For Isabella Rossellini, Acting Goes Beyond Words

Isabella Rossellini’s first exposure to the public glare was at five days old. Her father, the Italian neo-realist director Roberto Rossellini, and her mother, the Swedish movie icon Ingrid Bergman, had invited the press to a Roman hospital to meet Isabella and her twin sister, Isotta Ingrid Rossellini. The babies yawned. According to the papers, Bergman insisted that Isabella, whose hair was darker than her sister’s, “is the Italian type, like Roberto. Ingrid is Nordic, like me.”

That was 1952, two years after Bergman had scandalized America by having an affair with Rossellini during the making of “Stromboli” and having their baby—Isabella’s older brother Roberto—before divorcing her first husband. Condemned on the floor of the U.S. Senate, the star of “Casablanca” was temporarily excommunicated from Hollywood. Isabella, forged in this crucible of gossip and glamour, went on to live an eventful life of her own. Her film credits include David Lynch’s 1986 neo-noir, “Blue Velvet,” and she’s been directed by everyone from Norman Mailer to Julio Torres. A great beauty like her mother, she was the face of Lancôme for years, until she was dropped, at age forty-two, for being “too old.” (The brand rehired her two decades later.) In a twist, she returned to school in her fifties and got a master’s degree in animal behavior, a topic she also explores in her viral Web series “Green Porno,” in which she dressed up in elaborate animal costumes while explaining how different creatures reproduce.

Now another twist: at seventy-two, Rossellini may be on the verge of her first Oscar nomination, for a film in which she has less than eight minutes of screen time. In Edward Berger’s “Conclave,” which follows the tumultuous selection of a new Pope at the Vatican, Rossellini is part of a sterling ensemble, including Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, and Stanley Tucci. She plays Sister Agnes, a headstrong nun who nevertheless knows her place among the politicking male cardinals. Rossellini is silent for the film’s first half, but her glares are transfixing. When she finally does have her say, she has the potency of a clap of thunder.

When I spoke with Rossellini recently, over Zoom, she was nearing the end of a two-month tour through France, where she had been performing her latest biological solo show, “Darwin’s Smile,” about animal behavior. “I’m in a city called Pau, which is in the South of France,” she said, positioning herself so that her face would pick up the light from her hotel window. “I can see the Pyrenees. It’s a very rainy day, so I’ve been in the hotel all day.” Our conversation, which has been edited and condensed, started with Darwin, before meandering through such subjects as nuns, Rome in the sixties, Andy Warhol, Madonna, and plastic surgery.

What is your new monologue about?

This is my third monologue. I have a master’s degree in ethology, so when I write I always do things concerning animals. This one is about acting and Darwin. Darwin wrote a book called “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.” If I smile, it’s understood all over the world. But if I do this [flicks her fingers from under her chin] it’s understood only in Italy. So certain expressions of emotion are learned, and some, like smiling, might have been shaped by evolution. Darwin was convinced that animals, at least chimpanzees and monkeys, laughed. So I mix my knowledge as an ethologist and [my knowledge of] the expression of emotion, which is what we actors do. This is my thirty-first theatre, and tomorrow or the day after is my thirty-second, and then I come home.

As an actor, do you ever look to animal emotion?

Not really. I’m interested in animals’ emotions and how they express them. It happened that Darwin was interested, too. He wrote this book, which isn’t as well known as “On the Origin of Species,” but it’s quite interesting. Why are certain expressions understood all over the world, at least by human beings, and certain other expressions we have a commonality with animals? They also go like this [recoils] when they don’t like something. They tremble when they are afraid. It’s an interesting question, isn’t it?

I would love to hear some interesting facts about how animals express emotion.

Oh, you know, dogs wag their tails. They growl when they’re unhappy. The showing of the teeth is very common among animals. And we do it, too—grrr!—when we are angry. It’s one of the things I act out onstage. I show anger, because I’m an actress—grrr!—and then I say the same thing and lift my fists, because Darwin found that, in many countries, lifting the fist was a way to show anger. But that means that maybe gestures can be dated. Showing the teeth might have started when we were still walking on all fours, but this [raises her fists] meant that we took the vertical position, which liberated our hands, and they can be used as a weapon.

