“I am surprised by the amount of crying. Friends from Italy called me to warn me From the resume of Carlo Verdone Who wondered on social media where I was. I am here, I live in Miami and I support him!”: I am speaking from America with Corriere della Sera And Natasha HoveyThe heroine of “Soap and Water,” which the director remembered the day before, 40 years after its release, asks himself with nostalgia: “She exuded sweetness and graceThe brightness of your face cannot fail to charm. Where are you now, Natasha?
House in Miami
The answer comes from a beautiful house with outdoor seating in Miami where Natasha Hovey, 56, lives today with her husband, a rheumatologist by profession and His son, David, is 24 years old. “after Soap and water and classmates, It was filmed with Carlo, other Ray works, some dramas, and I moved to France for the love of my husband, with whom I built the family that is still everything to me today. My parents had divorced, and I wanted a different life. A story that was forever. “So I traveled to Paris and married my partner in 1999, and I found myself experiencing a kind of transformation: the feeling I had for cinema transformed into absolute love for my Parisian husband and our friend.” It won’t be easy: “Not at all. Parisians are cold and reserved. Very different from Italians.” “But I immediately felt good about my emotions. I was moved.”
no regret
Without any regrets: “Sometimes David and I tried to watch movies with me again as a little girl as the hero, but a movie like Soap and water She has a sense of humor that is not immediate in France. we are different. My son also speaks a little Italian. Nostalgia for the past? When I’m saddest, thinking about the career I could have had that I gave up, I see many of my colleagues at that time are now well-known actresses. “But when I feel good, I’m happy with the success I’ve had, and I think, oh my God, that little girl in those movies shaped the woman I am today.”
Many memories
How did things go with Verdone? She was only 15 years old (she had turned 16 during filming), and he was already an established director. “I never thought I would be able to work in cinema. I had difficulty communicating, I was quite reserved. My mother, who is of Dutch origin, took me to reminisce one day about my 13 years Some black and white shots from the photographerWho advised her to put my face in the advertisement. So I did some commercials, but I stayed silent: From an ad for an anti-dandruff product, they rejected me because I had to say a sentence, but I couldn’t say a word! To unblock me, my mother enrolled me in acting school, and little by little I melted away. When I first auditioned for Carlo Verdone, I was actually able to read a few lines. In the first choice, I gave him a picture of me in which I appeared wearing a lot of makeup for a wedding dress magazine, and at that moment the spark went out in him: She embodied the ideal woman and child. He later told me that he wrote the script with that image in front of him. When I showed up for the second casting he took me. He has already seen hundreds of girls in northern Italy as well. He and I also had a common school: the Nazarene in Rome.” The famous kissing scene? “Look, I especially remember the big laughs from the set. We were always joking. On that occasion there were dozens of technicians and operators around us. My mother is always present. Today I don’t know If it were possible to produce a film of this type, but there was no malice in it Soap and water. Just a lot of tenderness.”
With her sisters in “her” America.
So Natasha moved to America a few years ago with her family: “One of my sisters lives next door to me, and the other is in Oregon. My father was from Boston, and I have dual citizenship. However, my family and I chose to live in Miami because it is closer to our Latin soul. I feel good, even if Crazy place» An adventure in the Romanian dialect. His day? “The city is full of cats, many of which have not been sterilized, living in conditions of extreme need. They have neither food nor shelter. So we together with other volunteers take care of their livelihoods. I personally have six: Some come in and out of the home’s custom-designed outdoor living room. There are also a couple of raccoons and some opossums. And obviously my son: like all parents, we thought about his future as a doctor or a lawyer, and instead he became a film producer. You can see it was fate…”
Return to Italy
Italy? forgotten? “I come back two or three times a year, also because of that My mother loves it and settled in South Naples. Next time I’ll go visit Carlo too. In the meantime, you can be sure that I will contact him privately. I stay away from social media: I don’t need it. If you start using it you will never stop, just like with a computer. This is good. But I wonder: Why all this attention to this very nice and elegant intervention from Carlo regarding a film that was released 40 years ago? Maybe people need a lightness with what’s going on in the world… serenity and escape.”
“Professional web ninja. Certified gamer. Avid zombie geek. Hipster-friendly baconaholic.”
