Welcome back to the 824 podcast. We recently brought together, old friends and Cinema royalty, Isabella, Rossellini and Willem Dafoe for a long-distance Zoom conversation. Full of never before revealed stories from their time, working with David Lynch on movies like Wild at Heart and blue velvet. We hope you enjoyed the episode and catch Isabella Rossellini as the Beloved Nana, Connie and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On now in theaters. Hi. Hi. I'm Isabella Rossellini Nick.
Hi, I'm willing to follow or the other way around. We are actors so you'll never know. And this is the podcast for a 24. Hey, how are you? I'm finding you good, where are you? So how many we York? I'm an outside Rome. That's a drone, that's what I thought too, because I can see on, Zoom the door behind you and I said that's not America. No, it's In fact, in fact, it's an Indian daughter, actually. But so you could have been in India, but I thought he had to lie.
I could be in that league, but India, but I'm in and a decidedly Indian Decor Rome actually, yeah, so, so speak Italian by now Willam. You, do, I see polygon panel on your Journal says, oh, really you see you taking lessons, or you just a little bit once? So, we can take a lesson, but I read a little bit in the morning. Well, the giant grammar is very complicated, but if it's of any consolation, we Italian make many mistakes. When we thought the song, the song, the verb.
The verb is so difficult, so we make mistake. I know the verbs are killers. Yes, it's true. Recently, I found out, I can actually fight an Italian. You know, when I'm angry very, very good. Sometimes those saying big words in a different man, Pitcher it allows you because sometimes when when I say well, we can't say it now because I don't know if it can be censored or not. This part of go ahead, but face a fuck in English.
It doesn't resonate in me as strong as a probably resonated to an American. So when I fight for it, when I fought with my husband, I often switch to Ink. I felt. I was very violent in my language. Jin English, but I couldn't be abused the same strength in Italian because those words, hit me. And then I thought, oh I don't want to be that that hard. So I'm sure you have you know, a lot of bad words. Oh God. That's the first thing you learn. You know. Oh yes.
And in Italy. They elaborate they can invent new words. Yeah. The other ridiculous thing is, of course, maybe it's partly because I'm an actor and I like Mimic things, but you learn gestural language, you know? Yes. So, anything, you know, I just felt somebody gave me a teeny book with all the Italian gestures and it's wonderful. And some of it is references for very long history of how they came about. And I didn't know it.
Of course, I do tell you a gesture, but I didn't know how they came about and so much of the gestures. Yeah, there was also used in the commedia, dell'arte, in all these improvised theater of Italy, where there was a little, you know, They were character that were set and little bit of stories but all these gesture also came to make. And this you know, to make the audience understand what were the subtext of the character? I'll send it to you.
He'd be very interesting talk. They want you. When you were living in Tribeca and I was living in Tribeca and you were your I had your experimental theater, right? The Wooster group. Yes, I was, I was with that company from many many years and they, Still exist but because of various reasons I had to leave and but they still go, it's not the same but that was a big part of my life is that was part of your life. I remember, I remember, you know, that was what maybe 40 years ago.
So I started in 77 and I stopped in about 2003 or for So that's a long time, stretch. Yeah. You missed it because you did that. But I know when I, you know, yeah, I've done theater. I after, after I finished with the Wooster group, I worked with three directors, that I love that very fortunate. I worked with Richard Foreman, who I've worked with before, who had a beautiful theater, that was in st.
Mark's church for a long time. It was a little chamber theater called the unto ontological is Work together.
I loved working with him. I did a piece with him at the public, and then I worked with Bob Wilson, a couple of times, in fact, one time with Baryshnikov, which was a, which was based on a kind of a surrealist Rider Russian writer named Daniel carms, and it was principally a movement piece, which was great fun for me, because one of the beautiful things about the fear of it and you weren't afraid. Boarded in film, is you get to use your body so fully?
Yeah. So it was a, it was a, it was a, it was a great piece because we played twins, we were dressed alike, and sometimes we'd mimic each other. And that, that was a great experience. And then also, I worked with this, great Italian, director named, Romeo Custer Lucci, you know, his work, don't you know, I don't know his work because although I am Italian and I often go to Italy, I have lived in America for 50 years. I do Cool. So much in Italy.