It makes me wonder what Darwin would have made of the evolution of film acting. As the technology has changed, the expression of emotion has changed as well, from silent-film acting to what we have now.

I miss silent-film acting. Silent film was a lot of pantomime. People overdid it, but Chaplin was perfect. He had to do it without words, but you understand all the subtleties of these emotions. I feel sorry that silent film lasted only about twenty years, and then the technology wiped out an art form.

This is a perfect segue to “Conclave,” because so much of your role is wordless, and yet you do so much to captivate the audience. How did you think about drawing in the camera and the other actors, without having something to say?

I don’t think acting is talking. So much of acting is reacting. It’s to have a presence, to emanate something. I never thought it was important to have lines, although most of the time, if you have lines, you have a closeup. That is because people listen and also watch lips, as we do in life. To me, what was interesting in the silence of Sister Agnes was that we really wanted to underline the difference in the Catholic Church of the roles of men and women. When I finally speak, I say, “We sisters are supposed to be invisible.” But still I thought that it was important, and Edward Berger agreed, that Sister Agnes should have enormous strength and dignity.

I’m not a churchgoer, but I grew up in Rome, and I went to a [school run by nuns]. My nuns exuded an authority, a matter-of-factness. I remember my favorite nun at school, I asked her, When you decided to become a nun, how did your family react? And she said, Oh, they cried so much. They said to me, Why don’t you go to church every day? You can still be as religious as you want but give us grandchildren. And she added, I had to do it, because it was a calling. It was something that was stronger than her, something she couldn’t control. Incredibly, that was the same answer my mom gave me about acting. Mama had four children in the fifties, and she was very scolded for continuing a career—why wouldn’t she stop and wait until the children grow up? My mom used to say, “I didn’t choose acting. Acting chose me. It’s a calling.” I saw this independence, that strength, both in my mother and in the nuns. So I wanted to play that.

Sister Agnes certainly has an iron will, and she can push back on the cardinals when she needs to. I’m curious how much you filled out her story with details that weren’t in the script. Was it important for you to know where she came from, why she had become a nun, details like that?

I felt that she had to be very sophisticated, and I imagined that she came from a privileged class, that she had studied, and that it was really a decision to become a nun. In the film, everyone speaks different languages. When I grew up in Rome, the internationalism was really brought in from the Vatican, because there were people coming from all over the world. So I imagine that she understood every word. At a certain point, Ralph Fiennes mentions that I was very close to the dead Pope, so I imagine that I was a confidante of the Pope, or would talk to other cardinals. She never really expresses her opinions, and not being in the brawl is what gives her enormous authority. I almost felt that the cardinals were afraid of her.

After she makes her big revelation in the Vatican cafeteria—by the way, I loved the shots of the tortellini being prepared for all the cardinals—she gives a little curtsy, which always gets a reaction in the theatre. How did you think about her body language?

When she does the curtsy, it’s to go back, to say, “I know I have to be invisible. I know my role.” But she says, “God has nevertheless given us eyes and ears,” which is a fantastic line, isn’t it?

This movie also made me think about the office machines in the Vatican. Your character uses an old computer and a kind of janky copy machine.

And there is the Nespresso that John Lithgow is trying to make work. These little things indicate how these cardinals are always attended to. They don’t know how to work the copy machine, and the Nespresso is the only thing, because, probably, they can’t make any other coffee. Edward Berger has the great power of telling a lot with images or creating little situations—even them smoking. I mean, they are human. That’s why they are subject to ambition and wanting power. They are not just ecclesiastic people, lingering in spirituality and in morality. So they smoke. And I know how to use the Xerox machine, because I’m always there assisting.

Right, she’s almost like a secretary to a bunch of executives. This movie is an incredible ensemble piece, with you and Ralph Fiennes and John Lithgow and Stanley Tucci, some of whom you’ve worked with before. I would love to hear about the times you had together.

We stayed in a beautiful hotel called Rhinoceros Roma, which is run by the Fendi family. One day, I discovered that somehow, by mistake, I got a key that could open all the doors! I entered into an unknown person’s room and said, “I’m sorry!” I had gotten on the wrong floor. So I called Stanley and said, “Can I come and see if it works?” And I could open everybody’s rooms. So we had lots of fun, lots of laughs with that. It’s a beautiful hotel that overlooks the ruins of the Roman Forum, and on Saturdays and Sundays, which were the days we didn’t work, it has the best farmers’ market, only local food from the region. The production was so kind, because they made arrangements for us to visit the Sistine Chapel. We couldn’t film in the Sistine Chapel, of course. In Cinecittà, they rebuilt it.

