Alberto Moravia, 53, had just published his world success Die Langeweile, separated from his wife and met the young Dacia Maraini. Claudia Cardinale, 23, had been a star since Visconti's Rocco and his brothers. The interview, which was commissioned by Esquire magazine, took place in Moravia's study in May 1961. The aging poet sat typing and was so fascinated by the situation that the typewriter kept falling to the floor. Moravia opens the interview with the remark that he is not interested in Claudia Cardinal's past, present, or future, nor in her opinions about politics, love, art, women, and men, but rather wants to question her as an object in space, as a physical phenomenon that alone distinguishes her from all other people. The young, shy actress throws the.