French-Italian journalist and writer Alain Elkann may not be familiar to some Americans, but in Europe he’s a mix of Barbara Walters, Oprah Winfrey and Anderson Cooper. A spirit of boundless curiosity, Elkann has interviewed the world’s greatest designers, politicians and business leaders over the past three decades. Many appear in Elkann’s new book, “Interviews with Alain Elkann Vol 2″ (Assouline, released November 17). Here, Elkann recounts some of the biggest moments of his still-flourishing career, including the one big session that eluded him.

How could I choose the most interesting people I have interviewed for the last 30 years. Some of them have unfortunately passed away.

Others are still very much alive. Two great actresses, Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren, just turned 90 and I interviewed them both. Brigitte Bardot was kind and polite and we talked about her passion for dogs and animals.

I went to interview Sophia Loren for her 60th birthday in 1994 in her elegant Geneva apartment, a large library filled with Oscars. I wrongly thought it would be an exclusive scoop for La Stampa, the newspaper I work for, but later discovered she had done similar birthday interviews with our competitors Il Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica.

Architects Norman Foster and Renzo Piano are also almost 90 years old — and Frank Gehry is 95! All three remain incredibly active, full of energy and speak during interviews as if age doesn’t exist.

Renzo Piano always dresses in pale blue shirts and sweaters, matching his blue eyes.

To reach Renzo’s house above Genoa, you have to take a transparent tube-shaped elevator up a hill to his studio and office, both of which resemble a series of greenhouses.

Sadly, other people I interviewed have passed away, but our conversations remain.

I remember my interview with the black writer — because she insisted on being called a “black writer” — Toni Morrison, very ill in her bed just weeks before her death in 2019, in her beautiful white-painted wooden house perched above the Hudson River.

I was impressed by the lucidity of her mind, as if her illness did not exist even as she succumbed to it.

Interviews with businessmen are always fascinating, like that of cosmetics magnate Ronald Lauder, who came to see me in the courtyard of a small hotel in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, where we discussed, during the pandemic, his deep involvement in the challenges faced by businessmen. the global Jewish community.

I then interviewed François Pinault at the Paris headquarters of his company Kering and learned how he grew the family timber trading business into a global luxury giant that now owns Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. Both Pinault and Lauder became important art philanthropists.

Interviewing Zambian-born macroeconomist Dambisa Moyo in 2023 was also enlightening. She was made a Baroness in the House of Lords, first on the initiative of Queen Elizabeth II, then, on the Queen’s death, by King Charles III.

Moyo is a striking example of the extraordinary diversity and lack of glass ceilings we see in Britain’s postcolonial ruling classes today.

Robert Silvers, the former editor-in-chief of the New York Review of Books, was precise and punctilious about every sentence of our interview in 2017, calling my editor at 2 a.m. to ask if we could change a semicolon .

The more manageable English actress Kristin Scott Thomas is able to play each character as if it were “normal” behavior. She is married to John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, another past interview.

Speaking of actors, in Paris, in a cafe from Saint-Germain-des-Prés, I had breakfast early one morning with iconic movie star Marcello Mastroianni, who was already not well.

After years of asking him for an interview, suddenly, unexpectedly, that morning he said, “You didn’t want to interview me?” When I said, “Yes, of course,” he said, “Let’s do it.” I had to borrow a pen and pad of paper from a waiter at café, and we did it.

Visiting the studio of great artists such as Anselm Kiefer, Georg Baselitz, Tracey Emin, Antony Gormley, Marina Abromovic, Julian Schnabel, John Currin and Damien Hirst provides unique emotions.

Anselm Kiefer’s huge studio in the Paris suburbs looks more like a factory than an artist’s production space. Kiefer has a lot of energy and before our interview asked me to travel to Barjac in the south of France, where he has a second studio.

Here, Kiefer has created a series of cement towers placed in the landscape, and underground is a huge maze of tunnels: a metaphor for the horror of Nazi concentration camps.

I met Georg Baselitz with his gallery owner Thaddaeus Ropac during the Venice Biennale. I asked Baselitz if he wanted to draw me a dog, and without fuss, he took a marker and drew a dog on a restaurant napkin. It was a nice gesture for which I was very grateful.

After visiting Tracey Emin in East London for an interview, I saw her again in New York for dinner at a Viennese restaurant. I was sitting next to a funny and charming young woman who was talking to me about art. Tracey later said: “She was Princess Beatrice, one of Prince Andrew’s two daughters.”

Still in New York, Julian Schnabel lives in a very large apartment with very large rooms and large paintings on the walls and large furniture and dark colors. It’s a bit like a Gothic castle. And then there is Damien Hirst, whom I met in Venice thanks to Pinault.

When he agreed to be interviewed, he asked to come to my house in London. I like that Damien was in no rush and just wanted to stick around. I was impressed that this energetic man with a difficult reputation was actually incredibly sweet, kind and polite in my apartment.

I met the artist duo Gilbert and George many years ago in a restaurant in Turin and have visited them several times in their studio at their East London home.

George is very polite, very English in his humor, and Gilbert is from the Italian region of Tyrol. Like George, Gilbert is always dressed in traditional English Harris Tweed. I love that they never eat at home so cooking is unnecessary as they even eat breakfast at a local cafe.

In the fashion world, among others, I have had the privilege of interviewing everyone from Miuccia Prada and Diane von Fürstenberg to Vivienne Westwood, Calvin Klein and Oscar de la Renta.

I interviewed Valentino Garavani, who is still alive and with us today. Valentino worked in Rome and was already famous in the 90s, when models and new Milanese fashion kings like Giorgio Armani and Gianni Versace arrived.

I have an extraordinary memory of a New Year’s Eve in the Swiss Alps at the Valentino chalet where Frank Sinatra was a guest. At midnight, Sinatra began singing “Strangers in the Night.”

Years before, I had seen Sinatra at the 21 Club in New York and shook his hand.

But I didn’t think I’d see him again and see him sing “Strangers in the Night” on New Year’s Eve.

Sinatra is one of my greatest memories; I’m just sad I didn’t get to interview him.