It’s good to have a spare Sistine Chapel somewhere, in case anything happens to it.

But at Cinecittà there is also imperial Rome. It’s fantastic. It’s open to tourism. I always suggest people go see the Forum, which is all broken stones, and then go to Cinecittà and see these incredible temples! Of course, I never had any scenes at the Sistine Chapel, because this is where the cardinals—the men—gather. But I went, because I wanted to see [the set]. I was moved, because Cinecittà is the studio where my father worked, where Federico Fellini worked, and it left a legacy of artisans who were able to redo Michelangelo’s work to perfection. It was unbelievable, all painted. It was a fantastic day where I felt very proud to be part of that lineage.

Do you have strong memories of Cinecittà from growing up? Were you on your father’s sets?

I do, especially visiting Fellini, because my father preferred to film on location. That was one of the characteristics of neorealism, to be in real situations. Fellini, especially in his later work, dealt a lot with dreams or memories, so he built everything in Cinecittà. “Amarcord” was basically shot in Cinecittà. “Amarcord” in the dialect means “I remember,” so it’s a film about when he was a child.

Of course, I love that movie.

I remember visiting Fellini and seeing the beautiful ocean. Remember, there’s a big boat that arrives in Rimini, and there’s this black sea? There were black plastic bags, and they had wind to make them look like waves. It was so brilliantly conceived, like puppetry, but at an immense scale. I remember how much I admired that. Who ever thought a black plastic bag could become an ocean?

It’s interesting hearing about you growing up in Rome. On the one hand, you were taught by nuns, but on the other hand you were part of this glamorous world of cinema.

It wasn’t glamorous like Hollywood. I don’t remember red carpets. I remember maybe once in a while my father going to the Venice Film Festival. Nowadays, you don’t go to one film festival, you do twenty. And dinners. And awards. I don’t have a memory of that. It’s America that makes it big and festive and commercial, with marketing—that’s American genius.

But wasn’t that the age of the rise of the paparazzi? You must have seen that around your mother.

Oh, that was a torment. It’s incredible to me. I go to the Bulgari Hotel, or these fancy places, there are photos by paparazzi on the wall! We didn’t [experience] them like this. And they were bad-quality photos. It wasn’t like [Irving] Penn or [Richard] Avedon. Looking back, I think it’s the film “La Dolce Vita” that created that myth. In reality, Italy after the war was coming out of tremendous pain. I remember a building that was destroyed by bombing—Florence, Naples, they had all been bombed and were being rebuilt. There was an economic boom, and then the paparazzi arrived, because people came and discovered Italy and the good food and the good weather. But it was the beginning. Today, when you look back, it’s a distorted idea. It’s glamorized.

You must have been a very young girl when the Second Vatican Council was going on. It looms very large in “Conclave.” Did you have an awareness of that happening and what it meant?

Yes. It was Pope John XXIII. I was a little girl, and I remember how we were moved by this Pope. In Italy, you have news every day on the television or in the newspaper of what the Pope has done. And the Pope would come on at night, when all the children have to go to bed, to wish us good night. He was a very personable, kind Pope—not like the one before, Pius XII, who was very intellectual, but very distant. When we were little children, we were afraid of him. John XXIII was a little bit like the Pope today, Pope Francis, who talks to people and has warmth and is inclusive, as much as the Church can be.

Your mother had this scandal before you were born, when she became pregnant with your older brother before she married your father. Being educated by nuns, being in this Catholic milieu, did you feel any lingering moral judgment against your family?

