November 26, 2024 • 47 mins
Although her father was director Roberto Rossellini and her mother was actress Ingrid Bergman, Isabella Rossellini had little desire to work in the film industry when she arrived in New York City at 19 years old. She was sure that fashion was her calling—and by her late 20s, a few years after studying costume design at Manhattan’s Finch College, she was appearing as a model in magazines such as Vogue and Interview. Not long after, Rossellini decided to join the family business: she was cast in her first American film in the early 1980s, before starring in David Lynch’s haunting 1986 thriller, "Blue Velvet." Over the last few decades, Rossellini has only further demonstrated the breadth of her talent, working as a producer and director while still modeling and acting, most recently in the papal drama "Conclave," in which she co-stars alongside Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, and John Lithgow. On this week’s episode of "Table for Two," the actress joins host Bruce Bozzi to discuss her relationship to her parents’ work, how her style has changed with age, and why she went back to school in her mid-50s.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, everybody, it's Bruce.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Thanks for pulling up a chair for another episode of
Table for Two. Today we are not in a restaurant,
but at a beautiful farm, about to have a delicious
lunch of salmon and fresh vegetables. Oh oh my god,
I'm so happily nervous sitting here with you.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
It's okay to chew for your podcast.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
My guest today is a model, an actress, an animal behaviorist.
She's immensely beautiful, talented and bright. Her new film, Conclave,
is a powerful look into the election of a new pope.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
My vegetables are amazing.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
We're having lunch with Isabella Rosolini. We're going to talk
about fashion, film and her legendary family. So pull up
a chair, grab a glass, Rose, and I really hope
you enjoy our conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I'm Bruce Bossi and this is my podcast Table for two.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So if you've pulled up a chair, we are on
a farm. We are sitting with one of the most
accomplished women who has had an incredible career, who has
a movie that premiered last night called Conclave. A renowned,
incredibly beautiful woman known for your great beauty, which I'm
(01:36):
staring at Nesmas. We are having lunch today with Isabella Rossellini.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Thank II, thank you so much with this incredible introduction.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
No, thank you. And you know your name is like
a song, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Isabella Fiorella Eletra Giovanna Rossellini.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah. So in Italy the tradition, Catholic tradition conclaves film.
So I grew up Catholic. So in the Catholic tradition,
it's not your legal name, so it's not in my passport.
In my passport, I don't even have a middle name
because in Europe the middle names, so it's only Isabella Rossilini.
But the day of your baptism you give names, and
(02:17):
during the baptism, so you give the name of a
saint that you particularly like. And for me was Joan
Jovanna because Mama played Joan of Arc my mom Thean reversement,
so she wanted Joan. And then Fiorilla is the name
of my godmother, who is my cousin. Mama was very
close to her, Johanna. And Electra. Electra is the name
(02:40):
of my grandmother. So when when you baptize the child,
which is the kind of introducing it to life. You Also,
there is the tradition of linking them with the ancestor
the name of the indeed, my case, my cousin, but
it can be your best friend and then the saint.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
That's it's a it's a beautiful it's a beautiful face.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
In My family is half Northern Italian and half Southern.
So I was named Bruce after my father, Bernard after
my grandfather, whose name is Bruno. And I took on
my father's middle named Edward for my confirmation name.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So there's there's meaning.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
But you don't have them in your passport.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
No, No, I just have Bruce Bozzi.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
You don't even have a middle name.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Well, it's Bernard, but I never really liked Bernard. It
was like it's just for some reason, so I went
by Bruce b period, I kind of shortened it. So,
I mean, your mother, obviously ing your father.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
Berta Rusina, an incredible film director, did you sort of
have that sense of their who they were in, you know,
in the world and their significance in the world growing up?
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Well not really. I mean when you're little, you don't
understand it. You know, you you think you know people
recognize him and recognize them, and I didn't know them
because they're parents. You know, I thought parents were important,
all parents would be recognized. Then little by little I
realized all the parents are recognized. My friends parents, they
(04:07):
didn't recognize. They had to introduce a house, you know,
so that you come to it slowly. Then I remember
that I would ask my friends when I said about
how famous is my mom? And I would ask my
friends at school, is she famous like John Crawford, like
Greta Garbo, give me a measure? You know. I was
using because I couldn't really gauge it, and so I
(04:30):
think it was only when you become a teenager. I
remember my father. I was very jealous Italian father, so
I wasn't allowed to go out, and there was a
retrospective of my parents. You know, because nowadays you can
watch on Netflix or Amazon or Criteria, which is my
absolute favorite too. Criterion you can access and see the
(04:51):
films of Para. I couldn't see my parents' film why
because they were you know, they had to come out
in the movie theater maybe film. They didn't come out
once in a while. You might see them on television,
but not with the frequency that a few years ago,
or they were retrospectives in museums. So I remember when
I was I think sixteen, there was a retrospective of
(05:13):
my father's film and I went and I was because
mother said, you know, you can't go out, et cetera.
I didn't tell him I was going to see his
film because I thought maybe he was going to scold
me because I was going out without telling him, And
so I went to see them in secret. And then
my father found out that I wasn't at home as
I told him I was, and he called me and yelled,
and where have you been? And with great fear, I said,
(05:34):
are you going to see your film? Said all this
week I went to see you film. His tears came
up to his eyes. Oh wow, he was so touched
and I don't know why. And then I just said,
of course he's happy that I want to see him.
But I didn't have the courage to tell him. And
maybe I thought he would say, oh, what do you care?
You know? Interested you they now you're going to see
because I'm a famous director. But I wanted to see
(05:55):
what he was doing.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
And then you saw how meaningful it was for him
that you Oh, and what did you think when you
saw your father's films when you were young, like when
you walked out of the movie theater that first time.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Like I was very moved. I mean, he would always
say to me because his films, the most famous film
of his, were called neorealism because they look so real,
they look like documentaries, and so the critic called them neorealism,
and often they would talk about his style. He worked
with actor and an actor, he worked outside the studio
(06:27):
for the first time in real location. But there was
a style that looked completely new, And father said, but
it wasn't a style. I didn't think of his style.
It was an urgency that I felt to tell how
the civilian lived the war. It was a kind of
a moral impulse rather than a stylistic impulse. Although he
was often asked about his style. So I appreciated his
(06:50):
film because the spiritual moral dimension of his film is
what makes them so great.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yes, And then when you saw when the question was
answered regarding your mother, who you know was one of
the biggest stories ever. When did you realize how you're like? Oh,
and the lines of Greta Garbo.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
And my mom my mom had also when we were
a teenager, a retrospective of her work on television and
Italian television. So I was able to see Casa Blanca Notorious,
all the films that she did when I was I
wasn't in Betterlive. It was great, but I felt maybe
closer to my father's film because the war. I was
(07:31):
born in nineteen fifty two, so seven years after the war,
and the war was very present in my bringing, the
desperation of the war, So my father's film moved me
more than Casa Blanca. You know, Casa Blanca a reference
to the war. Everybody is so elegant, everybody so rich.
I was a little bit lost because what I'd known
(07:51):
about the war was very different from Casa Blanc Shore.
So I had to acquire the Hollywood culture of the
bigger than life, the dream, quite the entertainment quality, and
I appreciated, but immediately I was confused by ed. I said,
how can how can these be refugees and they go
like dressed like this at the rich cafe. It's impossible.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Did you have any idea that that would be a journey,
a path that you decided that you would go on
as far as acting.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
And not really I thought I was going to make
films but not acting. When I was eighteen and finished
the school I went to for three years to Academia
and the Costume and Model which is a school that
teaches you to become a costume designer in fashion like
Parsons School of Designer in New York. And I graduated
(08:41):
thinking there would become a costume designer, and then instead
I became involved first as an assistant to a journalist
and I started to work with Roberto Benini the Life
is Beautiful, comical skit that for a few years, and
then immediately into fashion as a model. But that was
okay because it was my way into fashion, which is
something I loved. Fashion is contemporary costume, isn't it. So
(09:04):
it's kind of the word the same.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yes, okay, So you.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Brought up coming to New York and fashion and you know,
and I know that you came to New York when
you were around nineteen, you know, period of your life
you started working as a model.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And you've really worked.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I mean, you are considered and are one of the
most beautiful women in the world, and so you worked
with like incredible photographer.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
Yeah, I worked with the best pographer, may be right,
what wasp.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah, Bruce Webber, Stephen Miselle.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
What was that for you? That growing up? Because that's
very those are key years of growing up and understanding.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
But they were, you know, they were very formative years
and made me fall in love with talent and your
originality of each mind of each photographer. Although we mostly
shot for fashion, you know, occasionally portrait for maple Thorp
or pen but otherwise mostly was fashion. But I combined.
I loved fashion, and so the combination of the two. Though.
