Sophia Loren admits that she was "trembling" at the prospect of talking in front of an audience when she began to do it last year.
Pretty surprising for a star of her magnitude.
Then again, as the Italian icon makes clear by phone from Geneva, Switzerland, where she now resides, the stage has not exactly been her home during her 66-year acting career. Rather, the 81-year-old Loren's comfort zone is on the screen, where she first appeared during 1950, at the age of 15, and won an Academy Award for "Two Women" in 1962. She has appeared in scores of films, including "Marriage Italian Style," "Gumpier Old Men," "Nine" and many more, building a following with her screen-filling personality and beauty, whether delivering lines with sharp timing or singing. .
So when good friend and onetime paramour Cary Grant recommended the Q&A-style show to her after he tried it himself, Loren initially balked.
"I said I would never be able to it," Loren said, "because first of all you have to cope the audience, and then you have to speak English - you have to have good pronunciation. I didn't think I could do it."
But once Loren - who, in fact, speaks very clear English - finally gave the "A Captivating Evening" show a shot, she was both surprised and pleased by how much she enjoyed it.