When I read the screenplay my heart was beating so fast. Clara is the best one, I have to tell you. You’ve been in lots of big films, but Clara is a great role. I was there for one week and I thought, “I want to go back to New York.” The city changed and I thought it was time to go. I used to live in Tribeca but after 9/11 I decided to go back to Brazil. You go to the museums and parks and you see your friends-even if there’s no party. So I moved to New York, and I love this city just the way it is. I learned how to drive, but I never took the highway, only back roads-I was like a retired old lady traveling. I lived in Los Angeles for three years, but nobody sees anybody there unless there’s a party. How long have you been there? Since the beginning of the ’90s. Which is how this week, I found myself phoning her in New York, so we could do our belated second interview-this one about her new movie. I was so excited that I didn’t even think of pulling out my tape recorder. We sat down for coffee, and I marveled to discover that Sonia was still as lovely, ebullient, and warm as she’d been that day long ago. “Do you remember my room at the Chateau Marmont where we talked? We had our picture taken together in front of that piece of furniture, remember?” (I remembered the photograph-I still have my copy.)

“Zhawn!” she cried-she was still Sônia-and gave me a huge hug. Yet the moment I saw her in the cinema complex known as the Lightbox, my fears vanished. I stayed hours and hours beyond my scheduled appointment. We wound up sitting on the carpet eating a plate of what’s now called salumi, and with no recorder taping our words, we talked about life, movies, ourselves. I was putting away my tape recorder when Sônia-by then she was Sônia to me-said, “Do you want some room service?” And that’s just what we did.

Anything but intimidating, she exuded such an embracing warmth that I quickly felt as if I was talking to an old friend. My heart was pounding as I knocked on the door, but the instant Braga answered it, my anxiety dissipated.

We met in her room at the Chateau Marmont, and I still remember my boyish excitement. Hollywood had naturally taken her up, and on the day we met, she was promoting Kiss of the Spider Woman (she played the title role), which would go on to be nominated for four Oscars.

Braga was then perhaps at the peak of her fame, having become an international sex symbol in such Brazilian films as Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, I Love You, and Gabriela. When I was just starting out as a film critic, one of the first interviews I did was with Sônia Braga, the greatest Brazilian film star since banana-hatted Carmen Miranda in the 1930s and 1940s.

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