I do go to visit my family or some friends lately. I pay more for the first time I made a film in Italy. We tell each a rogue Wacker but generally, I do, yeah, yeah, yeah. Reaches very, very talented. But I don't know. For what reason, I don't really work much in Italy. I work mostly in America and France a lot, but not so much in Italy. When I asked why they say that, they feel that I'm a little bit of a hybrid. I'm not.
Not completely Italian because I lived all my adult life abroad and and but them and I'm Italian. So they don't know how to place me and always had that problem. You know that I could never be cast as a family because in English I have an accent and all of a sudden you say well why is that sister speaking differently? So that was always an in Italian.
Although Italy Italian is my first language, but my mom was Swedish. She was the actress Ingrid Bergman and I Not in France. So even in Italian I don't have an accent but I don't roll my ours, which is I say the French are so for example, my last name is rosellini as for lucidly me but in each added me would be rosellini brought some Aroma as a home grown. So I have also can't it's not an accent but I have some letters that I pronounced differently.
You know, I recently for the first time dubbed myself and Italian now that is really hard. Don't be very difficult hard and I think dub it because you lose a lot of lose you lose tone, you lose breath. And the Italians are very proud of their job in quite variable. It's terrible.
I, I prefer subtitles any day. Even though there's a feeling of reduction of the text and all that it you into it a lot just by the tonal, And that the breath and sometimes even the accent, even if you understand, don't understand the word, it's
music, you know? But I did it and it was very difficult and we got it to an okay place I thought but then I couldn't resist because I was kind of curious because it was a release for it was the film that a shot with Abel Ferrara who I've worked with a lot in Italy. But for the video release, it was dubbed. And so I was curious. So I went online to see See like the Triangular dubbed.
Anyone that has any interest in following me, they're used to hearing the dubbed in another language in an inadvertent avoid voice. So it was disturbing to hear my voice in Italian and I played a foreigner so I could have an accent still. It wasn't that you mentioned. That it also be. The reason why I don't work so much in Italy because I am known because also my parents were very Known and all that. But but and they know my voice because I've worked on television in Italy.
I don't up my film because I found it so different. So just to explain if somebody did, here's his podcast in Italy. All the films that are foreign not subtitle but they are dubbed and often these people that dubbed the film are very known in Italy and very revered, but you might have Robert De Niro and Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman have saying Perce. First and dubbing them.
So the voice is gone is a fantastic interpretation of what they do, but it is not, it doesn't make the person it does. You don't identify actors Friday voices, especially foreign actors. But Fellini said something interesting because, you know, in America, everybody was so shocked about Italian dubbing I actors, and believe he said, when it was, it was, it worked with my father in a new him,
riddles, a little girl. That, I don't understand it, you know, but I can create a whole character by using dubbing because I can take a very big man and have a little girl, the beam. And there you have, you have a character that immediately stank, but he was a caricaturist. He made a lot of drawing with
caricature. And so, I understand that use of you can create a person, or you create a character, but I find it when I grew up in it I went to see all the film does including my mom Um, Ingrid Bergman Casablanca notorious. I see the mold up at first and he didn't disturb me, but now that I hear the original, I have a hard time hearing films that
are dubbed. Sure. I, when you're talking about the same voice for Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro famously, this this movie Heat and the Niro and Pacino had Saints together and they were in crisis, because they have the same voice in Italian. So when it was released Standard Italy. It had. A lot of trouble finding commercial traction even though they were wildly popular actor. It's because people confuse that one of them did not have their
regular voice, pretty strange. You strange just one second because I'd put something in the oven, but I want to turn it. I don't want to burn my lung. What is it? What is it? Okay, pal, me Jonah. Okay. And it just felt like something was burned. Okay, it's okay Willam. You've worked with so many directors. Can I'm going to list a few because I don't think there is anybody who work with so many directors.
If you have Scorsese, a Wes Anderson lost won't hear, Tony Scott, Oliver Stone, David Lynch, Paul Schrader beam vendors, Julian, Schnabel Abel, Ferrara, of course, David cronenberg's Spike Lee, In sales and get Oculus. I mean, amazing. I don't think there is anybody who has worked with so many different directors, and sometimes you work with servants and films with the same director writer, director is very important to me.