No, we were completely accepted. The condemnation came from America. In Italy, also, we didn’t have divorce. My father was married and had two children from a previous marriage. Mama, of course, was married, and that was the scandal. Father had to obtain an annulment, which is a very difficult thing. But a lot of families were like that. It’s not as if you forbid divorce and people don’t fall in love. You forbid divorce and you create a situation that is difficult bureaucratically, because of visas or inheritance or properties. But people who live around you they love you and understand it. When Roberto, my older brother, was born, the Senate took a stand against my mom, saying, “Out of the ashes of Ingrid Bergman will grow a better Hollywood.” She was not allowed back. But when my mama, who had the front page of every newspaper, had a baby boy, officially the child was the son of Roberto Rossellini and “unknown mother.” My mother could not officially recognize the son that just came out of her vagina, could not officially sign the paper, because automatically the father would have been her first husband, Petter Lindström. This is the craziness of bureaucracy, when you try to interfere too much in people’s private lives!

Wow.

We just thought it was absurd, and so did my friends. And, quite frankly, also the nuns. The nuns were very kind to my mom. I think they identified with this kind of strong woman. They were all independent and not submissive. My mom often had to travel, and I remember how my nuns were always reassuring her that they were going to look after us. Mama felt very safe.

You came to New York for college when you were nineteen, in the early seventies. By then, America had become a lot less puritanical. It was a completely transformed culture. What were your impressions of New York when you first arrived?

It was still the middle of the war in Vietnam, and I was very curious. I grew up right after the [Second World] War, and the war was so present in the grownups’ memory. But they didn’t talk about it, because it was too traumatic. Every time there was a noon siren, everybody went like this [gasps], because it was still a reaction to the warnings from the bombardments. Then, when I came to New York, I was so curious to come to a country that was at war—and there was no war. It all happened in another country, far away. Yes, you had protests, but war wasn’t there the same way. That was the biggest difference, I think.

Were you involved in the counterculture of the early seventies?

What drew me a lot was feminism. Feminism was very empowering and made me who I am—my mom and feminism, the combination.

Was your mother a feminist?

She didn’t understand what it was about. If you said women should vote, [she’d say,] “Of course we should vote!” Women should be paid the same as men? “Of course we should be paid the same as men!” It was a given. But she never went marching.

Did you?

I did. I marched in Italy to get the law of divorce, to get contraceptives, abortion. To have a police unit for rape that consisted of women, not men, asking a victim to give the details of what had happened. We fought a lot.

Did you feel like acting was a calling, the way your mother did?

No, it was not! I was very hesitant about acting, because Mama was so famous. I was so afraid that I might take advantage of them, or it might be looked at as if I had taken advantage of them. I always wanted to study animals, so my calling is really ethology. But I could realize it only in my sixties. In Italian they say, “You get there slowly, but you get there, like a snail.” Recently, I’ve been doing all these interviews for “Conclave,” and one was with Interview magazine. They make you read an interview that you’ve given, and then you have to judge yourself. Andy Warhol came to interview me with another person [in 1978]. I looked at Andy Warhol like an old gentleman. He put me on the cover. I didn’t know what to make of it. But, when I reread that interview, I said, “I love animals and I would like to make films about animals.” It was right there! I had just arrived in New York, and Andy Warhol saw me at a party with my dad. That’s how Warhol spotted me, and he kept on saying, “You’re so beautiful, you should be an actress!” And I remember exactly what I thought: He is so stupid! You’re beautiful, so you have to be an actress? That’s not enough! You have to be talented!

Of course, he loved surfaces and images and mass production.

Yes, exactly. But I didn’t know that when I was a little girl. I knew he was famous, and I knew of his paintings when I was in my twenties. To me, he was an older gentleman, and when older people ask you things you just obey.

If I’m not mistaken, your first film role was also as a nun, in “A Matter of Time,” from 1976, where you appear alongside your mother and Liza Minnelli, and it’s directed by her father, Vincente Minnelli. What do you remember about that?

I remember that Mama was very happy, because she finally was shooting a film in Rome and she could be with her children, instead of having to go away for two months. She also wanted one of us to love films. I think she asked Vincente Minnelli if I could play that little part, because in the film she’s run over by a car, and she’s dying at the hospital. And Mama thought this crazy contessa she was playing, when she opens her eyes, she sees a nun that looks like her younger [self]. She thought it might be a nice hallucination. But also she was trying to tempt me into being an actress. She thought, Oh, Isabella will have such a great day, and she’ll say, I want to be an actress! Acting was really playful and joyful for her. So I did it. It wasn’t very playful and joyful for me, because everybody was there taking photos. The producer called the paparazzi, because they knew they could get a little article in the paper—these things that, when I was young, made me very uncomfortable.