(10:11):
So I came from a family a photographer. My grandfather
from my mother's side, but I never met him. He
was dead when I was born, was a photographer, and
my mother took lots of pictures all the time. My
father was a filmmaker. It didn't take photos, but of
course cinema is photos, you know, it's visual, right, So
there was a culture of a visual culture of an
(10:33):
art that I found out even when modeling, so I
loved it. I loved every second of modeling. I'd love
to say that sometimes I think I like modeling more
than acting, partially because it was easier to reconcile with
the family. Because if you're leaving for a photo shoot,
you might be gone for three or four days, then
you come home. You a film, you might leave for
(10:53):
three months, and that's much heavier on the family. So
modeling was easier and and like there was something very
light about it. Also there was light because we were
selling clothes or makeup or whatever it was. And in
films sometimes you have to play a dramatic role. You
have to go in thoughts that are dark. You recall
(11:13):
feelings that are unpleasant so you can portray them. But
I like acting too. But I have to say a
lot of people think of meddling as a lesser job,
but it isn't. I always thought it was really great.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Do you have there a photographer of all the grades
that you've worked with that you feel how captured you,
the essence of you?
Speaker 1 (11:31):
No?
Speaker 3 (11:31):
I mean this is the great thing is that when
you are you don't try to have you. I mean,
it's embarrassing when people say, let's do a portrait of you.
Oh my god, it is so embarrassed. But you don't
know how to pose. You know, I don't know what
you know what take the photo? You know, Instead, when
you do a character it's easier and also what you're
trying to do is to find a common denominator. We
(11:53):
are all human beings. So whether I play a nun
or a whore, or an assassin or a mother trying
to find the common denominator. I don't do films or
I don't do photos to show myself or to find myself.
I do it to look at the commonality that we
have among all of us, so that people can relate
(12:15):
to the character you play.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yeah, you know, you were the face of line com
for many many years and then of course they released
you from your contractual obligations.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
You got me back ag and then they got you back.
The story with lang Com is a big saga. Yeah, yeah,
so we were and the fact that they got me back. See,
length comb is not a political movement, it's a service.
So they really do what people demand and what they ask.
And I think that in the eighties there was a
(12:45):
real I think I have to say that maybe there
were many other reasons, but I think that men were
the executive of these cosmetic lines. Men was very much.
They understood makeup when it was done for them to
seduce them, and so they emphasize the art of seduction
through makeup of clothing. But once because society evolved, women
(13:08):
became the new CEO. They saw that seduction was one
of the reason. But there resultso creativity, self expression, playfulness,
and I think that the advertisement or the way they
present themselves nowadays, it is that way. And so they
call me back. They called me back also because it
was a sense of injustice, because it was extremely successful. Yes,
(13:31):
and at forty two, the executive at the time explained
to me that advertisement is about dreams, and women dream
to be young, and so at forty two I could
not anymore represent that dream. Where I was asked back,
I said, well, if it's a problem of ages, why
don't you get Ellen Mirron or Merrill Street, because if
you get me, we get the press again to take
(13:52):
that story. And you know, these big companies are very careful.
It's about not getting into any controversy. But they were
very ape. They say, no, we want to tell the story.
We want to tell the story of the evolution of
women in society. So since we did that, then now
we do this so you can tell and it's magical.
And I agree, I think it is magical and I'm
(14:15):
super happy to work. Did you notice my makeup?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I did notice your makeup.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Did you notice that I'm doing it differently? So I
always had very little makeup. I mean sometimes I'm a
makeup because I'm an actress, but yeah, in my everyday life,
generally I had I did very little makeup. Red lipstick,
a little bit of a concealer, sometimes not even mes garret,
just a red lipstick. And then I've noticed that when
(14:40):
I did my makeup to go out at night, I
did the makeup that philosophically was wrong. We did a
makeup to make me look younger. I would cover my blemishes,
I would do this, I will do that. And then
I saw one day a man using makeup, and the
man wasn't using makeup to look like a woman, to
look more men, or to look like a woman. He
(15:01):
used to make up as a creative color, as a touch.
And that I thought, oh, I want to do that.
That seems to be more modern. So now I change
my makeup and you know, do colors on top of
my eyelid lipstick. And I mean, I could do something
more complicated, but I wanted to do also makeup that
(15:23):
is very fast because I'm at the farm r You know,
every day you want to do something it takes five minutes.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Sure, yeah, I mean you look some experiment with this
new kilosophy. Philosophy.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Sometimes I said, the red carpets, you know, if I
had to be from imagine that I'm from Mars and
I come in and I read and I look at
the red carpet. I can be fascinated. But sometimes I think,
but you can feel like the principal world that is
conveyed is Thinness. Then a lot of the clothes are
(16:05):
very glued to the body. You're not naked, but you
could see every curve, or they make you that shape,
like the typical shape of a vase. Yes, well I
don't have that shape, and I'm seventy two. I'm not
going to have that shape. I had a backup eration,
I'm not going to wear a corset. I'm not going
to wear it, you know. So I want to stay
away from that because I can't do it. It's not
(16:26):
that I wouldn't liked it or I condemn it. I
can't do it, and I give it up. So I'm
trying a different version of elegance, and it isn't Thinness.
Look at my body, But.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Isn't that what's so great about now I hope and
I love that you're saying that because it's like lean
into who you are and what you feel comfortable in
and how you want to present because I feel like
on a given day when I wake up, or like
when you wake up.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
And you're saying, like, how am I feeling today?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
You say, okay, well, I how do I want to
express myself through clothes? Because when you put a piece
of clothing on, you feel a certain thing. When you
do your face, you know your hair, you feel like,
oh okay, yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
It's the same way you say hello, how are you?
When you write shake with perhems, you present yourself so
your clothest presentation of yourself or how you want to
be perceived. That's a pleasure of being in Paris. Everybody
is so dressed up, so dressed up, so pretty. I
mean America, if it was this martian martian that arrived
from another planet, I would say that in America. But
you really want to spell is comfort? So you use
(17:27):
your gym clothes to walk in the street, which isn't
very appealing, no, but comfort is appealing, so you know,
and if you think of Calvin Klein, comfort, the simplicity
of his line. It was comfort only that he dressed
it made it dressy. That's what I like so much
about American fashion. I think of American fashion, it's three
(17:48):
big names, Calvin Crime, Rap Lauren and Donna Karen. And Rep.
Lauren was all the historical references the English, but with
an ease, you know, the I mean the gentlemen, farmers.
So but there was these references to to a Europe
that has come to America and made the clothes more comfortable,
(18:12):
you know, not so stiff. Calvin Klein for me was
really Jim clothes made ellen, but they spelled easiness. And
then Donna Karen. I have to say it was the
first woman that tried to give women, the business woman
a uniform like men have the blazer or the jacket.
And it was very helpful to have her because I remember,
(18:34):
I mean I belonged to the generation that started to
work and have careers. And we worked, or women always worked,
but I mean that was the push in. You know,
my generation always said, well I get married then you know,
sometimes you don't get married. Sometimes the husband needs that
extra So we ended up working. But it wasn't we
(18:55):
weren't recognized as we are nowadays. I think nowadays, my
children never doubt it. I'm going to get married. Nobody
ever said that. I say, we get married, but we work.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
It doesn't stop. Like you and Donna.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Really tried to dress so women in a way that
again was comfortable, by elegant, just feminine, and so comfort
is important to American because they're very active.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
I also think sort of ARMANI did something that I
thought was very very.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Money did it too because their money. I think we
need it first for men and then for women too.
But the first thing he did was to relax the
men's suit, the business suits, and all of a sudden
men could go to work but didn't look like.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
So uptight exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
They felt elegant and at ease. And the fabric and
the colors. Yesterday I just saw an Instagram a photo
of his latest collection and was him quite all the
very very elegant as gentlemen like that is with all
the models, and I was not wasn't looking at the
clothing because it was a group photos, so you couldn't
(20:00):
really see the clothes, but the palette of color. Yeah,
I thought, well, you know how elegant it all goes together,
very well, thought out.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Thanks for joining us on Table for two.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Our guest is the Bella Russellini has had an amazing
career in print and screen. She has never been afraid
to take risk, and I wanted to know what it
was like to work on two of her most progressive
and controversial projects at the time, Madonna's coffee table book
Sex and David Lynch's film Blue Velvet. I think, Isabella,
(20:52):
you've you've chosen projects, and you've gotten involved in things
that are not always mainstream, but like very creative, very
you know the way you are able to express your
so and one of the things that you did at
a time that was somewhat controversial was the whole Madonna erotica,
the Sex Book. And I can remember seeing the Sex
Book in the early nineties in a bookstore and buying it.
That sort of blew up in her face, and even
(21:14):
the album and of course in time again sort of
like with langcom in a weird way, that album goes
down as one of her best albums, and the book
goes down as being a pioneer.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
What brought you to that? It was really interesting. So
it was Stephen Marzelle, photographer, and Stephen was just getting
to be more and more successful, and they were offered
to him to do books and mostly the retrospective books,
you know, and he didn't want to do retrospective books.
He felt like, I'm still young, what do you mean
retrospective book? But then Madonna wanted to do a book
(21:46):
and I think about sex, and that appealed to him
because it was I show, you know, to do a book,
which is very prestigious, of course with Madonna, but it
was prestigious for a photographer and a fashion photographer because
you have to think that a lot of fashion photogographer
suffered from the fact that they are not considered artistic. True,
you know, the artistic photographer is the world photographer or
(22:06):
the one they do some abstract, dumb but not the
fashion photographer, which is the fashion that is most popular
and loved, were seeing as commercial. So that was a
little thorn in their heart. So that was the opportunity
to whichould do a book. The book will elevate you
from fashion photographer to a possible artist. And then and
I thought it was very interesting the subject of sex,
(22:28):
because sex can be horrible, the most tedious crime, and
it can be the most tender and loving things, yet
it can be the same act. It's amazing true. And
I knew Steven. I didn't know Madonna. We went to dinner,
and of course she's fascinating, you know, and also such
an independent mind and such an you know, an artist
(22:52):
for you know, making our own paths. But I had
done Blue Velvet, Yes, and it was so and I thought,
I thought that it was important to do that scene naked,
because this is a woman who runs out of probably
a rape or something very violent, and she walks completely naked,
bruised in the street.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
So if I'm quite a powerful movie, if you pull
its David Lynch's movie, it's really.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Yeah, it's very powerful. But when it now, it's completely accepted.