I love a strong director because I feel like then I can relax and really give myself to the project. I don't, I don't worry, I feel much free, but I appreciate that because if I'm left to my own devices, I'm sure I go to the same, well, all the time. It takes a certain kind of intervention or certain kind of discipline to be open each time to kind of recreate your process.
And I think that's very important, and of course, there's some go to things, are there some Tendencies you have, but I always find it most rewarding if I could, that's kind of taken away from me. If I know why I'm doing a project then I don't worry about the result.
If I like the people, if I like their work, if it inspires vase inspire That I try to be there for them and that frees me ultimately it's a selfish goal of because then I feel like I do my best work that way but the truth is, if you go towards someone else's Vision that's not yours, it makes you Freer, I think so you want someone there, really strong and personal view of things. You don't just want to stylist, then you're kind of interchangeable and then it kind
of becomes a crash. Again, you want to get in their head and try to complete the world that they create. I mean, look, something as simple as. When we both worked with David Lynch on, you worked with him on copy with frostbite, get Hearts, it, digitally. What about Wild at Heart? We did together. And I remembered that was like the, there's a logic, we were there, too. It's a complete that world. Yes, II to for me. Working with different
directors. If they have a brilliant mind and if the you know you just, I would say to enter into their brain is like taking it to re-stick trip into some batters one person intelligence and I also the most satisfactory is when you can make their idea come more alive. So that instead of saying, I see the character like this and fight it, you say no, okay. What are you see and you search with Them. Because sometimes the ideas, David used to say to me, sometimes he dies is like, thin
eyes. I know it's right. But I need and I mean, David directs like this, you know, it doesn't really verbalize what he wants, but he you showed you strata scene with some mood and you can see from his face, if he's happy or not and if he smiles and he's very happy, go more in that direction and it's a back and forth until, you know, it shaped the scene is shaped. It. And that to me, I like that process. I like the process of making feminine very much because he's a collector estimator.
I and personally, that's always more interesting than the film. Yes. Or when the film comes out people think. I mean sometimes I said the best room is the one that we don't have to present to the press and have all the reviews and read all the bad reviews and the red carpets, it means to me is really the process. It's not so much the release when the films are released. Of course, we have to be released and we want them to be successor. But that is the part that I like
the least. Yeah, I agree. But I like that fine too, because it's so connected to, you know, doing more and getting the film out there and I'm down with that, I guess. I feel more like I love the adventure of making a film and and it's probably why I'm not a director. I think you have to let a low. Responsibility. Go about where you're going, you know what, the film's going to be, and you have to just be there to receive what's going on.
And if you can get that place and you can have the right situation and whether it's an exotic thing or something very close to you, whatever it is. It's a good way to live. It's stimulating and it feels useful because you're working with the team to make something that's either going to inspire Them or distract them or make them laugh or something. So, you know, I'm happy as a clam when I'm working. Yeah, me, too. I like that. Do you find yourself happier to work with some director?
And some were more difficult where some of the research to express, what they were looking for, was more difficult than others? I would imagine, I think so. I I always get scared when an actor that when I director thinks, he knows what the actors. Jesse's and tries to speak actors language, because like, you know, everyone's different and you I've met, I've worked
with some directors. I'm sure you have to wear, you know, the smart enough to note that they have to deal with every actor differently particular in the state, but not just in the States. But, you know, beautiful thing about film is there isn't a cookie cutter education for it. So sometimes you Working with people that used to be models or people that used to be a cook or someone that was a driver, you know? It's a mixed bag. Some are classically trained, summer, theater actors.
