The actor: Isabella Rossellini has carved out a unique career path by marching to the beat of her own drum, even though her family is cinematic royalty: she’s the daughter of Italian neorealist filmmaker Roberto Rossellini and legendary Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman. Her body of work encompasses everything from film and television roles, often leaning into the experimental and avant-garde, to interesting and challenging stage work, fun small-screen cameos poking fun at her image as an international bombshell (Friends, 30 Rock), and an award-winning series of short films on animal sexual behavior.
After popping up already this year in Spaceman and Problemista, Rossellini is back on our screens again in La Chimera, a woozy, 1980s-set mystery from Italian writer-director Alice Rohrwacher. The story centers on raffish English amateur archeologist Arthur (Josh O’Connor). Freshly released from prison, he reconnects with both Flora (Rossellini), the doting mother of his ex-girlfriend, and a motley crew of former accomplices who make their living looting Etruscan tombs and selling off antiquities in piecemeal fashion.
Recently, The A.V. Club had a chance to speak with Rossellini about both her latest film and some of her other work. The conversation is excerpted below, edited lightly for both length and clarity.
The A.V. Club: I had a chance to catch La Chimera last year at Cannes, which was a unique viewing experience.
Isabella Rossellini: We got applause, the longest that I’ve ever heard. We had applause that lasted for 10 minutes, 11 minutes. It was unbelievable, and very moving.
AVC: I know you’d worked with Alice’s sister previously, but how did the project first come to you, and were you familiar with Alice’s other films before this one?
Isabella Rossellini: So, yes, I worked with Alba Rohrwacher, Alice’s sister. She’s a very established actress in Italy, and I worked with her partner Saverio Costanzo, also a very established film director in Italy. He did the HBO series My Brilliant Friend, based on that Italian bestselling book. And Alba said to me, “I have a sister who wants to be a filmmaker,” and that I have to meet her. And so I met her, and the sisters were adorable. And then I did go see the film that she had done with Monica Bellucci, (The Wonders). It was a really interesting film. And then as we stayed in touch, saying, “Well, maybe one day we’ll work together.”
Alice was also started to work on Happy As Lazzaro. When it came out, I was amazed also. So I was delighted when she called me for La Chimera. She said, “I have a role that you can play—only that she is a very old lady, older than you. Would that bother you?” It doesn’t bother me at all! Sometimes, we (actors) have this reputation of being vain and always trying to look younger than we really are. But I don’t think it’s true for actresses, and for sure it wasn’t true for me. I was delighted to work and we created the character of Signora Flora, a very old lady, I would say in her late 80s or early 90s.
AVC: I’m wondering how the script read to you, because there’s the surface-level plot, but so much of both its general tone and what I think the film addresses and is about lies underneath the surface. I’m reminded of the William Faulkner quote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even the past.”
IR: Good, exactly! That’s the film. That’s what the film is about. The past is never dead. When I read the script, I went to dinner with Alice and I said, “Alice, is the core of the film about death?” And she said, “No, it’s about the beyond—there is a difference.” And she’s right. It’s not about death. It talks about live people stealing, and cops and robbers and the international market of archaeological art craft. That’s just the surface. But underneath there is this poetic world that it is [just like] the quote you said. That is very, very true of Italy, because Italy is a very old country that lives in the past. I mean, Italy’s number one industry is tourism. We have tombs, we have entire cities, we have entire necropolises. And we grow up with the presence of death and the past in our culture, and how it shaped us. And in Alice, she captures very well that we are not just the product of this generation and maybe the future looking up, but also we are the product of something that preceded us. I think this is the core of her work, and [its] originality.
AVC: La Chimera affords you the chance to act in both Italian and English. And watching the film at Cannes alongside other bilingual films, particularly Anatomy Of AFall, it was interesting to ponder and dissect the fluidity of language, and the fact that maybe this or that character is using different languages at different moments for a particular reason. Was that something you discussed at all with Alice?
IR: Well, everything was scripted. Sometimes, because Alice works with a lot of non-actors, when I watched her films, I imagined that maybe a certain degree was improvised, but nothing is improvised. Everything is scripted, and we rehearse it like a choir. The scene where I am with my five daughters, and we all overlap, it was really rehearsed like a choir—you start talking, at this word you start, then at this word you start, then you stop. And little by little, we fell into it and found [the scene’s] feeling. So it’s very constructed.