But at the time, when you came out, it was
very controversial because also of my nude scene, which I
thought were essentially in the film. So I thought, I
forget about that. I'm not going to do a nudity
So I said, you know, I'm very interested in the
subject of sex and the thing that you know, Madonna
she had girlfriend, she had boyfriend, she you know, that
(23:36):
was very interesting. Was one of the first one to
declare this, and she was experiment and but I said,
if I don't want to be nude, they accepted it.
So if you see the photo, I'm always somewhat covered,
and the photo there is a It was only me,
Naomi and Tatiana. There weren't that many other people. We
(23:58):
were hand picked, and I I felt, you know, I
felt it was interesting when I saw the book, though,
incredibly enough, I found it kind of moralistic, if I
can use an absurd word for that book, because it
was a little bit like showing us what to do.
It had a little bit of teaching thing, like I
tell you I am liberated and you are not. And
(24:20):
that bothered me. And I did speak to her and
I said, you know, also when you're naked or you're
making love, there is an incredible feeling of vulnerability. That's
what's so great. You can open up and that's the
one thing you haven't captured. It's all about having a
perfect body. And she exercised a lot, and she had
a perfect body. But it wasn't that. I said to her,
(24:43):
you know, if you photographed an athlete naked, it's a
completely different reaction that you would have if you see
a businessman or your grandfather naked. And that was I
think the part that it was missing is the standardness
in that. On the other hand, it's liberating. You know,
a matrix would hide that she was a liberating because
maybe if she had children at home, all of a
(25:04):
sudden by seeing the photo she said, well, you know,
at least somebody is talking about it, right, I didn't
feel that Lonely Madonna was a phenomenon at the time. Yep,
she still is. Yes, it's an interesting person. You know.
Part of the great pleasure of being a model or
an actress is to work with different talents. Now we
work with so many, and it's so interesting to enter
(25:27):
into their mind and try to understand one they want
to express. And sometimes it works, sometimes it's accepted by
the audience. Sometimes it isn't. But you never really know
what's going to be successful. So you can't go that
way say I do this because you're going to be successful,
because you don't know, and you might as well follow
your Yeah, you might as well follow your curiosity. And
if from Banana Madonna says you would like to do
(25:49):
work with me, how can you say, no, I'm interested.
A major talent, you'd say.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Recently, you know, I watched it again in an anticipation
of sitting watching Blue Velvet and the character that you
that you bring to life on the screen is just fascinating.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
You know, it's very interesting to work with David because
he works not on rationale, you know, not on things
that he totally understands. I remember one day he told
me something and I thought, oh, it's all right, and
that's the key to understanding. He said, you know, you
enter into a room a party immediately, you know, if
there's tension or if there is immediately, how is that?
(26:42):
How that mood? How do you capture that mood? So
that's what he's trying to do with this film is
to capture the mood. Is not to capture you enter
a room the restension because there's been a fight between
the husband and the wife. No, he's not interested on that.
He's interested and still there is something lingering and electricity
that he's trying to capture, and so working with him
(27:04):
was very interesting. And when we work together in Blue Velvet,
he told me a story that when he was a
little boy, he was returning from school with his brother
and they saw a woman naked walking down the street
and they didn't laugh or they didn't get excited. They
started to cry because they knew something very tragic had happened,
and they scared them, and he wanted to capture that.
(27:27):
And so I thought of that nick Out photo, the
nick Out photo of the little girl in Vietnam that
was and I thought, this is such a helpless gesture.
And when he was telling me the story, I imagine
that moment, walking naked like this, when if I had
walked covering myself up, I wouldn't have been totally broken.
I would still have a feeling of shame or a feeling, God,
(27:48):
I'm naked, I'm so sorry. I should you know, no
like this is you are at the edge of death.
I was familiar with the Stockholm syndrome. In Italy. We
had years of terrorism in the late seventies and a
lot of people were kidnapped. And when you people that
were kidnapped often came back home sympathizing with the kidnappers,
(28:11):
you know, as it happened with Patricia Hurst. And so
I imagined a little bit my character Door as the valance
to be so crazy because she was an unpredictable because
she was having Stockholm syndrome. Yeah, they didn't, you know,
the actors. Sometimes I didn't want to know anything psychological.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
They get bored.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
But we actors, we have to agorate to something. We
have to have a kind of psychological story. We can't
just place erratic stange. Why what is the emotion she feels?
Because you're trying to emotion. So I create stories behind
my characters. But the director sometimes I'm not interested in that.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Was that like major pivotal life changing?
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yes, I think it was pivotal, but not right away.
Because it came out it was so controversial. So it
was hard at the beginning, especially for me, because people
that liked the film they loved. Of course it's an
author's film, so they praised David Lynch, and people they
didn't like the film thought I did it to contest
my mother or contest myself because I was known as
(29:12):
a mo beautiful model, or as adbotaged myself. They put
so much psychological, complicated things that didn't exist, but they
were trying to find a reason why the film wasn't convincing.
So I thought that every time we got a bad review,
somehow we're putting the finger. At least if there was
a good review that was always praising David a minute.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Welcome back to table for two.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Isabella Russellini is not only a model and an actress,
but also an animal behaviorist.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
She's created several productions.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
That deal with animal sexuality, including the short film series
Green Porno.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
That's right, Green Porno.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
How did this unexpected chapter in her story come into being?
What is so cool about you? Is amongst many things.
As we sit on your farm and you're raising animals
and I get to get a tour after lunch, I'm
super excited. Is you know when you decided I'm going
to go back to school. You went back to school,
and you sort of and you've been always sort of
(30:33):
fascinated with bugs, and then green porn came about, which
is so fascinating.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
So what brought you to go back to study?
Speaker 3 (30:41):
I think I wish I had studied. I wish I'd
done it earlier. If anything, I think I always wanted
to be a director, a film director. I went to
a nine rate story. I feel like I'm a narrator.
I can tell story, yeah, but I didn't know how
to get there, you know, I didn't know how do
you start? Where do you go? And then when my
father turned it would have been one hundred years old.
(31:02):
I knew that he was going to be retrospective of
his work and people were going to talk about him,
and I wanted to say something that was very personal
to me about my dad how I experienced him in
his work. And at the time I was working with
a director called Guy Madden, who had door is a
very kind of avant garde crazy filmmaker from Winnipeg, and
(31:23):
he does often film in black and white and look
all ruined as if they were found in some sort
of archive, but there are new films that he does,
and I thought his aesthetic would lend itself very well
from my film, so I asked Guy to I wrote
the script and then that guy directed it and we
put it together. The film and he was called My
Dad Is one hundred years Old, a twenty minutes film,
(31:45):
and Robert Radford saw the film, liked it and bought
it for sand Dance. And at the time he was
also very enthusiastic about YouTube that had just started because
he's a big fan of silent film, and silent film
at a lot of short films, and then the film
as became an industry, became standardized, so it's half an
hour for television or hour and a half for cinema,
(32:08):
but more or less, you cannot come out of this.
And films that were two minutes long, five minutes long,
six minutes long disappeared, but YouTube started them again, and
so he thought, oh, we can do film series short
film series, and so he reached out to several artists
that were in his you know, periopheral vision or vision,
and one of them was me. And at first I thought, oh,
(32:30):
that's strange, and then I said, oh, I can do
a close up with me. If I were a bug,
transform myself into a bug. I will make that way,
and so I did. We did a pilot. It worked
very well. We ended up doing forty short film and
I combined, if you want, my costume designing that I
started when I was my acting and my love for animals.
(32:52):
Once I became old, that worked less as an actress
as a model. And that's when I went back to
school at a university and took a master agree on mythology,
which is animal behavior and conservation. Okay. I then started
to lose his films. It's it can't help. I always
tell story.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
But it's amazing because you know, it's also like when
you say I became old, it's so interesting to hear
because that's not an easy thing for any of.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Us to say when I became old.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Like you really have to because we live in this world.
And then when people feel and that's happened to me
in my life, Oh, I'm you know, I'm forty and
I'm too old to do something you know or like.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
And then next thing, you know, I'm going to be
fifty nine this year. It's like, well, okay, well that
was nineteen years of past, you know, so much like
we were never too old.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Oh yeah, yeah, never, no, you know. I mean it's
funny because I know we have this big number. I'm
having two's this big number accompanying me. But I'm stupefied
because inside you always feel the same. You haven't really changed, right.
And also we don't see I don't see myself right.
I see my hands, I say what's wrong spots, you know,
but I don't see my face. And I'm always kind
(33:58):
of shocked, you know, when I see myself in films.