It's a mixed bag and everybody, there's no uniform system, so you have to treat everybody. Kind of see what they need and see what you need. And it's a nice social meeting every time, I think you've got Such an interesting career. Last time I saw you you know, you would it's a long time ago, actually. I probably seen you since but I mean last time I saw you at like a screening or something of something. You did was green porno director
myself now. And also also, you always surprise me by the choices you make and they're so different and so eclectic. And I like it a lot. I don't catch everything, but I'm always happy to see you. And, I'm always personally. I've said it before, and I don't want to embarrass you, but your maybe it's your upbringing, but you're so elegant and So Graceful, So Graceful. So Graceful with people socially, I think and a lot of actors don't have that quality because they're scared, and
they're, and they're wrong. Worried about offending. People are speaking their mind, you know. Yes, actors are generally. I mean, it's hard to generalized but actors shy, surprisingly, most people are very shy, I mean, my mom for example. She said, always, she wasn't she was a very shy person and acting because she wasn't herself. She felt when I'm on stage or on the film said I feel like a lion
and also Knowing the story. She always said, I'm always anxious about life but in a film I know what is the tech scene and I know what the character is ending up. And so that was so in the moment it, she was acting, she felt agreed to release, you know, a great freedom, and happiness. I'm not as shy as my mom and but I think I had I'm a raconteur. So I like to tell stories and I like to work with directors, me
too. These very, very important to, you know, when I sometimes I read a script but most of all I want to know who's going to direct and sometimes a script is just a vague indication of something. But if I meet the person or seen the work that I've done before, that's what I want to work with. I have to tell you a story about Bob Wilson, was I work with Bob to so Bob Wilson proposed to me. At play by Umberto Eco, and I read the script, I didn't
understand anything. So I read the book, I'm back to Waco. I didn't understand anything. So I went with, I said, I have to have the courage to Bob wants it that way. Exactly, you know him. So I went to Trembling saying, Bob, I I want to work with you so badly, and I was so happy that you Ask me to do this thing that I have to be really sincere. I don't understand the script and I read the book and I don't
understand the book. He said me neither, you don't understand it. You said we course. I don't understand it because I'm attracted to mystery, but there is a rhythm in the world words, isn't it? And when you read you back Touareg, do you doesn't really make sense. But your little scared. I said, yes, I am a little scared, that's what I want to capture and that to me, was such a lesson.
First of all, Only freed me from this narrative that it has to always make sense because abstract, paintings exist, it's not only figurative painting. So a film can also be abstract and he's to mood that you look and David Lynch to talk about another surrealist one day where I said, well maybe here to film is not, I don't understand the story. He said, why do you understand life? So also for David, it was capturing the mood, we don't
understand life. We enter into a room and there is already a mood of people are convivial up. There is tension. We don't know, we just adapt but we don't know what's going on or what had happened before, and that's what is interesting to David and that was to me. So liberating, when you work with directors like that, I agree in both those cases, Bob Bob Wilson is famous for saying I never asked him a To know what he's thinking. That's not really what he's interested in.
You want some actor to submit to his form to his language? You know you're like a marvelous. Marionette is the Bishops of when you have that form you can live and you can explore what's going on in a very deep way because a part of your brain and a part of your energy isn't is submitted to a kind of perfection and also artificiality that creates sometimes a mystery.
And the question it isn't always narrative that you can hop on and then you can be emotionally engaged but then the story ends and you relate to it and it's complete and you feel good. But I think in many ways I'm interested in more poetic theater and a more poetic film that S, it engages you, but engages you through your brain because when you, when things are puzzling or things are curious, you don't know.
And ultimately, they involve you more emotionally in the end, I think, because when things are recognizable, it's a beautiful fun thing. But you hop on a train and you kind of enjoy the ride, but you're not going step by step you. Variance in it and same way that your experience, poetry, poetry, you know, poetry, and in the broadest sense of the word in poetry also, by its Nature has always an ambiguity that life has. Do I like this? But I don't like that.
I like it and don't like, you know, but that ambiguity is to get is the brain that it's, for me animals, make me laugh. So I'm looking at David Attenborough, look at National Geographic, and it's great, but it exists already. So when I wanted to Spread. Something that was in my heart. I said, it's the animal are so funny and so mysterious and so crazy. And so I created a free will.
Yes, I created this little Puppet Theater with myself that I think captures do humor and it's always give the scientifically because not only that, I even went back to University to get a master degree in animal behavior and conservation, because the subject interests are Much. And I have to say that having worked with many other directors or do I make these teeny film and his monologues?
You know, I can't compare myself to the greatest, it's always starts from a point of poetry, it always starts from a feeling that I have and I want to share and the style that I make the film. It's a consequence of it to represent the best. The feeling in ever starts with the style and then goes into the feeling. At least for me you do know I'm with you. I'm with you can we talk about Abel Ferrara?