So that was not the beginning. The beginning of my acting was with the brothers Taviani, Paolo and Vittorio, [in “Il Prato,” from 1979]. My father had given them the Palme d’Or [at Cannes, where he] was the president of the jury, for a film called “Padre Padrone.” My father died days after, of a heart attack. It was a very shocking moment. And I remember how kind and present the Taviani were for us. A few months later, they asked me to be in their films. I said no. Mama said, “You’re crazy! Why do you say no?” I said, “Because they will compare me to you. I will get bad reviews.” And Mama said, “You’re wrong. First of all, the Taviani brothers, following your father’s tradition, often work with non-actors, so you have that. And it’s an adventure. You cannot say no to talent, because you will learn things beyond films, just by being with them.” So Mama convinced me. Then, when the film came out, I was right and she was right: I did like making films, but the reviews were horrible. So that froze me. I didn’t work. Then modelling came about. It was after being a successful model that I thought, Well, maybe I can try again to be an actress. But I became an actress only in my thirties, really.

Once your career took off, you became, among other things, a sex symbol. Did you feel comfortable with that, or did you resist it?

I don’t think I was a very big sex symbol, because I don’t think I would have had a Lancôme contract. The marketing research said that I was liked by women. Men didn’t find me particularly sexy. My executive there said, incredibly, that a lot of women who had this big contract like me were brunettes, because a blonde is associated with somebody who’s very sexy and might steal your husband, but a brunette is more friendly to women. That was the stereotype. I remember once, I think it was at Bloomingdale’s, doing a public appearance for Lancôme, and Elle Macpherson was there with another cosmetics company. I had a lot of women waiting for me to sign a photo or give them a sample or talk about what cosmetics I used. And Elle had a line of men! She was a sex symbol. She had the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Oh, that’s interesting. I guess I’m thinking of a certain moment in your career, which is 1992. First of all, you were in Madonna’s book “Sex” and in her music video for “Erotica”—speaking of blonde sex symbols! How did your association with her begin?

I had worked a lot with Steven Meisel. He’s a fashion photographer, a very successful one. Madonna came up with this idea to do the “Sex” book, and that tempted him, because he could showcase his artistry, and it was beyond fashion. Now, sex is an interesting subject. Sex can be rape, or it can be the most tender moment you experience in your life. So I met with Madonna, and I told her that I didn’t want to be nude, because I took so much flak after “Blue Velvet” that I decided not to do it anymore. And she said yes. So, in “Erotica” and in the book, I’m always dressed. There are some beautiful photos of us looking like lesbians. We’re hugging, and I’m hiding her in my coat, and she has this beautiful blond hair. When the book came out—it’s incredible to say, but I thought it was moralistic, because it points the finger a little bit, like, “I’m free, and you’re not.” I thought it was strange, the book. I expected it to be controversial. But it didn’t go very deep into the soul. It remained a little bit at the surface: Madonna as a sadomasochist, Madonna as a lesbian.

Madonna, like Warhol, understands the commercialization of images.

I thought that the “Sex” book was going to be a deeper analysis of sex. I just saw “Babygirl,” and this morning I was also watching “Queer.” You know, it’s always interesting, sex, especially when it’s done by people of the calibre of Nicole Kidman. I’m not totally convinced by “Babygirl.” The person who really moved me the most, and I’m going to vote for him for Best Supporting Actor, is Antonio Banderas. He’s the husband. The husband’s so tender—sexy, but tender. I understood what was in his heart. Sometimes I didn’t understand exactly what was in the heart of the others. I was more taken by “Queer,” because Daniel Craig plays this feverish lust, always looking for sex. He’s like a predator, but then he falls sometimes into tenderness.

They’re both movies about overwhelming erotic desire that can change the course of your life.

Well, I never had that as a personal experience, so I need these films to understand what is in other people’s minds.

I have to ask you about another thing you did in 1992, “Death Becomes Her.” I was very pleased to hear your voice doing the curtain speech at the new Broadway-musical version.

You recognized it! I was asked to do it, and I was delighted to do it, but I didn’t think people would recognize me. I thought, I’ll give the instructions to turn off the phones, and there’s a purpose for it. And maybe some in the audience would say, “Is that Isabella?” I haven’t seen it yet, because I’ve been touring in Europe. One of the first things that I will do when I come back for Christmas is go see “Death Becomes Her.”