I at first sometimes I said, what's wrong with the light,
And I said, no, it's not the light.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
What Let me tell you the face I'm looking at
right now is spectacular, I might add, so last night
your movie premiered. Yeah, tell me about that movie. It's
(34:30):
a very intense movie. I mean, the whole transition when
a pope passes and then the sort of the process
that goes on, and also the sort of complexities of
the Catholic.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Church and the whole thing. You know, talk to me
about why did the movie and how you.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
So the conclave is is the election of a new pope.
When the pope dies, one hundred and twenty cardinals go
into a conclave, which mean they are secluded in the
Vatican and they take the meeting in the Sistin Chapel
with all the fresco of Michael Avangelo. And then they
also sleep in Casa Santa Marta, which is a kind
(35:09):
of a hotel if you want, but dorms, very very little, severe,
little cell and they cannot communicate with the world outside
until they elect the pope. And so the film is
about that. And of course the cardinals are humans, so
although they're trying to be spiritual leaders, they have all
the faults of the human being. There is ambitions, there
(35:31):
is lies, there is abuse. There's also sainthood. There's also
moral dilemma. There is all of it. There is also
political facts, exactly like we have it in our politics.
They are progressive and more conservative, and there is these
fights among them, all fights argument. But it's so well written,
(35:53):
and it was a book originally and then translated into
a marvelous script. Words were so beautiful. As an actor,
to say those lines was such a pleasure. And in
the conclave there is one cardinal that was not known
to the others. He had been elected. The Pope elects
(36:13):
to them and he has been elected impactory meaning inside
as a secret because he was serving in Baghdad and Kabul,
and so he has a paper to show that the
Pope has elected him, but they kept it secretly to
protect him. And in dis debate he is the most
(36:34):
humble and the kindest, the most attentive, the most christ like,
if you want. He doesn't have a political agenda, he
doesn't seem driven by a personal ambition, and little by
little he's elected the Pope. Yes, but the film ends,
(36:55):
I wouldn't. I'm terribly sorry to say the ending, because
the ending is such a it really is. But the
film to me is an orday about doubt, and at
the beginning of the film refines it places to Dean
is in charge of Dean pop dies in charge of
the conclaim. So he has this bureaucratical responsibility and he's
(37:16):
very plagued by it because he maybe wants more of
a monastic life of meditation and prayer, and instead, with
the death of the pope, now he's thrown into this
brawl of policy and investigating people and lives, and he's
suffering in the center of all of this, and he
has to manage it. And it gives a wonderful speech
(37:38):
at a certain point talking about certitude as being evil
and doubt being equality. So because he says in doubter
is mystery, and if there was no mystery, there will
be no faith. So we have and I hope that
(37:59):
the pope will be elect that will be humble enough
to recognize that we're trying our best, but there is
always a doubt. So this is humbleness in the things
that the church takes. Stands saying women should not be
priested or should not get married, nor men gays are condemned,
and that maybe there is a doubt to me in
(38:21):
real life. The most moving moment of the spoke Francis
is when he was asked about gay people, and he said,
who am I to judge? The church traditionally condemns gay people.
But on the other hand, they might be the doubt
that the church is wrong. We're trying, they are trying
to bring the Word of God, and in the Bible
(38:43):
it says, go and reproduce. Therefore you can't be gay
because you can't reproduce. But maybe maybe that's an interpretation.
I find that so moving, and the film is the
celebration of that. So when the finally the pope is
the most christ Like, the most kind, so humble person
is elected, there is the final doubt. And I have
(39:07):
to say we had the most wonderful actors, you know,
Stanley Tuccio and Lithgo. But to me, I have to
say Santo Casillito, who is a very known actor in
Italy but not known in America, and he plays the
most conservative, but he plays him with such an energy
he smokes. You would think he would be the most
liberal because he smokes, he sis, you know, and instead
(39:30):
he is the most conservative. And I thought that Ce
did an incredible, incredible It surprises me. I was yesterday.
I saw the film again and I was waiting.
Speaker 6 (39:39):
And had such pleasure at looking at him.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
What is sister Agnes, You are the only woman.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Yes, I'm the only woman.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
I think you do something that's very difficult to do,
which is your eyes tell many no words in many things.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Edward Berger is a superior filmmaker, the director, and he
has used everything from the way photographed the film, the
way he edited, the way the music is. The music
is extraordinary. But also he underlines this very big difference
between men and women in the Catholic Church because it's
a patriarchal society. So nuns are there all the time,
(40:26):
but they don't speak, they don't say anything. So I
loved to have a role that I could play and
can create a whole person. Avoid Maybe because I was
a model, avid On did say to me, models are
a silent movie star. I don't say anything, and then
when I speak, bomb is like a bomb, and I
speak very little, and yet you always know where she is.
(40:48):
So I think I'm going to say something quite extraordinary.
When I was little, I went to school and I
went to nuns school, and my nun of course they
have take the vowel of being submissive and submitted to
the patriarchal society. But they were not. They didn't lack authority.
(41:09):
They had great authority. Even if they didn't speak, they
looked down they were, but they always had great authority.
So I'd witnessed that. When I went to school with
the nuns, I asked them, one of them that I
particularly liked, if family was happy when she decided to
be a nun. She said, absolutely not. My mother dreamed
to become a grandmother, and of course in the Catholic Church,
(41:32):
we can't get married. So she cried and cried and said,
won't you go to Mass every day and be religious,
but get married and make me a grandmother. But it
was a calling. I had to do it. I didn't
want to hurt my family. It was a calling. It
was a calling. It was exactly the same word my
mama used when she talked about acting, and she was
accused of being neglectful toward us, and we had four children,
(41:54):
and what you were to work? She said, I can't
help it. I haven't chosen acting. Acting chose me. And
when my mom came to school conferences, the NaNs and
Mamma spoke as these kind of women that were following
their passion, that were completely independent. I've seen submissiveness more
in my aunt, in some of the mothers of my
(42:15):
friends in school, but I've never seen it in the NaNs.
And in my mom was a very big emancipated moment
from Scandinavia that helped but also a better, huge career,
and so I tried to play her that way instead
of being you know, submissive and quoi full of modesty.
She doesn't speak, but she has enormous authority.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
It's an incredible film. Yes, it is really is an
incredible film.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
And it's I think again it's a film that's of
the moment with everything that's going on.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Yes, I don't think it was written for the moment
in our controversy. Of course, I'm the controversy. See the
political controversy and tension and the world being so you know,
extreme and conservative and progressive. It's something that is not
only in America, but it's all over the world and
including Catholic Church surse. It came from a book, and
(43:15):
the book was written five years ago, so way before
this election. But yes, its very much many many residents
to our political situation.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
I just don't think there's no coincidences. So like this book,
I think Landcomb and then coming back where the world
over the last twenty years shifted its perspective.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
The story of.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Your mother and her career and the moment that you know,
she was held accountable for something that today that would
not have happened.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Yeah, so my mom was held accountable. So my mom
was Swedish and she came to America while Europe was
in the war, and she became this famous movie star.
And Mama was very drawn to cinema, As I said,
it was a calling. And she saw two of my
father's film and wrote to him saying, I would like
to work with you, and it would be like Julia
(44:03):
Roberts trying to nowadays to a Syria and director. You know,
because Mama Italy was right after the war destroyed country.
Also we were allied of Hitler, you know, we were
in the right side, so we were very much looked down.
And when they met, they fell in love. A mother,
before she could obtain a divorce, became pregnant from my father,
(44:24):
and this created a very big scandal in the United States,
and not being a citizen, she was not allowed back,
and you sent it, took a stand against my mom,
and it was very painful. Not only all the money
she made was confiscated, and because she had a daughter here,
so the money went to her. It was okay for Mama,
but she couldn't see her daughter, and that was very painful.
(44:45):
And it remained for Mama. Now. Then eight years later
they saw each other, they loved each other and all that.
But that period was really difficult.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Of course, I can imagine.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
And that's why I'm an accent. People say, well, do
you have an accent? An accent because I was born
right during the scandal. Mama could not come to America.
I did not learn English, because you know, you have
to learn languages when you're very young in order not
to have an accent. I learned, yes, because our vocal
see here is the scientist talking. The vocal chords is
(45:17):
a very complex instrument. It is made of tiny bones
and ligaments and cartilages, and they are very soft and
at a certain point, when you are about thirteen or fourteen,
you become more rigid. So if you haven't shaped them,
the little bone to vibrate and make the perfect r
or the perfect te that I can't say. I say
(45:37):
this that it's very difficult, and you can't. You don't
have any more. So any languages that is learned after
fourteen fifteen, you will always remain with that accent because
it's now the organ is shaped in a way that
you cannot correct. And that's why I learned English at
nineteen too late.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
You learn because you're from wrong. Well, thank you, Thank you,
Isabella Roussalini. I can't say your name enough because it's
beautiful to me and it's a pleasure to be here
with you. And congratulations on your movie. And you're off
and on the road again. You are just in the world.
We should all be so good luck with that.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Thank you, thank you, Thank you for pulling up a chair.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
I love our lunches and never forget the romance of
a meal. If you enjoy the show, please tell a
friend and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Table
for Two with Bruce Bosi is produced by iHeartRadio seven
three seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers are Bruce
Bosi and Nathan King.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Our supervising producer is Dylan Fagan. Our editors are Vincent
to Johnny and Cas b bias. Table for two is
researched and written by Jack Sullivan. Our sound engineers Our Meal, B. Klein,
Jess Krainich, Evan Taylor, and Jesse Funn. Our music supervisor
is Randall. Poster Our talent booking is done by Jane Sarkin.