How easy he was the craziest director I've worked with, is he behaving more is he tamed and you tamed him really you know, he's got a hide, his habits turn, his character are very Forefront so to talk about him is never gossiping, I guess, because he lays it all out there, I worked with Abel. You know when he had when he was living a certain kind of life and then I've worked with him since he's cleaned up his life and he's basically the same person.
It's very good lesson. What is it is actually is basically the same person I'd say. Just there's a trust there, you know, when someone is addicted. They have a God that always separates, you know, you from them particularly when you're working on something and he says, I got to go, you guys do the same, I'll be back. That's a problem, but there's none of that anymore. He's, you know, he's living, he's my neighbor here in the city in Rome and we're very good friends and we've made many
films together. He's made to lately. Very quickly without me bastard but no actually we keep in touch. I was busy and he he he's one of the beautiful things about the table. Is he works with nothing and he likes to make movies. He's a shooter. So he absolutely said he's our best quality, he's always working and He's his sets are wild. They're chaotic is hell.
And one of the most difficult things to do in post is to remove his voice from the shooting because even when you're shooting like the most intimate, most vulnerable, you know, sex scene or something, he's screaming the whole talking, so it's like a discipline. He's screaming directions. Sometimes, I have to say that I didn't know, sorry, I didn't know. When I did, I did with him a film that is very beautiful. I really liked. I remember on the railroad. Yeah. Yeah, I know.
And I also love to work with Abel it was very chaotic and I really didn't know because most film is action cut and then you know where you're seeing is on. I didn't know. It is so much chaotic that I just stay in character all the time because I didn't know and there was a lot of improvisation of little dialogue, but even in these scales, there was a A Clarity of his Direction, really?
What you wanted to capture? I really admired him but you know talking about addiction because I mean it's no secret that they that then that Abel had the problem in his now solving it I will treat any stopper in blue velvet and Dennis had just come out of rehab for three years and I remember I had been already hired in blue velvet and David It was looking for the character of that Dennis Hopper played in
blue velvet. And when he found Dennis Hopper said, oh, Dennis Hopper, because of course he had the worst reputation in the business. I said how easy and David said, is life, sitting next to a ticking bomb, that's how he
described. But actually he worked with working with him, it was one of the most A profound experience inside the had because Danny's had no more judgement he had been so down on himself and he had experienced really hell and came out of it that working with him and he's very difficult scenes of rape and all that he was the perfect partner. I felt completely protected by him as a human being that he was playing this evil man that was deserve.
Raping me in at Richwood High. Remember character energy? Music way it may, I ask him. How did you end up being a drug addict and having to come out of it? And he said, you know, maybe it was the 60s drugs over around and all that. But I believed for a long time that I needed to drugs in order to act because I was so shy and so intimidated as so afraid that I wasn't good enough, they do draw gave me that confidence and this is the first film that I do
completely clean. And And it was so happy to work so well and the film went so well, and he got so much, praise. So yeah. Sometimes the people they go through that Journey. The most wise is in it. I'm hesitant to say, but because it's, I always disliked when actors talk about what a should have, could have kind of stories, but do you know, I was at the gulf Western Building and they told me to go up to dino De
Laurentiis his office Meet him. And that's where I first met David. And they had me read blue velvet and they said basically we think we've got a frankbooth roll cast, but we're not sure. Because he could, you could have played because you often play a villain. So they were going to, you are going to do the Dennis Hopper room, what happened? Don't dance.
I don't say that it was like, clearly, they probably were a little nervous about their nests or the deal wasn't done, and they wanted to have someone waiting in the wings. Well, I, you know, I met David Lynch in a restaurant and I was having dinner with, you know, De Laurentiis wife who died recently has done such Wonderful, lady and another friend. And David was sitting in a table in the same restaurant with one of Dino De Laurentiis
son-in-law. So we joined the table, we all said together and I didn't know David had not, I mean he had done Elephant Man, maybe I forgot but it wasn't as normal. Of course as now and I had just finished a film, but I also work with Misha Baryshnikov in a film called White Nights. And the other actress was Helen Mirren, and then the greater Gregory Hines and David wanted so badly to have Helen Mirren
for Bluebell fit. For the role that I ended up playing and all the night, he tormented me about. Can't do you have Helen mirren's phone number? Can you give it to me dr. And and the next day and hasn't turned down the film because the film of course is very controversial and she was she didn't want to be part of I think it's gone traversed, so that require nudity and all that. So that is rising because she's famous for being able to deal with that.
