Anna Magnani an inspiration for other great artist…

Helen Mirren

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Great artist talking about Anna Magnani

  • Her characters "came to life" on screen, as if you weren't watching an actress, but someone truly experiencing suffering, love, and rage.

    Woody Allen

  • With this my first film, i intend to fill a void about her. To celebrate the courage, pride, dignity of this woman who redeemd the image of a humiliated Italy in the world...She was a giant.

    Monica Guerritore

  • I loved her style, I loved her acting, I lover her personality, I loved her reality - she was my role model as an actor and as a person.

    Helen Mirren

  • Italy has tremendous professional actors, and Magnani is a beacon not only for them but also for many stars abroad...think about Meryl Streep's emotion when she speaks of her, of Susan Sarandon and Helen Mirren's.

    Monica Guerritore

  • The greatest actress I have ever seen.

    Bette Davis

  • There was no vanity in her performances. She was fully ready to give. All she cared to do was tell the truth.

    Meryl Streep

  • An American would never think to play Anna Magnani...there are roles that must be played by Italians; Anna Magnani interpreted by someone from Ohio? The attitude - 'go to hell' - you wouldn't get.

    Monica Guerritore

  • She wasn’t perfect. She didn’t want to be. That’s what made her unforgettable.

    Martin Scorsese

  • There's a sense with Magnani that she'd literally thought of the thing she was doing. Talk about being in the moment. There's no one like that, no one has been, no one before or no one since.

    Helen Mirren

  • She wasn’t beautiful in the Hollywood sense, but everyone looked at her. She wasn’t a gentle woman, but everyone felt at home with her.

    Monica Guerritore

  • Anna is the only person I’ve ever written a play for.

    Tennessee William

  • She had that rare gift — she made you believe you were not watching a film. You were watching a person survive something in front of you.

    Woody Allen

  • I never saw a more beautiful woman — enormous eyes, skin the color of Devonshire cream.Once she generated you, she was ready to devour you… Her soul was one with her womb, maternal and possessive at the same time.

    Tennessee William

  • She wasn’t acting. She was. That wasn’t a performance — that was a person living in front of the camera.

    Martin Scorsese

  • She showed us how a woman could be ferocious and tender, ugly and beautiful, all at once — and never ask for forgiveness.

    Helen Mirren

  • Anna Magnani was always a reflection of her people… so strong, so authentic, so true and so professional.

    Monica Guerritore

  • She was never trying to be pretty. She was trying to be true. And that’s the rarest thing in this business.

    Bette Davis

  • The goddess… fantastic… Look at her eyes. Such intensity. A total commitment in everything she did. No vanity.

    Meryl Streep

  • I never saw a more beautiful woman — enormous eyes, skin the color of Devonshire cream.

    Tennesee William

  • A triumph — and a homecoming for the character I dreamed.

    Tennessee William

  • Watching Magnani is like watching life itself unravel on screen.

    Woody Allen

  • Anna Magnani could sit completely still and say nothing — and still be the most expressive person in the frame.

    Helen Mirren

  • The Most Complete Embodiment of Theatre.

    Jean Renoir

  • There was always something volcanic under her silences.

    Tennessee William

  • Romantic… she sees the figure in the landscape, like Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

    Pier Paolo Pasolini

  • That scream — it wasn’t just acting. It was the voice of grief, of war, of a city, of a people.

    Martin Scorsese

  • Anna did not act. She revealed. And I will never stop being moved by what she made visible.

    Tennessee William

  • She reminded me of the peasant women my father painted — full of life, mystery, and truth.

    Jean Renoir

  • She was not a character. She was a world. A voice. A body of the people.

    Pier Paolo Pasolini

  • As an actress, I really love people like Anna Magnani and Debra Winger. I also think there is nobody better…

    Penélop Cruz

  • She was Mamma Roma. She was Italy. She was the street, and the prayer, and the scream.

    Pier Paolo Pasolini

  • In her, I saw not just a great actress — I saw a whole country. A people. A language of the soul.

    Jean Renoir

  • I love to seduce: since I don't do it in my private life, I enjoy doing it on stage.

    Monica Guerritore

  • You seduce a man with your mind, with a glance.

    Monica Guerritore

  • Seduction? It's a woman's primary source of power, it lives within us, but it's a double deception: towards a man and towards ourselves.

    Monica Guerritore

  • You can't always wear a corset to win your man back every day. That would be uncomfortable in the kitchen while frying an egg or changing the diapers of 'his' duaghter. Yet men are just like that.

    Monica Guerritore

  • Despite my name, my talent, and my experience, I encountered difficulties.

    Monica Guerritore

  • The source of so many tragedies is the inability to contain pain...Literature and theatre teach us...how to die.

    Monica Guerritore

  • There's always a need for a mentor who finds the 'seed' of talent in us...but then one must study, because talent, if uncultivated, is worthless.

    Monica Guerritore