(47:09):
Table for two Social media manager is Gracie Wiener. Special
thanks to Amy Sugarman, Unie Scherer, Kevin Yuvane, Bobby Bauer,
Alison Kanter Graber. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Hey, everybody, it's Bruce.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Thanks for pulling up a chair for another episode of
Table for Two. Today we are not in a restaurant,
but at a beautiful farm, about to have a delicious
lunch of salmon and fresh vegetables. Oh oh my god,
I'm so happily nervous sitting here with you.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
It's okay to chew for your podcast.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
My guest today is a model, an actress, an animal behaviorist.
She's immensely beautiful, talented and bright. Her new film, Conclave,
is a powerful look into the election of a new pope.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
My vegetables are amazing.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
We're having lunch with Isabella Rosolini. We're going to talk
about fashion, film and her legendary family. So pull up
a chair, grab a glass, Rose, and I really hope
you enjoy our conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
I'm Bruce Bossi and this is my podcast Table for two.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
So if you've pulled up a chair, we are on
a farm. We are sitting with one of the most
accomplished women who has had an incredible career, who has
a movie that premiered last night called Conclave. A renowned,
incredibly beautiful woman known for your great beauty, which I'm
(01:36):
staring at Nesmas. We are having lunch today with Isabella Rossellini.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Thank II, thank you so much with this incredible introduction.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
No, thank you. And you know your name is like
a song, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Isabella Fiorella Eletra Giovanna Rossellini.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah. So in Italy the tradition, Catholic tradition conclaves film.
So I grew up Catholic. So in the Catholic tradition,
it's not your legal name, so it's not in my passport.
In my passport, I don't even have a middle name
because in Europe the middle names, so it's only Isabella Rossilini.
But the day of your baptism you give names, and
(02:17):
during the baptism, so you give the name of a
saint that you particularly like. And for me was Joan
Jovanna because Mama played Joan of Arc my mom Thean reversement,
so she wanted Joan. And then Fiorilla is the name
of my godmother, who is my cousin. Mama was very
close to her, Johanna. And Electra. Electra is the name
(02:40):
of my grandmother. So when when you baptize the child,
which is the kind of introducing it to life. You Also,
there is the tradition of linking them with the ancestor
the name of the indeed, my case, my cousin, but
it can be your best friend and then the saint.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
That's it's a it's a beautiful it's a beautiful face.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
In My family is half Northern Italian and half Southern.
So I was named Bruce after my father, Bernard after
my grandfather, whose name is Bruno. And I took on
my father's middle named Edward for my confirmation name.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
So there's there's meaning.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
But you don't have them in your passport.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
No, No, I just have Bruce Bozzi.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
You don't even have a middle name.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Well, it's Bernard, but I never really liked Bernard. It
was like it's just for some reason, so I went
by Bruce b period, I kind of shortened it. So,
I mean, your mother, obviously ing your father.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
Berta Rusina, an incredible film director, did you sort of
have that sense of their who they were in, you know,
in the world and their significance in the world growing up?
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Well not really. I mean when you're little, you don't
understand it. You know, you you think you know people
recognize him and recognize them, and I didn't know them
because they're parents. You know, I thought parents were important,
all parents would be recognized. Then little by little I
realized all the parents are recognized. My friends parents, they
(04:07):
didn't recognize. They had to introduce a house, you know,
so that you come to it slowly. Then I remember
that I would ask my friends when I said about
how famous is my mom? And I would ask my
friends at school, is she famous like John Crawford, like
Greta Garbo, give me a measure? You know. I was
using because I couldn't really gauge it, and so I
(04:30):
think it was only when you become a teenager. I
remember my father. I was very jealous Italian father, so
I wasn't allowed to go out, and there was a
retrospective of my parents. You know, because nowadays you can
watch on Netflix or Amazon or Criteria, which is my
absolute favorite too. Criterion you can access and see the
(04:51):
films of Para. I couldn't see my parents' film why
because they were you know, they had to come out
in the movie theater maybe film. They didn't come out
once in a while. You might see them on television,
but not with the frequency that a few years ago,
or they were retrospectives in museums. So I remember when
I was I think sixteen, there was a retrospective of
(05:13):
my father's film and I went and I was because
mother said, you know, you can't go out, et cetera.
I didn't tell him I was going to see his
film because I thought maybe he was going to scold
me because I was going out without telling him, And
so I went to see them in secret. And then
my father found out that I wasn't at home as
I told him I was, and he called me and yelled,
and where have you been? And with great fear, I said,
(05:34):
are you going to see your film? Said all this
week I went to see you film. His tears came
up to his eyes. Oh wow, he was so touched
and I don't know why. And then I just said,
of course he's happy that I want to see him.
But I didn't have the courage to tell him. And
maybe I thought he would say, oh, what do you care?
You know? Interested you they now you're going to see
because I'm a famous director. But I wanted to see
(05:55):
what he was doing.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
And then you saw how meaningful it was for him
that you Oh, and what did you think when you
saw your father's films when you were young, like when
you walked out of the movie theater that first time.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Like I was very moved. I mean, he would always
say to me because his films, the most famous film
of his, were called neorealism because they look so real,
they look like documentaries, and so the critic called them neorealism,
and often they would talk about his style. He worked
with actor and an actor, he worked outside the studio
(06:27):
for the first time in real location. But there was
a style that looked completely new, And father said, but
it wasn't a style. I didn't think of his style.
It was an urgency that I felt to tell how
the civilian lived the war. It was a kind of
a moral impulse rather than a stylistic impulse. Although he
was often asked about his style. So I appreciated his
(06:50):
film because the spiritual moral dimension of his film is
what makes them so great.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yes, And then when you saw when the question was
answered regarding your mother, who you know was one of
the biggest stories ever. When did you realize how you're like? Oh,
and the lines of Greta Garbo.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
And my mom my mom had also when we were
a teenager, a retrospective of her work on television and
Italian television. So I was able to see Casa Blanca Notorious,
all the films that she did when I was I
wasn't in Betterlive. It was great, but I felt maybe
closer to my father's film because the war. I was
(07:31):
born in nineteen fifty two, so seven years after the war,
and the war was very present in my bringing, the
desperation of the war, So my father's film moved me
more than Casa Blanca. You know, Casa Blanca a reference
to the war. Everybody is so elegant, everybody so rich.
I was a little bit lost because what I'd known
(07:51):
about the war was very different from Casa Blanc Shore.
So I had to acquire the Hollywood culture of the
bigger than life, the dream, quite the entertainment quality, and
I appreciated, but immediately I was confused by ed. I said,
how can how can these be refugees and they go
like dressed like this at the rich cafe. It's impossible.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Did you have any idea that that would be a journey,
a path that you decided that you would go on
as far as acting.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
And not really I thought I was going to make
films but not acting. When I was eighteen and finished
the school I went to for three years to Academia
and the Costume and Model which is a school that
teaches you to become a costume designer in fashion like
Parsons School of Designer in New York. And I graduated
(08:41):
thinking there would become a costume designer, and then instead
I became involved first as an assistant to a journalist
and I started to work with Roberto Benini the Life
is Beautiful, comical skit that for a few years, and
then immediately into fashion as a model. But that was
okay because it was my way into fashion, which is
something I loved. Fashion is contemporary costume, isn't it. So
(09:04):
it's kind of the word the same.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yes, okay, So you.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Brought up coming to New York and fashion and you know,
and I know that you came to New York when
you were around nineteen, you know, period of your life
you started working as a model.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
And you've really worked.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I mean, you are considered and are one of the
most beautiful women in the world, and so you worked
with like incredible photographer.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
Yeah, I worked with the best pographer, may be right,
what wasp.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah, Bruce Webber, Stephen Miselle.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
What was that for you? That growing up? Because that's
very those are key years of growing up and understanding.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
But they were, you know, they were very formative years
and made me fall in love with talent and your
originality of each mind of each photographer. Although we mostly
shot for fashion, you know, occasionally portrait for maple Thorp
or pen but otherwise mostly was fashion. But I combined.
I loved fashion, and so the combination of the two. Though.
(10:11):
So I came from a family a photographer. My grandfather
from my mother's side, but I never met him. He
was dead when I was born, was a photographer, and
my mother took lots of pictures all the time. My
father was a filmmaker. It didn't take photos, but of
course cinema is photos, you know, it's visual, right, So
there was a culture of a visual culture of an
(10:33):
art that I found out even when modeling, so I
loved it. I loved every second of modeling. I'd love
to say that sometimes I think I like modeling more
than acting, partially because it was easier to reconcile with
the family. Because if you're leaving for a photo shoot,
you might be gone for three or four days, then
you come home. You a film, you might leave for
(10:53):
three months, and that's much heavier on the family. So
modeling was easier and and like there was something very
light about it. Also there was light because we were
selling clothes or makeup or whatever it was. And in
films sometimes you have to play a dramatic role. You
have to go in thoughts that are dark. You recall
(11:13):
feelings that are unpleasant so you can portray them. But
I like acting too. But I have to say a
lot of people think of meddling as a lesser job,
but it isn't. I always thought it was really great.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Do you have there a photographer of all the grades
that you've worked with that you feel how captured you,
the essence of you?