It’s a very funny musical. But I love that movie, and you, of course, play this sorceress who has a special potion that stops the aging process. Do you have fond memories of that movie? Meryl Streep has said that it was kind of laborious, because she had to deal with all the special effects.

I didn’t have much of that at all. I remember testing for Robert Zemeckis. I adore him. I am going to say something strange: He reminds me so much of my dad. Robert Zemeckis is more commercially successful, but he remains very experimental. Even his latest film, “Here.” And he was so kind when I went to test for the part. I wanted it very badly, because at the time I was doing all the Lancôme advertisements, all the anti-aging cream. I said, “I’m the perfect person, because I have the potions!” And he said, “The studio may want someone more famous than you, but I like so much what you’ve done, so I’ll get back to you.” He was so nice, because nobody gives you this explanation. Then, three weeks later, he called me and said, “No, it’s you.” I was so happy. I thought that Bruce Willis proved to be an incredible actor. We always know him in these action films, and in the movie he played this little frightened man.

Right, he plays sort of a nebbish.

Fantastic. For me, it was a pleasure to be in this film. When it came out, it got mixed reviews, and then it acquired this big reputation that it has now.

“Death Becomes Her” is about how difficult it is for women to age in Hollywood and in life. A few years after that, you were dropped by Lancôme, infamously, for being too old. How did you experience middle age in Hollywood?

I never really thought I was Hollywood, because I’ve always had supporting roles. I started in my thirties, so I was already old. In Europe, I now see a lot of women having plastic surgery. I don’t know why I haven’t done it. I was born with a very bad back, and so I had several operations, and the idea of having another operation, anesthesia, painkillers—I think that has contributed a lot to not having another operation. And feminism. Some days I wake up and say, “It’s just a new technology. It’s progress. I should take advantage of it.” And then the next day I wake up and say, “No, it’s like foot-binding! I should not do plastic surgery.” Meanwhile, I am seventy-two. Now it’s too late. But, incredibly enough, my career seems to be going better now that I’m older and wrinkled and fatter. So go figure it out.

I think it helped me to have this curiosity about ethology. It was during a period when I was depressed—I lost my income, and I had two babies at home—that I went to study ethology and started making my [“Green Porno”] films. And then Lancôme got me back. The company said, Oh, we should have never let you go! When Lancôme left, and I was forty-two, I had to still make a living, and acting wasn’t really there, either. The fact that I was able to restart a new career, it gave me a lot of—how you say?—certitude that I can take care of myself. Now I feel, like, O.K., if something else happens, I will survive.

In the past couple of years, you’ve been working with a lot of young, cool comedians, like Jenny Slate, on “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On,” and Julio Torres, on “Problemista.” You also have a character on Nick Kroll’s series “Human Resources,” the spinoff of “Big Mouth.” Do you seek out these comic talents, or do they come to you?

Most of the time they come to me, I think because they know that I am willing to work in experimental film, like I’ve done with Guy Maddin. I didn’t have an agent for many years. After “Blue Velvet,” I was let go by my agent, who was one of the people who thought that “Blue Velvet” was a bad porno film. Then I finally had another agent, and that agent let me go once Lancôme let me go, because they said, “I can’t do anything for you.” So, when people came to me, they came to me directly. There wasn’t a filter. If I liked the person and they seemed intelligent and enthusiastic, I did it.

I have one more question. “Conclave” is a “Big Night” reunion, with you and Stanley Tucci. Between you having grown up in Rome and Stanley’s devotion to Italian food, the two of you must have eaten really well. Any tips for people going to Rome?

He knows more than I do, because when I go to Italy I end up seeing my friends, and people cook at home. But he didn’t know this restaurant called L’Eau Vive, which is run by nuns. It’s full of cardinals, nuns, priests, whatever—but it’s open to the public. Not too many people go. My mom used to go, because they didn’t bother her. She could never be in a restaurant, because they would take photos. But not the nuns. I brought Stanley, and I think he was impressed. Not only by the food—the food was very simple—but by the atmosphere. They sang. They prayed. It was perfect for “Conclave.” ♦