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