Speaker 1 (11:31):
No?
Speaker 3 (11:31):
I mean this is the great thing is that when
you are you don't try to have you. I mean,
it's embarrassing when people say, let's do a portrait of you.
Oh my god, it is so embarrassed. But you don't
know how to pose. You know, I don't know what
you know what take the photo? You know, Instead, when
you do a character it's easier and also what you're
trying to do is to find a common denominator. We
(11:53):
are all human beings. So whether I play a nun
or a whore, or an assassin or a mother trying
to find the common denominator. I don't do films or
I don't do photos to show myself or to find myself.
I do it to look at the commonality that we
have among all of us, so that people can relate
(12:15):
to the character you play.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yeah, you know, you were the face of line com
for many many years and then of course they released
you from your contractual obligations.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
You got me back ag and then they got you back.
The story with lang Com is a big saga. Yeah, yeah,
so we were and the fact that they got me back. See,
length comb is not a political movement, it's a service.
So they really do what people demand and what they ask.
And I think that in the eighties there was a
(12:45):
real I think I have to say that maybe there
were many other reasons, but I think that men were
the executive of these cosmetic lines. Men was very much.
They understood makeup when it was done for them to
seduce them, and so they emphasize the art of seduction
through makeup of clothing. But once because society evolved, women
(13:08):
became the new CEO. They saw that seduction was one
of the reason. But there resultso creativity, self expression, playfulness,
and I think that the advertisement or the way they
present themselves nowadays, it is that way. And so they
call me back. They called me back also because it
was a sense of injustice, because it was extremely successful. Yes,
(13:31):
and at forty two, the executive at the time explained
to me that advertisement is about dreams, and women dream
to be young, and so at forty two I could
not anymore represent that dream. Where I was asked back,
I said, well, if it's a problem of ages, why
don't you get Ellen Mirron or Merrill Street, because if
you get me, we get the press again to take
(13:52):
that story. And you know, these big companies are very careful.
It's about not getting into any controversy. But they were
very ape. They say, no, we want to tell the story.
We want to tell the story of the evolution of
women in society. So since we did that, then now
we do this so you can tell and it's magical.
And I agree, I think it is magical and I'm
(14:15):
super happy to work. Did you notice my makeup?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I did notice your makeup.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Did you notice that I'm doing it differently? So I
always had very little makeup. I mean sometimes I'm a
makeup because I'm an actress, but yeah, in my everyday life,
generally I had I did very little makeup. Red lipstick,
a little bit of a concealer, sometimes not even mes garret,
just a red lipstick. And then I've noticed that when
(14:40):
I did my makeup to go out at night, I
did the makeup that philosophically was wrong. We did a
makeup to make me look younger. I would cover my blemishes,
I would do this, I will do that. And then
I saw one day a man using makeup, and the
man wasn't using makeup to look like a woman, to
look more men, or to look like a woman. He
(15:01):
used to make up as a creative color, as a touch.
And that I thought, oh, I want to do that.
That seems to be more modern. So now I change
my makeup and you know, do colors on top of
my eyelid lipstick. And I mean, I could do something
more complicated, but I wanted to do also makeup that
(15:23):
is very fast because I'm at the farm r You know,
every day you want to do something it takes five minutes.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Sure, yeah, I mean you look some experiment with this
new kilosophy. Philosophy.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Sometimes I said, the red carpets, you know, if I
had to be from imagine that I'm from Mars and
I come in and I read and I look at
the red carpet. I can be fascinated. But sometimes I think,
but you can feel like the principal world that is
conveyed is Thinness. Then a lot of the clothes are
(16:05):
very glued to the body. You're not naked, but you
could see every curve, or they make you that shape,
like the typical shape of a vase. Yes, well I
don't have that shape, and I'm seventy two. I'm not
going to have that shape. I had a backup eration,
I'm not going to wear a corset. I'm not going
to wear it, you know. So I want to stay
away from that because I can't do it. It's not
(16:26):
that I wouldn't liked it or I condemn it. I
can't do it, and I give it up. So I'm
trying a different version of elegance, and it isn't Thinness.
Look at my body, But.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Isn't that what's so great about now I hope and
I love that you're saying that because it's like lean
into who you are and what you feel comfortable in
and how you want to present because I feel like
on a given day when I wake up, or like
when you wake up.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
And you're saying, like, how am I feeling today?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
You say, okay, well, I how do I want to
express myself through clothes? Because when you put a piece
of clothing on, you feel a certain thing. When you
do your face, you know your hair, you feel like,
oh okay, yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
It's the same way you say hello, how are you?
When you write shake with perhems, you present yourself so
your clothest presentation of yourself or how you want to
be perceived. That's a pleasure of being in Paris. Everybody
is so dressed up, so dressed up, so pretty. I
mean America, if it was this martian martian that arrived
from another planet, I would say that in America. But
you really want to spell is comfort? So you use
(17:27):
your gym clothes to walk in the street, which isn't
very appealing, no, but comfort is appealing, so you know,
and if you think of Calvin Klein, comfort, the simplicity
of his line. It was comfort only that he dressed
it made it dressy. That's what I like so much
about American fashion. I think of American fashion, it's three
(17:48):
big names, Calvin Crime, Rap Lauren and Donna Karen. And Rep.
Lauren was all the historical references the English, but with
an ease, you know, the I mean the gentlemen, farmers.
So but there was these references to to a Europe
that has come to America and made the clothes more comfortable,
(18:12):
you know, not so stiff. Calvin Klein for me was
really Jim clothes made ellen, but they spelled easiness. And
then Donna Karen. I have to say it was the
first woman that tried to give women, the business woman
a uniform like men have the blazer or the jacket.
And it was very helpful to have her because I remember,
(18:34):
I mean I belonged to the generation that started to
work and have careers. And we worked, or women always worked,
but I mean that was the push in. You know,
my generation always said, well I get married then you know,
sometimes you don't get married. Sometimes the husband needs that
extra So we ended up working. But it wasn't we
(18:55):
weren't recognized as we are nowadays. I think nowadays, my
children never doubt it. I'm going to get married. Nobody
ever said that. I say, we get married, but we work.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
It doesn't stop. Like you and Donna.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Really tried to dress so women in a way that
again was comfortable, by elegant, just feminine, and so comfort
is important to American because they're very active.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
I also think sort of ARMANI did something that I
thought was very very.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Money did it too because their money. I think we
need it first for men and then for women too.
But the first thing he did was to relax the
men's suit, the business suits, and all of a sudden
men could go to work but didn't look like.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
So uptight exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
They felt elegant and at ease. And the fabric and
the colors. Yesterday I just saw an Instagram a photo
of his latest collection and was him quite all the
very very elegant as gentlemen like that is with all
the models, and I was not wasn't looking at the
clothing because it was a group photos, so you couldn't
(20:00):
really see the clothes, but the palette of color. Yeah,
I thought, well, you know how elegant it all goes together,
very well, thought out.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Thanks for joining us on Table for two.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Our guest is the Bella Russellini has had an amazing
career in print and screen. She has never been afraid
to take risk, and I wanted to know what it
was like to work on two of her most progressive
and controversial projects at the time, Madonna's coffee table book
Sex and David Lynch's film Blue Velvet. I think, Isabella,
(20:52):
you've you've chosen projects, and you've gotten involved in things
that are not always mainstream, but like very creative, very
you know the way you are able to express your
so and one of the things that you did at
a time that was somewhat controversial was the whole Madonna erotica,
the Sex Book. And I can remember seeing the Sex
Book in the early nineties in a bookstore and buying it.
That sort of blew up in her face, and even
(21:14):
the album and of course in time again sort of
like with langcom in a weird way, that album goes
down as one of her best albums, and the book
goes down as being a pioneer.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
What brought you to that? It was really interesting. So
it was Stephen Marzelle, photographer, and Stephen was just getting
to be more and more successful, and they were offered
to him to do books and mostly the retrospective books,
you know, and he didn't want to do retrospective books.
He felt like, I'm still young, what do you mean
retrospective book? But then Madonna wanted to do a book
(21:46):
and I think about sex, and that appealed to him
because it was I show, you know, to do a book,
which is very prestigious, of course with Madonna, but it
was prestigious for a photographer and a fashion photographer because
you have to think that a lot of fashion photogographer
suffered from the fact that they are not considered artistic. True,
you know, the artistic photographer is the world photographer or
(22:06):
the one they do some abstract, dumb but not the
fashion photographer, which is the fashion that is most popular
and loved, were seeing as commercial. So that was a
little thorn in their heart. So that was the opportunity
to whichould do a book. The book will elevate you
from fashion photographer to a possible artist. And then and
I thought it was very interesting the subject of sex,
(22:28):
because sex can be horrible, the most tedious crime, and
it can be the most tender and loving things, yet
it can be the same act. It's amazing true. And
I knew Steven. I didn't know Madonna. We went to dinner,
and of course she's fascinating, you know, and also such
an independent mind and such an you know, an artist
(22:52):
for you know, making our own paths. But I had
done Blue Velvet, Yes, and it was so and I thought,
I thought that it was important to do that scene naked,
because this is a woman who runs out of probably
a rape or something very violent, and she walks completely naked,
bruised in the street.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
So if I'm quite a powerful movie, if you pull
its David Lynch's movie, it's really.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Yeah, it's very powerful. But when it now, it's completely accepted.