I’ve noticed in some films in Europe they are French, they are German, they are Italian, but that’s not the way we speak. Because now Europe has become the United State (laughs slightly), a united government [in the form of the European Union], you know? We travel freely, and the languages have mixed a lot. So when you speak Italian, you drop words that are in English, in German, in French. Or if you [are with a group of] people who are different nationalities, you might say a sentence like this, a sentence like that. My brother was married to a woman from the Dominican Republic, and they lived in Paris. So English was the language that everybody speaks, but then there were many words in Spanish, and of course in French, because we were living in France, and of course also Italian, because that was the language of our childhood. I’ve long thought this is the way this contemporary generations speak, but it’s never truly captured in films, because probably the distributor and producers say, “Oh, no, please, please talk to the audience and the film will be subtitled or dubbed, but don’t mix the languages.” (laughs). And instead, movies like Anatomy Of AFall and La Chimera mix them, and it’s much closer to the way we speak in Europe at the point.
AVC: I’m curious about your thoughts about Flora’s relationship to Arthur, and her strong attachment to him. Deep down, do you feel she has a sense her daughter is actually gone, so he represents a last connection to her?
IR: So Senora Flora is a little gaga. You know, she’s very old, very wise and very strong, but she is a little gaga. Does she understand that her daughter is dead? Yes, I think she does, at a certain level. But because she’s so close to death, she doesn’t see that much difference between life and death—also, because the past is always alive, right? So it plays with a lot of references. Also, my name is Flora, and Flora is one of the names of the goddess Demeter. Demeter is the Mother Earth. It’s a Greek myth, and also taken from the Roman myth. And she has a daughter, Persephone, who was kidnapped by the God of the underworld and the mother was so heartbroken to lose her daughter that she stopped nature and the leaves fell off the trees and everything froze and it became the winter. And she made a deal with the god of the underworld and Persephone comes out every spring and that’s how spring starts. This myth is the story of how the seasons came about. So Flora has a very big relationship with Arthur because that’s where Flora imagines her daughter is—in the underworld, the mysterious place that is where the past never dies, that is still with us—and so Arthur is a channel to get back to her daughter.
AVC: I wanted to jump back to your debut English-language film, White Nights. You had done several other films before that…
IR: No, I’d done two films before that in Italy, not several others. I’d done one film that was based on a comedy show that we did, a little bit like Saturday Night Live, where I played myself. And then I only had done one film with the Taviani brothers, called Il Prato.
AVC: Yes. So did White Knights feel like you were really planting a new occupational flag, though?
IR: Yes. It was the first one because when I did (the others) I didn’t really want to be an actress, because my mom was Ingrid Bergman and she was so famous and I was afraid to be compared to her and thought it was going to be much harder for me. And I was right. I worked with the Taviani brothers because my mother said, “You cannot not work with the Taviani brothers. They are major talents. You work for talents. You don’t work for critics, why do you care? You should take the adventure.” So I followed my mom’s advice and it was right. I had a great time and I learned a lot. But also I was right when the film came out—it was very badly reviewed. Me? Whoa! (Laughs) Horrible, bad, bad reviews. So I stopped working.
And then I became a model, a very successful model. And in modeling I felt very comfortable. It was a step away from my family, from comparison. It was similar, kind of, there was a lot of things in common—the lifestyle, the camaraderie, the studios, and all that. But it was a different job. And I kept hearing that I should be an actress and modeling is not going to last. A lot of models evolved their work to become actresses, like Andie MacDowell or others, you know, so many. And I worked a lot with Richard Avedon, and he was always telling me, “But Isabella, don’t you understand it’s the same job? With a model, I’m not photographing your nose, your mouth—I’m photographing emotions. You are emoting in front of my camera. That’s what I capture. But models are like silent movie stars. You don’t have dialogue, but you’re acting.” And so I started to think, well, maybe I should do it, because I didn’t know how to evolve. I was in my 30s. And then came White Nights and I thought, “Okay, let me do it officially as an actress, and make my own choice—not working with a brother Taviani or working with non-actors.” And I was one of them, it turns out. And then before White Nights came out, I met David Lynch and he hired me to do Blue Velvet.
AVC: You’ve talked in the past some about the reaction and response to that film—that if people loved it, it was because it was David Lynch, and if they didn’t like it, the weight of those misplaced judgments fell disproportionately on you. I’m curious how long it took to maybe break free from the shackles of those feelings?