I think the way she explained it to me because over the next day after dinner, I received sorry and David, a note saying, second thought, maybe you can play Dorothy balance. That's the name of the character. So then we either I rehearse to scene and we so and then spoke to Helen and I said, why did you turn it down?
But Helen said, no, it is the It is right now this moment in my life because her husband was getting a divorce to marry her and she didn't want to be in that moment of divorce and complication her children in a controversial film. So and then nobody could have predicted that you velvet became so known know, it's a beautiful film. And who would have ever thought that? It wasn't totally conceived around you D. Be told me, I He was conceived around Helen Mirren.
David told me that one day when he came back from school, he saw a woman naked walking down to Street and he started to cry as he understood that something very wrong at happened. It wasn't excited, he wasn't titillating. And that was to image that fragment that sometimes director grabs with and creates a character. And I think that that was the fragment that inspired the character of Dorothy balance. What happened, what was the story behind this woman? Walked naked industry.
She can't, you know, and that's an edge. We repeated the scene, and that's why it required that nudity, that I walk down the street nude bruised, because I come from, yeah, probably a ritualistic, sadistic a torturous Raper. Wow, that's a, that's an incredible story about that. Do we work together in Wild at Heart? And I remember it took us, it was quite fun, and Did you so David allowed me in in the films that I did with him to create a little bit of do look.
So for the character that I played was named her spirit, eat arango a wonderful. I remember you were my girlfriend base. Yes, it was your girlfriend and I because you were such a bad guy. And we were sexist, sleazy people that I wanted to have both to bead repellent but also sexy.
So I thought And I thought of Frida Kahlo because the painter pieter Callo, she's kind of, you know, she has eyebrows that she had, you know, this is wonderful how sometimes you're gonna problems stash and yet she's so appealing and attractive. So I copied a little bit the Frida Kahlo look, I remember asking David can I have just a little bit of massage.
She said no, that's too much although Patti Smith cage and he has a little bit of mustache and I found that would be quite Powerful. You know why? I didn't just write it was frightening, but attractive, but David didn't allow me to mistakes, but I had to one eyebrow. You had those teeth. So strange, who does that, who chose Jesus? It was in the script and little story that I always tell it shows how actors sometimes limit themselves in their imagination.
I've read on the script. It says he has Stumpy discolored teeth and I just assumed the The I assumed it wasn't a huge. Huge budget film. So I figured they were just discolor my teeth because I don't have the most beautiful teeth in the world as it is. And then when I went to see David, he was like, we got to get you to the dentist and I thought He said we got to get those teeth and it ended up that they made, you know, full dentures that went over my teeth
for these huge gums. These kind of not too healthy looking gums and these very Stumpy teeth and the thing that that became the key for the character because when they put the Dentures over my teeth, I couldn't close my mouth. So all the time I was like this This. And I say, if you had to do this, it immediately makes you feel kind of lascivious. Like you want to suck on something or you want to say something vulgar, you know, it was, it was a key to the character.
I feel like Wild at Heart, I had so many externals that worked as triggers for my imagination that I didn't. I didn't sweat about preparation or Anything I felt very happy just to show up on the set there's David is a painter. So for and he's imagery is uh so strong, it's only photographic the way cases the camera the set. I always find costume to be a very important process caused your makeup because he defines so much. The character I play. Is it the same for you?
Yes, not only it defines it, but sometimes it can be Be a real mask you know, it can it can do a lot of work, you know, it's all it's almost like sometimes I'm not this cynical but you know, sometimes you're like that the costumes going to do this one, you know, if it's very strong sometimes you, you don't have to work it, you have to just be and wear that costume. Well and then that makes your body move in the certain way that makes you imagine how people are looking at you in a
certain way. You know, if you have something that you really Feel good in and you feel like it's strong. Then you're going to take on that strength in your performance. If you feel like it's something really repulsive, then you're going to slide into that repulsion or if you feel real handsome and you got to be handsome then you know you know, clothes make the man. What can I say or the person. Do you have the same thing? Sorry, because I'm also a model. I'm not only an actress.