But at the time, when you came out, it was
very controversial because also of my nude scene, which I
thought were essentially in the film. So I thought, I
forget about that. I'm not going to do a nudity
So I said, you know, I'm very interested in the
subject of sex and the thing that you know, Madonna
she had girlfriend, she had boyfriend, she you know, that
(23:36):
was very interesting. Was one of the first one to
declare this, and she was experiment and but I said,
if I don't want to be nude, they accepted it.
So if you see the photo, I'm always somewhat covered,
and the photo there is a It was only me,
Naomi and Tatiana. There weren't that many other people. We
(23:58):
were hand picked, and I I felt, you know, I
felt it was interesting when I saw the book, though,
incredibly enough, I found it kind of moralistic, if I
can use an absurd word for that book, because it
was a little bit like showing us what to do.
It had a little bit of teaching thing, like I
tell you I am liberated and you are not. And
(24:20):
that bothered me. And I did speak to her and
I said, you know, also when you're naked or you're
making love, there is an incredible feeling of vulnerability. That's
what's so great. You can open up and that's the
one thing you haven't captured. It's all about having a
perfect body. And she exercised a lot, and she had
a perfect body. But it wasn't that. I said to her,
(24:43):
you know, if you photographed an athlete naked, it's a
completely different reaction that you would have if you see
a businessman or your grandfather naked. And that was I
think the part that it was missing is the standardness
in that. On the other hand, it's liberating. You know,
a matrix would hide that she was a liberating because
maybe if she had children at home, all of a
(25:04):
sudden by seeing the photo she said, well, you know,
at least somebody is talking about it, right, I didn't
feel that Lonely Madonna was a phenomenon at the time. Yep,
she still is. Yes, it's an interesting person. You know.
Part of the great pleasure of being a model or
an actress is to work with different talents. Now we
work with so many, and it's so interesting to enter
(25:27):
into their mind and try to understand one they want
to express. And sometimes it works, sometimes it's accepted by
the audience. Sometimes it isn't. But you never really know
what's going to be successful. So you can't go that
way say I do this because you're going to be successful,
because you don't know, and you might as well follow
your Yeah, you might as well follow your curiosity. And
if from Banana Madonna says you would like to do
(25:49):
work with me, how can you say, no, I'm interested.
A major talent, you'd say.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Recently, you know, I watched it again in an anticipation
of sitting watching Blue Velvet and the character that you
that you bring to life on the screen is just fascinating.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
You know, it's very interesting to work with David because
he works not on rationale, you know, not on things
that he totally understands. I remember one day he told
me something and I thought, oh, it's all right, and
that's the key to understanding. He said, you know, you
enter into a room a party immediately, you know, if
there's tension or if there is immediately, how is that?
(26:42):
How that mood? How do you capture that mood? So
that's what he's trying to do with this film is
to capture the mood. Is not to capture you enter
a room the restension because there's been a fight between
the husband and the wife. No, he's not interested on that.
He's interested and still there is something lingering and electricity
that he's trying to capture, and so working with him
(27:04):
was very interesting. And when we work together in Blue Velvet,
he told me a story that when he was a
little boy, he was returning from school with his brother
and they saw a woman naked walking down the street
and they didn't laugh or they didn't get excited. They
started to cry because they knew something very tragic had happened,
and they scared them, and he wanted to capture that.
(27:27):
And so I thought of that nick Out photo, the
nick Out photo of the little girl in Vietnam that
was and I thought, this is such a helpless gesture.
And when he was telling me the story, I imagine
that moment, walking naked like this, when if I had
walked covering myself up, I wouldn't have been totally broken.
I would still have a feeling of shame or a feeling, God,
(27:48):
I'm naked, I'm so sorry. I should you know, no
like this is you are at the edge of death.
I was familiar with the Stockholm syndrome. In Italy. We
had years of terrorism in the late seventies and a
lot of people were kidnapped. And when you people that
were kidnapped often came back home sympathizing with the kidnappers,
(28:11):
you know, as it happened with Patricia Hurst. And so
I imagined a little bit my character Door as the valance
to be so crazy because she was an unpredictable because
she was having Stockholm syndrome. Yeah, they didn't, you know,
the actors. Sometimes I didn't want to know anything psychological.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
They get bored.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
But we actors, we have to agorate to something. We
have to have a kind of psychological story. We can't
just place erratic stange. Why what is the emotion she feels?
Because you're trying to emotion. So I create stories behind
my characters. But the director sometimes I'm not interested in that.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Was that like major pivotal life changing?
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yes, I think it was pivotal, but not right away.
Because it came out it was so controversial. So it
was hard at the beginning, especially for me, because people
that liked the film they loved. Of course it's an
author's film, so they praised David Lynch, and people they
didn't like the film thought I did it to contest
my mother or contest myself because I was known as
(29:12):
a mo beautiful model, or as adbotaged myself. They put
so much psychological, complicated things that didn't exist, but they
were trying to find a reason why the film wasn't convincing.
So I thought that every time we got a bad review,
somehow we're putting the finger. At least if there was
a good review that was always praising David a minute.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Welcome back to table for two.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Isabella Russellini is not only a model and an actress,
but also an animal behaviorist.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
She's created several productions.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
That deal with animal sexuality, including the short film series
Green Porno.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
That's right, Green Porno.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
How did this unexpected chapter in her story come into being?
What is so cool about you? Is amongst many things.
As we sit on your farm and you're raising animals
and I get to get a tour after lunch, I'm
super excited. Is you know when you decided I'm going
to go back to school. You went back to school,
and you sort of and you've been always sort of
(30:33):
fascinated with bugs, and then green porn came about, which
is so fascinating.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
So what brought you to go back to study?
Speaker 3 (30:41):
I think I wish I had studied. I wish I'd
done it earlier. If anything, I think I always wanted
to be a director, a film director. I went to
a nine rate story. I feel like I'm a narrator.
I can tell story, yeah, but I didn't know how
to get there, you know, I didn't know how do
you start? Where do you go? And then when my
father turned it would have been one hundred years old.
(31:02):
I knew that he was going to be retrospective of
his work and people were going to talk about him,
and I wanted to say something that was very personal
to me about my dad how I experienced him in
his work. And at the time I was working with
a director called Guy Madden, who had door is a
very kind of avant garde crazy filmmaker from Winnipeg, and
(31:23):
he does often film in black and white and look
all ruined as if they were found in some sort
of archive, but there are new films that he does,
and I thought his aesthetic would lend itself very well
from my film, so I asked Guy to I wrote
the script and then that guy directed it and we
put it together. The film and he was called My
Dad Is one hundred years Old, a twenty minutes film,
(31:45):
and Robert Radford saw the film, liked it and bought
it for sand Dance. And at the time he was
also very enthusiastic about YouTube that had just started because
he's a big fan of silent film, and silent film
at a lot of short films, and then the film
as became an industry, became standardized, so it's half an
hour for television or hour and a half for cinema,
(32:08):
but more or less, you cannot come out of this.
And films that were two minutes long, five minutes long,
six minutes long disappeared, but YouTube started them again, and
so he thought, oh, we can do film series short
film series, and so he reached out to several artists
that were in his you know, periopheral vision or vision,
and one of them was me. And at first I thought, oh,
(32:30):
that's strange, and then I said, oh, I can do
a close up with me. If I were a bug,
transform myself into a bug. I will make that way,
and so I did. We did a pilot. It worked
very well. We ended up doing forty short film and
I combined, if you want, my costume designing that I
started when I was my acting and my love for animals.
(32:52):
Once I became old, that worked less as an actress
as a model. And that's when I went back to
school at a university and took a master agree on mythology,
which is animal behavior and conservation. Okay. I then started
to lose his films. It's it can't help. I always
tell story.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
But it's amazing because you know, it's also like when
you say I became old, it's so interesting to hear
because that's not an easy thing for any of.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Us to say when I became old.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Like you really have to because we live in this world.
And then when people feel and that's happened to me
in my life, Oh, I'm you know, I'm forty and
I'm too old to do something you know or like.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
And then next thing, you know, I'm going to be
fifty nine this year. It's like, well, okay, well that
was nineteen years of past, you know, so much like
we were never too old.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Oh yeah, yeah, never, no, you know. I mean it's
funny because I know we have this big number. I'm
having two's this big number accompanying me. But I'm stupefied
because inside you always feel the same. You haven't really changed, right.
And also we don't see I don't see myself right.
I see my hands, I say what's wrong spots, you know,
but I don't see my face. And I'm always kind
(33:58):
of shocked, you know, when I see myself in films.
I at first sometimes I said, what's wrong with the light,
And I said, no, it's not the light.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
What Let me tell you the face I'm looking at
right now is spectacular, I might add, so last night
your movie premiered. Yeah, tell me about that movie. It's
(34:30):
a very intense movie. I mean, the whole transition when
a pope passes and then the sort of the process
that goes on, and also the sort of complexities of
the Catholic.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Church and the whole thing. You know, talk to me
about why did the movie and how you.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
So the conclave is is the election of a new pope.
