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Andrea Bocelli speaks with the Daily Beast

It's a defying-the-odds story tailor-made for the big screen: born with glaucoma, a shy and withdrawn Italian boy is stripped of his eyesight at the age of 12 following a freak soccer injury, only to grow up and become a world-renowned singer. Such is the journey of Andrea Bocelli, the 59-year-old Tuscan tenor who sold over 80 million albums worldwide, performed for presidents and popes, and had his timeless classic, "Con Te Partiro," memorialized on the greatest television show ever: The Sopranos.

Now, Bocelli's been given the biopic treatment in The Music of Silence. Directed by Michael Radford (Il Postino) and adapted from Bocelli's memoir of the same name, it stars Game of Thrones' Toby Sebastian as the Bocelli proxy Amos, a blind youngster who, with the help of a Maestro (Antonio Banderas), achieves fame and fortune beyond his wildest dreams.  The Daily Beast spoke to Bocelli-through a translator, mind you-about the film based on his life, his unique modus operandi, and whether or not he backed out of performing at the president inauguration of his longtime pal, Donald J. Trump.

READ THE Q&A