Italian actress Isabella Rossellini
said Monday the character of a down-at-heel aristocrat she plays
in Alice Rohrwacher's La Chimera, in competition at Cannes May
16-27, is "very poetic".
The 70-year-old ex Lancôme model and star of Blue Velvet (1986)
and Death Becomes Her (1992), who is getting a special career
David di Donatello award at the Italian Oscras this summer,
told reporters "it's a film that talks about tomb raiders and
has references in the afterlife, in particular referring to the
Etruscans. I'm an impoverished aristocratic lady who has no
money anymore and who lives in a very beautiful but completely
broken down home, and has two daughters, one of whom is dead but
the lady won't admit it. So sh e lives with one foot in the
present and the other in the afterlife, a very poetic
character."
An actor, model, journalist, director, author of theatre pieces
and also ethologist due to her love for animals, Rossellini
tells David News that she "never thought about my career" and
with her famed spontaneity explains that her career arc was all
by chance, from her role as assistant to late journalist Gianni
Minà for sports interviews to the meeting with comedian and
musician Renzo Arbore and comedian philosopher Luciano De
Crescenzo for the pioneering TV hit L'Altra Domenica, to her
marriage to Martin Scorsese and being a model fro Bruce Weber.
She returned to university at 55 and became an ethologist
"because my work as an actress and model had practically ended.
Now, at 71 I want to continue my work as an ethologist and make
my films on these subjects, now and then a film as an actress,
but I have no particular intention to change lifestyle.
"I really admire Italian cinema, from Sorrentino to Martone:
certainly, I would have liked to work with them, but it isn't a
goal of mine. If they ask me, I'd be very willing. Otherwise
I'll continue my work as an ethologist.
Rossellini is about to take her monologue Darwin's Smile on a
theatre tour and has just finished a TV series about American
cook Julia Child.
"I play the French masterchef who teaches her how to cook".
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