When the pope dies, one hundred and twenty cardinals go
into a conclave, which mean they are secluded in the
Vatican and they take the meeting in the Sistin Chapel
with all the fresco of Michael Avangelo. And then they
also sleep in Casa Santa Marta, which is a kind
(35:09):
of a hotel if you want, but dorms, very very little, severe,
little cell and they cannot communicate with the world outside
until they elect the pope. And so the film is
about that. And of course the cardinals are humans, so
although they're trying to be spiritual leaders, they have all
the faults of the human being. There is ambitions, there
(35:31):
is lies, there is abuse. There's also sainthood. There's also
moral dilemma. There is all of it. There is also
political facts, exactly like we have it in our politics.
They are progressive and more conservative, and there is these
fights among them, all fights argument. But it's so well written,
(35:53):
and it was a book originally and then translated into
a marvelous script. Words were so beautiful. As an actor,
to say those lines was such a pleasure. And in
the conclave there is one cardinal that was not known
to the others. He had been elected. The Pope elects
(36:13):
to them and he has been elected impactory meaning inside
as a secret because he was serving in Baghdad and Kabul,
and so he has a paper to show that the
Pope has elected him, but they kept it secretly to
protect him. And in dis debate he is the most
(36:34):
humble and the kindest, the most attentive, the most christ like,
if you want. He doesn't have a political agenda, he
doesn't seem driven by a personal ambition, and little by
little he's elected the Pope. Yes, but the film ends,
(36:55):
I wouldn't. I'm terribly sorry to say the ending, because
the ending is such a it really is. But the
film to me is an orday about doubt, and at
the beginning of the film refines it places to Dean
is in charge of Dean pop dies in charge of
the conclaim. So he has this bureaucratical responsibility and he's
(37:16):
very plagued by it because he maybe wants more of
a monastic life of meditation and prayer, and instead, with
the death of the pope, now he's thrown into this
brawl of policy and investigating people and lives, and he's
suffering in the center of all of this, and he
has to manage it. And it gives a wonderful speech
(37:38):
at a certain point talking about certitude as being evil
and doubt being equality. So because he says in doubter
is mystery, and if there was no mystery, there will
be no faith. So we have and I hope that
(37:59):
the pope will be elect that will be humble enough
to recognize that we're trying our best, but there is
always a doubt. So this is humbleness in the things
that the church takes. Stands saying women should not be
priested or should not get married, nor men gays are condemned,
and that maybe there is a doubt to me in
(38:21):
real life. The most moving moment of the spoke Francis
is when he was asked about gay people, and he said,
who am I to judge? The church traditionally condemns gay people.
But on the other hand, they might be the doubt
that the church is wrong. We're trying, they are trying
to bring the Word of God, and in the Bible
(38:43):
it says, go and reproduce. Therefore you can't be gay
because you can't reproduce. But maybe maybe that's an interpretation.
I find that so moving, and the film is the
celebration of that. So when the finally the pope is
the most christ Like, the most kind, so humble person
is elected, there is the final doubt. And I have
(39:07):
to say we had the most wonderful actors, you know,
Stanley Tuccio and Lithgo. But to me, I have to
say Santo Casillito, who is a very known actor in
Italy but not known in America, and he plays the
most conservative, but he plays him with such an energy
he smokes. You would think he would be the most
liberal because he smokes, he sis, you know, and instead
(39:30):
he is the most conservative. And I thought that Ce
did an incredible, incredible It surprises me. I was yesterday.
I saw the film again and I was waiting.
Speaker 6 (39:39):
And had such pleasure at looking at him.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
What is sister Agnes, You are the only woman.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
Yes, I'm the only woman.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
I think you do something that's very difficult to do,
which is your eyes tell many no words in many things.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Edward Berger is a superior filmmaker, the director, and he
has used everything from the way photographed the film, the
way he edited, the way the music is. The music
is extraordinary. But also he underlines this very big difference
between men and women in the Catholic Church because it's
a patriarchal society. So nuns are there all the time,
(40:26):
but they don't speak, they don't say anything. So I
loved to have a role that I could play and
can create a whole person. Avoid Maybe because I was
a model, avid On did say to me, models are
a silent movie star. I don't say anything, and then
when I speak, bomb is like a bomb, and I
speak very little, and yet you always know where she is.
(40:48):
So I think I'm going to say something quite extraordinary.
When I was little, I went to school and I
went to nuns school, and my nun of course they
have take the vowel of being submissive and submitted to
the patriarchal society. But they were not. They didn't lack authority.
(41:09):
They had great authority. Even if they didn't speak, they
looked down they were, but they always had great authority.
So I'd witnessed that. When I went to school with
the nuns, I asked them, one of them that I
particularly liked, if family was happy when she decided to
be a nun. She said, absolutely not. My mother dreamed
to become a grandmother, and of course in the Catholic Church,
(41:32):
we can't get married. So she cried and cried and said,
won't you go to Mass every day and be religious,
but get married and make me a grandmother. But it
was a calling. I had to do it. I didn't
want to hurt my family. It was a calling. It
was a calling. It was exactly the same word my
mama used when she talked about acting, and she was
accused of being neglectful toward us, and we had four children,
(41:54):
and what you were to work? She said, I can't
help it. I haven't chosen acting. Acting chose me. And
when my mom came to school conferences, the NaNs and
Mamma spoke as these kind of women that were following
their passion, that were completely independent. I've seen submissiveness more
in my aunt, in some of the mothers of my
(42:15):
friends in school, but I've never seen it in the NaNs.
And in my mom was a very big emancipated moment
from Scandinavia that helped but also a better, huge career,
and so I tried to play her that way instead
of being you know, submissive and quoi full of modesty.
She doesn't speak, but she has enormous authority.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
It's an incredible film. Yes, it is really is an
incredible film.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
And it's I think again it's a film that's of
the moment with everything that's going on.
Speaker 3 (42:53):
Yes, I don't think it was written for the moment
in our controversy. Of course, I'm the controversy. See the
political controversy and tension and the world being so you know,
extreme and conservative and progressive. It's something that is not
only in America, but it's all over the world and
including Catholic Church surse. It came from a book, and
(43:15):
the book was written five years ago, so way before
this election. But yes, its very much many many residents
to our political situation.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
I just don't think there's no coincidences. So like this book,
I think Landcomb and then coming back where the world
over the last twenty years shifted its perspective.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
The story of.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Your mother and her career and the moment that you know,
she was held accountable for something that today that would
not have happened.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Yeah, so my mom was held accountable. So my mom
was Swedish and she came to America while Europe was
in the war, and she became this famous movie star.
And Mama was very drawn to cinema, As I said,
it was a calling. And she saw two of my
father's film and wrote to him saying, I would like
to work with you, and it would be like Julia
(44:03):
Roberts trying to nowadays to a Syria and director. You know,
because Mama Italy was right after the war destroyed country.
Also we were allied of Hitler, you know, we were
in the right side, so we were very much looked down.
And when they met, they fell in love. A mother,
before she could obtain a divorce, became pregnant from my father,
(44:24):
and this created a very big scandal in the United States,
and not being a citizen, she was not allowed back,
and you sent it, took a stand against my mom,
and it was very painful. Not only all the money
she made was confiscated, and because she had a daughter here,
so the money went to her. It was okay for Mama,
but she couldn't see her daughter, and that was very painful.
(44:45):
And it remained for Mama. Now. Then eight years later
they saw each other, they loved each other and all that.
But that period was really difficult.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Of course, I can imagine.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
And that's why I'm an accent. People say, well, do
you have an accent? An accent because I was born
right during the scandal. Mama could not come to America.
I did not learn English, because you know, you have
to learn languages when you're very young in order not
to have an accent. I learned, yes, because our vocal
see here is the scientist talking. The vocal chords is
(45:17):
a very complex instrument. It is made of tiny bones
and ligaments and cartilages, and they are very soft and
at a certain point, when you are about thirteen or fourteen,
you become more rigid. So if you haven't shaped them,
the little bone to vibrate and make the perfect r
or the perfect te that I can't say. I say
(45:37):
this that it's very difficult, and you can't. You don't
have any more. So any languages that is learned after
fourteen fifteen, you will always remain with that accent because
it's now the organ is shaped in a way that
you cannot correct. And that's why I learned English at
nineteen too late.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
You learn because you're from wrong. Well, thank you, Thank you,
Isabella Roussalini. I can't say your name enough because it's
beautiful to me and it's a pleasure to be here
with you. And congratulations on your movie. And you're off
and on the road again. You are just in the world.
We should all be so good luck with that.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Thank you, thank you, Thank you for pulling up a chair.
Speaker 4 (46:27):
I love our lunches and never forget the romance of
a meal. If you enjoy the show, please tell a
friend and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Table
for Two with Bruce Bosi is produced by iHeartRadio seven
three seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers are Bruce
Bosi and Nathan King.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Our supervising producer is Dylan Fagan. Our editors are Vincent
to Johnny and Cas b bias. Table for two is
researched and written by Jack Sullivan. Our sound engineers Our Meal, B. Klein,
Jess Krainich, Evan Taylor, and Jesse Funn. Our music supervisor
is Randall. Poster Our talent booking is done by Jane Sarkin.
(47:09):
Table for two Social media manager is Gracie Wiener. Special
thanks to Amy Sugarman, Unie Scherer, Kevin Yuvane, Bobby Bauer,
Alison Kanter Graber. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Host
Bruce Bozzi
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