"All the times I said no to the movies now make sense"

Los Angeles (USA), Mar 17. (EFE) .- For Laura Pausini, competing for an Oscar is so unexpected that she is experiencing this moment like the Sanremo Festival, which took off her career at the age of 18. Since then he has said no to many films in search of something "authentic", such as the song "Io sì", which he sings in the return of Sophia Loren to the big screen.

"All the times I said not to sing in a movie now make sense," says Pausini from his home in Rome during a video call with Efe, after learning that he will compete in April for the most prized statuette in Hollywood.

Although he lent his voice for a song in "Message in a bottle" (1999), Pausini had refused to compose for the cinema, because the proposals that came to him seemed "cold, with more marketing than heart".

The singer works these months with a list of 600 models, of which she will only choose those with which she feels the same "chills" as the film adaptation directed by Loren's son, Edoardo Ponti, of the novel "The life ahead" ("La vita davanti a se"), about a former prostitute and Holocaust survivor who takes poor children into her home.

"Everything was familiar, he changed a part of the montage and I changed a line - he remembers -. We all continue in a common chat and we tell each other about everything, each nomination we live together, whether in makeup or music."

"I WANT TO TRAVEL TO LOS ANGELES, LIVE THE EXPERIENCE"

Pausini, faithful to the spontaneity that he has maintained in more than three decades of success, does not hide his emotion: "I want to fly to Los Angeles, I want to be there experiencing it, but I will do what they send."

He was not aware that the Oscar could come until January, when Ponti called saying that many were taking an interest in the song. Hollywood's ambitious machine is a long way, in distance and in spirit, from a star who maintains its roots in a small town in northern Italy.

"When I won the Golden Globe, we were not in quarantine and I was able to reunite with my family. Actually it was better to make them virtual, because I had never celebrated an award with my parents and it was beautiful," says the winner of several Latin Grammy, Grammy and awards in Italy, Spain and Latin America.

"WIN OR NOT, I DEDICATE IT ALL TO MY FATHER"

He does not know if he will win and that is why he wanted to "advance the speech" to dedicate this moment to his father, "singer, keyboardist, accordionist and bassist" of a piano-bar, with whom he began to make music at the age of eight.

"I wanted to be a piano-bar singer because there were not many women who dedicated themselves to that. But he told me that it was a small dream and that I did not have to dream small," she recalls.

The surprise with which he is living this stage, one of the sweetest of his career, takes him back to that Sanremo Festival, which he won when he was 18 years old in 1993: "It was huge for me and it has revolutionized my life, but my dreams were never so big to think of an Oscar. "

And the fact that the opportunity comes with a song in Italian, which unites the surnames of two ambassadors of the country, such as Pausini and Loren, makes it "really special".

"I LIKE A LOT NOT TO KNOW EVERYONE OF THE FILM WORLD"

Although she shares a nomination in a list that includes myths such as David Fincher, Anthony Hopkins and Glenn Close, the Italian rules out her foray into the world of cinema. "I really like not knowing this whole world, when I need to escape my reality, I lock myself in a movie and fly", he describes.

"With music that is already difficult for me, I listen to a song and think about who will have mixed it, if there is falsetto or full voice ... I am too much into it", he analyzes.

CONCERNED ABOUT CULTURE IN PANDEMIC, PREPARES NEW DISC

As she faces what they call the "Oscar race" - she still blushes if she hears it - Pausini is embarking on her new album, planned for sometime in 2022.

After a period of "little inspiration" by the situation of the pandemic in Italy, he has been listening to a list with hundreds of songs that he keeps in a folder without knowing the name of the composer so that it does not influence his decision.

"There has been a generational change, very interesting things are heard," he describes. He will try new styles, but he does not want reggaeton or trap, "I like them but they are not for me."

And among his concerns is the situation of culture in the pandemic, "which has left all the people who work behind the scenes without a job."

"Alejandro Sanz wrote for a group that we have that the concerts return little by little in Spain, but it seems that until next year they will not do it at all. Three years is a long time," he says.