Not really – I’d rather look like Julie Christie, who won the part of Lara ahead of Sophia in David Lean’s “Doctor Zhivago (1965), but you will learn a lot about vegetables in Russian from this Transparent Languages blog. Loren was the wife of the producer, Carlo Ponti, and when Loren auditioned, Lean felt she didn’t look the part of Lara. Lean envisioned Lara as more delicate and fair-haired. In all the movie versions of “Zhivago” I’ve seen, Lara is played by a thin, blonde woman.

1965 (David Lean): Julie Christie (In English) – with Rod Steiger as Komarovsky

"A girl from a different world".

2002 (Giacomo Campiotti): Kiera Knightley (In English) 

2006 (Aleksandr Proshkin): Chulpan Khamatova (In Russian)

Here’s a playlist I made of the 2006 film (with subtitles). Enjoy!

27 May 2012 – Update

My playlist of “The Master and Margarita” (2005) was deleted, but I found another.