Do you have same thing with passion and then his fashion does, Wearing all your clothes gives you occasionally a mood or helps you get a mood or not. Definitely. But I feel like I don't enter that black hole that is fashion, you know, I like nice clothes and when you feel good in clothes, it's great. But I tend to wear a uniform.
You know, I always think of that ingmar Bergman with his, you know, closet of 32. Home Max and one jacket in one pair of trousers, you know, to me, that is a great definition of Elegance. I always think that the summit of Elegance is with somebody, fine. So I kind of a uniform, I remember working with David. He also wears the same clothes and I remember going to a French designer called an ESB, and just helping start the shirt and khaki pants. It's and the shirt and I think
he still probably where's that? And yes, there is something to be said about having a uniform because becomes your second skin, but also close tell who you are. Of course, when we play the costume, can create an extreme or something that it isn't us like my big eyebrow and petite at Durango and Wild at Heart or blue, eyeshadow red lipstick, black wig, and white and blue velvet. So in life, I cannot do that extreme. But I do tend to also have a wardrobe, like IMA.
But the same thing also, because you're revealing yourself through your choice of your clothes and it's a little bit, maybe that goes back to the thing about you say about shyness. I don't think I'm particularly social Lee elegant. So I guess I'm a little shy so I don't want to reveal that about me. I reveal myself through Cara. Actors and things and then who I really want to reveal myself is a very small circle.
So when you think about presenting yourself to the world, that's what why the uniform appeals to visit me. Because people it doesn't Express anything specific, you know, it puts more emphasis on your body or something. I don't know. Yes, yeah. No. Well, I, you know, I, I don't know. I was said that the Elegance is to definition the Elegance. They asked, what is the definition of Elegance? It was said, the definition of Elegance is not a combination of clothes.
It's a, it's a thought behind the clothes and that's when you see that click that thought even for you, I want to be, you know, I'm an actor. I want to be a uniform, very simple black and black t shirt, black pants. It means I'm a puppet, I'm a puppet or a puppeteer, and both and, you know, so to me, that's the definition of Elegance. But, you know, talking, About, you said it, sometimes the clothes create a character. I remember reading about Audrey
Hepburn when she did. My fair lady that, you know, she has to come out in my fair lady and Professor Higgins. Finally sees big Malian Caesar finale as this beauty. And she said that to that to clothes, she wore were so beautifully done. That she also felt the same. She said, I don't have to do anything.
I just had to stand there because the clothes would do it for me. And of course, I was think of that scene because it's that silhouette that beautiful outfit that she wears in her very simply standing that made that convey that moment of Revelation to Professor Higgins.
This is a beautiful woman. It's fun to talk about the stuff, because it always reminds you that You know, when you make a film where you do it play, it's such a convergence of all these different choices and all these different contributions that, you know, sometimes we get a little too, I'm not being falsely modest, but or koi or anything. But really, I'm obsessed by this. We got obsessed with the actor too much. The actor, of course, is the thing we see.
But the actor, you know, the best thing an actor can do, is be receptive to what's in the air.
And what's they're making and what's given to them and what they make from what's given to them and all these conversations about external things, or process or director, all indicate that as I get older, I want to disappear more and more, and more into the role, not in the typical method way, but one of the things that I great, a great thing that I learned from being with the Wooster Group, which was a real gift is the Nations were as important as the actors and sometimes the actors
served like technicians and sometimes the technicians served as actors. So there was a kind of equality. That was not only did it. Take off a certain kind of pressure, but it recognized that made you feel more flexible. You were always clear about when you had to drive and when you had to react and that's that's very important. Thing to know and what your what your function is in the overall
thing. Sometimes there are great actors and they stand out and you love to watch them do their thing but they don't integrate into the movie. I won't name any names but you know sometimes that happens and okay, that's fun. But on some level I think that's that becomes very limiting for me the mmm bishan and What I like to see and actors, what, you know, is this kind of integration this kind of lack of neediness or need need to take, you know, the stage sometimes. Okay.
