In the chat the word “beauty” appears much less than one would expect. In its place come others: health, time, freedom, experience. For years Carol Alt’s face has been associated with an almost unattainable idea of feminine perfection; today she talks about health before beauty, experience before career, freedom before image. It doesn’t deny anything, let’s be clear, but it doesn’t defend that image either. He leaves it there, like a photograph from another era.
And in the meantime she’s thinking about new projects, she’d like to shoot a period film: «I’d really like to work on a period film again. I’ve played a nun, I’ve played a paralyzed person, but there’s something about stories set in other times that continues to fascinate me.” In short, she loves to continue doing things that don’t resemble what others expect of her. And he even considers the idea – still suspended – of telling his story in a documentary. Her first 65 years, to paraphrase her cult film in which, at 25, she played Marina Ripa di Meana, and her first forty years: «I’m thinking about it but it’s a very intimate thing», she says.
What follows is a surprisingly concrete reflection on what remains when the image ceases to be the center of the story. That is, much more.
She came to cinema from fashion. Have you ever felt the prejudice of having to prove that you deserved the set?
«No, because cinema arrived through an opportunity. Carlo Vanzina: he brought a stack of photographs to a casting saying that one of those girls would be good for his next film. Someone pointed out to him that they were all by Carol Alt. And he said: “If he can do this in photography, imagine what he can do in the cinema”. I was left with this idea: you don’t have to prove something to others. You have to understand what you can express.”
If the woman who goes on stage at the Teatro Antico today met the girl who appeared on the covers of the 1980s, what would she say to her?
«I would tell her to enjoy everything. The good moments and also the difficult ones. Because they are part of life. And above all I would tell you that everything passes much faster than we imagine. When you are young you always think that time is infinite. It’s not.”
Is there a moment when you stop defending a perfect image and learn to rewrite it?
«I think it happens naturally. But the truth is that I have never lived with the obsession of protecting an image. I have never felt the need to live up to a perfection constructed by others. I’ve always tried to be myself. Then, over time, you learn that the really important thing is something else: health. The image comes later. If you’re not well, the rest doesn’t matter.”
It has gone through decades in which the female body was observed, judged, told. Are we freer today or just judged differently?
«We are still judged. And women are often the harshest critics of other women. We look at clothes, shoes, wrinkles, we constantly compare ourselves. I believe that this is something that we must learn to let go of, observing ourselves with less competition and more generosity.”
Where is Carol Alt at today?
(Laughs) «I continue to invest energy in sport, I own a hockey team in Las Vegas that reached the final. I’m working on a new series, Paper Empire, set in the world of cryptocurrencies, and I’m evaluating new projects.”
A return to Sicily to collect an award at the TFF…
«Yes, after years. Here the people are affectionate, warm. It’s a relaxing place: the sky, the sun… And yesterday I even ate a granita, even though I shouldn’t have.”
