Italian movie legend Sophia Loren said on Tuesday that the many awards she has won in her life make her feel more secure and each new one always comes as a "wonderful surprise."
According to Agence France Presse, Loren, a guest of honor at the annual Cairo International Film Festival, told her interviewer on the Good Morning Egypt television program that she had received well over 40 awards in her career.
"Each time you add up inside of yourself something that makes you feel secure, it makes you feel sure of what you're doing," Loren said.
"You never get accustomed to awards. Each time it is a wonderful surprise," she added.
The organizers of the two-week film festival here will give Loren a Golden Pyramid award for lifetime achievement.
Before leaving Rome for Cairo on Monday, Loren said she would not mind winning an Academy Award for her role as a grandmother in Italian director Lina Wertmuller's latest film Nunziata e Francesca, being shot in Italy.
"An Oscar at my age? I think I'd love that," the 66-year-old actress said, adding it was still too early to make predictions.
Loren won an Oscar in 1960 for her role in Vittorio de Sica's La Ciociara (Two Women), for which she also gained a best actress award at the Cannes film festival.
Loren, who was also given an Oscar in 1991 for outstanding achievements, told Egyptian television that she is "very lucky" to have 10 films, out of the 90 she has made, to count among her favorites.
Asked where she got her beauty and looked so young for her age, Loren, wearing a scarf around her neck, a short skirt and matching top, replied: "From my mother maybe... genes. There's no miracle."
"My mother died when she was 81 years old. She was looking still quite young. She was really walking all the time like she owned the world," Loren said. "So I think I took it from her."
She said she would like to return to Egypt for a month with her family.
"Egypt has always represented for me a magic place," she said, referring to the country's 7,000 years of civilization. – AFP.
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