IR: Well, the film was always an independent film. Now it has acquired a very big reputation, but at the time it was still a marginal film. I remember David calling me and saying, “I’ll meet you on 60th Street and 3rd Avenue at that corner.” So we went to that corner and we would look at the line around the block for people going into a theater to see Blue Velvet. We didn’t believe it! We were like, “What? There’s a line of people going in?” Because quite quickly there was word of mouth, and the film was starting to acquire its reputation. But it was very polarizing. Either people loved it or people hated it. And it seemed to me that when the people loved it, as you said, they were already the people that understood David’s talent, the novelty of his work. And when people hated it, they could find many, many reasons. But one of them was me.
You know, there was this idea that David Lynch had somehow mistreated women and me, because there were not only nudity scenes, but I was (portraying) a battered woman. But Dorothy Vallens is a battered woman, and is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. But it took a while, because I don’t think that battered women [like her] were seen. It was always much easier [to accept the portrayal where] you’re raped with a knife at your throat and clearly you’re raped, but you’re not raped in a kind of ceremonial way, the way the character of Dennis Hopper did it. So I think the success of the film is that he broke new ground with it, but [some people] couldn’t make that leap.
AVC: On the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, and to my mind an underrated performance from your filmography, is Zelly And Me, a film of uncommon sensitivity.
IR: Oh, that’s very touching. Tina Rathborne stopped directing after that film, but became a very good friend of mine. We are still in touch. And I thought the film was very wonderful. It was one of the first films talking about women’s lives, you know? It’s the story of a little girl who loses her mother. And Zelly, this mademoiselle, is a very important babysitter, a babysitter that shapes her life. And that was such a touching story, and I identified with it, because although I had a mom and I adored my mom, she often was away. And to her I would always say, “Oh, you say you owe your career to the great directors—you know, Victor Fleming and [Alfred] Hitchcock—but I owe my career to our babysitter.” She stayed with us because mama could really go away and work, and she knew that our babysitter was going to be totally responsible, and take care of us completely. And that was never recognized.
But then recently there has been that beautiful film, Roma, that tells the story of women’s solidarity, and [explores] how can you have a career if you have four children and not a babysitter? Babysitters are very important in women’s acting careers. And I think that if [Zelly And Me] came out now, when there are a lot of stories about women and by women directors, it would have resonated differently. I think when it came out, it was a little early and the audience was not yet ready for that type of women’s story. And also the audience might’ve changed, because now with streaming a lot of women can see film while they are still home. Now you can reach them, where before you needed something sort of more spectacular to attract young people.
AVC: Jumping ahead a bit further, you are now the same age as your age-arrested character in the satirical black comedy Death Becomes Her.
IR: Yes, I put that on Instagram! (Laughs) I put a picture up of that scene where I say, “Guess how old I am? I’m 71.” Yes, it’s nice.
AVC: What memories do you have of that movie, and with the acquired wisdom of age is there any advice that you would give your younger self?
Isabella Rossellini: I really loved the film, and Bob [Zemeckis] was so kind. I tested for the film and Bob was one of the few directors that explained to you why they cannot give you an answer right away. Here was this big film, with Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, and Bruce Willis, and he had the weight of the world on his shoulders—I remember he said that. And he said, “You know, there’s this part, and I really would like you, but the studio just wants me to test a lot of actresses. And you are one of the first. So you have to wait, but I’ll let you know.” And I thought, well, you know, they’ll forget you because they see 50 more people so the one that tested first is just forgotten. Instead, a month later, he called me personally and said, “This is your role.” And I was so pleased because, of course, I worked for Lancôme, one of the major cosmetic companies in the world. And they have a lot of anti-age creams. So I kept saying, “Oh, this is my role!” (laughs). I’m sending this synergy out into the world. It was very, very ironic. And I loved being in the film, and thought I did a good job.
AVC: Fearless is an interesting film, and one scene that still lingers for me is an argument late in the movie with Max (Jeff Bridges), who has survived a plane crash, and his wife Laura, where she is saying, pleading really, “Let me in—let me be part of it,” this great change he’s experienced in his life. And if I understand correctly, that scene and maybe some others were informed by improvisational rehearsals led by Peter Weir, where you and Jeff would argue, and that would then inform some of the script.