You gotta, as I say drive, but I like these things where it's kind of like, you can't help yourself. There's a logic, there's a kind of objectivity, there's a kind of clarity to You're the product of many things. Exactly, exactly. Oh, hey, can I ask you? I have one curiosity. You have children? Yeah, I have 11. It is. He attractive. Grandchildren, I have two grandchildren to. Is there any one of the grandchildren or your child want to be actors?
Want to are in the business? No, my my Um, he's 40 years. Old is a lawyer that clerks for justice has four judges. That's his job, and he used to work for an environmental law firm. Lock concern down south but he, I think he is mother was a director and met his father, an actor and I think somewhere, deep, Lee.
He didn't want to compete. He didn't want to have that life and he also grew up in the theater and also performed with us. And he was perhaps the most beautiful dancer I ever saw when he was a child and he would perform with us when he was a child and he was fantastic and so much so that other people wanted to use him, not a conventional dancer, but people downtown making films and that sort sort of thing. Joe Andres for example, the Wife of Steve Buscemi used him in her films.
But then when he hit adolescence identity time came and I think he did want to compete or following the singer be in the same world and he was always agenda. Mean I'm the daughter of somebody famous and I became an actress in my 30s. Yeah, I mean modeling, you know Worked as a model and I loved it because I had nothing. I mean, I thought he had been that had nothing to do with
acting. Then little they know once I start act know, once I was deep into modeling, I said, well, you know, it is similar bit about acting Samuel, I don't have words, but you have to save. You are emoting your you know, you can't just stop there in front of the camera, you have to do something and and so that's what gave me the courage but I think it was because I was a known model. Had the courage to try acting. I was asked like your son.
I was asked to act and I was turned it down and then it was around 30. And the first film I made in America was but with Misha but he's Nico with whom I've stayed very good friends and I totally are yes I adore me. I think he's so and I adore that he continued to dance I don't know how old he is. 70 75, he continues to dance through him. His movement is the expression of the body. It isn't jumping hydras. Yes, he did that when he was young, but he's such an inspiration to me and I agree.
Then the second film I did was blue velvet with David Lynch. So I was lucky to start with such wonderful people that encouraged me to continue. I gotta go back to what you said about modeling. I haven't like model model, but you know, I've done photo shoots and I did a campaign for Prada and I even did the Catwalk one side for Prada. You know what I like it. It's fun. It is performing. It is fun.
It is performing. And also when you do the catwalk to me, the most interesting part of catwalk is that you understand the designers point of view, and the designers can be like a director. They have, if there are strong designer, like Prada, they do have a point of view. And sometimes when you go in a shop, the shop is already edited what they think will sell. So you don't see that was his collection. But once you see the complete collection, you really understand the process and the
creativity. And it is very interesting and also I like the relationship with the photographer because you're maybe, you know, their work, maybe they're famous, maybe it's a wild card, you're taking a risk but it's a very immediate kind of call and response. They have a rough idea of what they want to do and then they lay it on you and then you either.
Of fill it or you take it someplace else, you know, it isn't July. Sometimes, it feels to me that it is the same relationship that we have as actors, you know, we say acting is reacting and a lot of it is listening and reacting, and sometimes you can have a partner that really works and you play off very well. And sometimes it works less well, and he's just saying to me the same relationship between two actors is the relationship that I have with the
photographer. I often find myself reacting to the photographer, looking at him in the land. It's and reacting to what? T, sends me back if he's smiling as my back. If he's worried, I'm worried about attracting fleas and that's how I, you know, I shape my expression and then wait for him to click whenever he wants. But I feel like it's a very instant thing and I like it when it works, well, it's a lot of fun when it works. Well, is a lot of fun and I agree.
It's brief. The I always had a, probably a dedicated myself more to An acting also because I had two children and modeling. I always knew that even the big job was finished in 34 days, a film might ask you to go away for three or four months and that was much harder when you have a battery. So, I always favored modeling until I got too old and then camera. Now you're still modeling it, still occasionally but not not
as when I was young. Well, let me see talking about, I have to go because I have a word with the Dolce Gabbana next, talking about. Okay, tastic designers so but it was so great to see you. And yeah, this we are so happy to have you in Italy and yeah, speaking. Italian and integrating in Italy and a huge hug to Able your neighbor Abel Ferrara, I will, I will Okay, great. Take care. Thanks for listening. The 824 podcast is produced by us a 24 special.
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