole life."
As for how she has stuck around in a largely unforgiving industry, the mother of two told Deadline that she had to "move forward" past any obstacle.
"So that when you are faced with an obstacle you find insurmountable, you don't end up taking the easy way out," explains Loren. "You take a deep breath, push on and find the right solution to your problem as you have no choice but to move forward. No plan B's, only a plan A."