IR: So I don’t remember exactly, but what we did, Jeff and then Peter, is we improvised in the scene, and the writer (Rafael Yglesias) was there too, and the writer would take ideas that came up (and incorporate them), because when you have a fight and you imagine that the fight is all night long, or lasts for three or four hours, in the film it’s collapsed to two minutes, right? So how do you highlight what the sentences are that can best sum it up? So we did the fight. We played the fight for two or three hours and the writer is there and he takes in moments and then creates it. And then when the audience sees this, they understand, “Oh, this is something that is not two minutes long, it has gone all night long.” Here, we didn’t film the improvisation, I don’t think. We did an improvisation, they were there, and then they wrote the script and gave us the scripted version of the argument, and we had to memorize that and do it. But sometimes it’s an exercise that I do as an actress. In fact, it’s an exercise I learned in acting school, and it is something that actually we actors do a lot—though sometimes not with the director. Sometimes you’ll do it on a film [during production), and sometimes (long before shooting).
AVC: What are some other films on which you recall indulging that same process?
IR: On The Innocent, where I worked mostly with it was with Anthony Hopkins, where we improvised on the scene beforehand to understand it completely, and also for the director to make sure [it was the right tone]. But I even did some of the same thing with Blue Velvet, right? Before we shot the film, because I’d read the script and I saw that there was rape and nudity and all that, David had asked if I could test, and I said, “I’d like to test, but can I test with Kyle MacLachlan? And can we not say the lines the way they are, but do this exercise of having a conversation in character?” We did that before he offered me the part, and it was good for me to understand this was the person he wanted me to interpret. Because was she kind of a whorish woman, a man-eater who sings and then enjoys being raped? I mean, I didn’t know. I couldn’t understand it from the script. So when we acted it out in character, I played it my way and David said, “Yes, this is exactly what I want.” So it was reassuring to me, because I understood and I wanted to play that character. And I think it was reassuring for David, who didn’t know me. He said, “Oh, this actress got it.”
AVC: I wanted to touch on The Saddest Music In The World, which among other things spawned a meme, popular in some circles, of your character saying, “If you’re sad and like beer, I’m your lady.”
IR: (Laughs) Yes, that was an unusual film.
AVC: I know you hadn’t been familiar with Guy Maddin prior to that film, but that collaboration kicked off another sustained, fruitful professional relationship in your life.
IR: It kicked off an entire relationship and it kicked off me becoming a director. When I saw my father or my husbands or other directors, they were always like generals, you know? There was a crew of 130 people, and surrounded by silence. And I just thought, how do I do that? I mean, nobody’s going to listen to me. But then when I worked with Guy Maddin, his crew was seven people. And in fact, Guy Maddin’s crew is the same crew that works with me now. They’re all Canadians.
Ray Gilbert, who’s my art director and does everything—even though I just say art director because it’s a conventional word—and then Jody Shapiro, who also helps me with photography and co-directing, because when I’m in costume I cannot see the monitor. We edit it together. So they’re all Canadians, all from Winnipeg, and I met them working on that film.
AVC: You’re talking, of course, about the Green Porno shorts. Americans are famously uptight about sex, but because these are about animals they have a sense of humor and also a vulnerability to them. Do you think that’s helped those connect in a surprising way?
IR: Well, I just always loved animals and I have a master’s degree in animal behavior. Robert Redford, I think, had the idea to make short films when YouTube started. He contacted me because I had made a film with Guy Maddin called “My Dad Is 100 Years Old,” an homage to my dad, who would have been 100 in 2006. We had just done The Saddest Music In The World, and there was something in it that reminded me of my father’s films—most of all, the fact that Guy Maddin works with films that look like ancient, silent films, but they’re not. So I wanted to borrow this aesthetic for “My Dad Is 100 Years Old,” and Redford, I guess, liked my short films about my father and asked me and other people to make a short film series.
At the beginning, I said, “Well, I’m not a director.” And then I thought, “Oh, you can start with a close-up and say, ‘If I were a fly, I would be this and that and that,’ and I transform myself like an origami.” And I made it that way, and I called it Green Porno because he had the Sundance Channel which had a lot of green titles at the time—you know, green house, green cars, it was all promoting the green environment. So I said, “You don’t have Green Porno, right?” And then it became very successful. But the word porno cannot get advertisements in some worlds that are censored. So we did other series too, called Seduce Me and Mamma’s, all in the attempt to get advertisers. But inevitably the audience calls them Green Porno.
