Isabella Rossellini

I live in New York, and the only live animals you see are cockroaches, rats and pigeons, which I admire immensely. When I see an animal that thrives in the garbage, I feel relief; in our urban environment, other animals are dying out.

I'd love to meet Darwin. He caused such controversy over whether God created the earth in six days or whether we evolved over time. I'd love to discuss that with him - what a fantastic conversation!

I grew up in a family of filmmakers, so I always wanted to make films about animals, especially comical films. Something about animals amuses me. And they have a great mystery. It's the same mystique some people might feel looking at the stars or the ocean.

Maybe there's some kind of modeling that can be tedious, like catalogue modeling, but there's a kind of modeling, with runways or working with Richard Avedon, that's not very far from acting. Besides the fact that you don't have a partner to react to, the body language is the same.

You don't do an experimental film to become rich, so the people who are involved are involved because they enjoy the creative aspect of it.

These same people seem to forget that mother also took a lot of chances with the type of roles she played.

When I grew up in Italy in the 1950s, it was still very agricultural. Food was very important; produce was very important. Everyone made their own olive oil. It took me a long time after I moved here to understand that Americans are much further away from their food.

I am the daughter of Mr. Neo-realism: I should gravitate towards narrative simply told, character, the truth. And I do love those movies.

I've had a lot of 'aha' moments, but the big 'aha' about growing older is the mental freedom.

A lot of the advertisement is done by saying: first of all, have a complex about who you are.

I would love to be a field biologist. I would love to do what Jane Goodall did, just totally immerse myself in the life of one specific species for years and study every aspect of its behavior until little by little, all of these patterns become clear. That would be great, but I don't know if I have it left in me.

In America, they are paranoid about ruining the reputations of people once they are dead and cannot answer back. They have this fascination which to me seems cruel and morbid. I do not want any part of it.

I have the most fun writing and directing. And I always choose myself as the lead actor.

I was born with a love of animals, the same way I was born with brown hair. When I was a little girl in Rome, I always had pets, which I adored.

I always have parmigiano-reggiano, olive oil and pasta at home. When people get sick, they want chicken soup; I want spaghetti with parmesan cheese, olive oil and a bit of lemon zest. It makes me feel better every time.

If you see a person who's insecure and covers it up, it can be quite a problem. But the person who is insecure and shows you is quite appealing. They give you just the courage to drop your defenses.

Although Dorothy in Blue Velvet was humiliated and hurt by men, basically I could react to how she felt.

There are consequences with age, so you have to evolve. I've loved becoming a filmmaker. But I would love to continue modeling, and there isn't really any job for me. It's being marginalized - that's the sad part.

True elegance for me is the manifestation of an independent mind.

Animals are everywhere. Some are more romantic, like tigers and elephants and chimpanzees, and some are less romantic, like earthworms, but they are just as interesting.

Mammals are very close to us, but bugs are strange. They're more mysterious and exotic.

I've always been an entertainer all my life; I come from a family of entertainers. I always made, very pretentiously, a comparison with Agatha Christie. Her inspiration was crime, and I'm sure she must have taken courses or read about crime, because it was the basis of her stories. But ultimately, it was her own fantasy.

I was always interested in animals, but when I was little, animal behavior was still a new science. It was available to become a veterinarian, it was available to study biology, but not specifically animal behavior. In the '60s, Jane Goodall was the founder of this new science.

As I grew older, I worked less as an actor and as a model, and I went back to what I had tried to do when I was young but wasn't really available. I'm so glad now to be in my sixties and to be able to go back to school.

I always say that in my career as an actress, I've always worked with people like David Lynch or Guy Maddin or Peter Weir who are considered not mainstream directors and that could be because they are like my dad. They are pioneers, and pioneers, by definition, invent something new.

I think I was always interested in animals. If a man likes a woman, you know, he might discuss business, but there's a part of his brain that is looking at the girl coming in and checking the girls. I do the same with animals.

My perfume, Manifesto, was based on the scent of basil.

I don't look at 'Vogue' to ask what I'm going to wear. Because it's something on a body too young. I have to look at the social pages to see women my age. To see how Amanda Burden is dressed and say, 'Hmmm. Maybe I should try that.'

I am now at an age when they wanted me to play her mother.

I've always been interested in animal behavior, and I keep reading about it because it's so surprising all the time - so many things are happening around us that we neglect to look at. Part of the passion I have for biology is based on this wonderment.

But my mother loved The Elephant Man, and my father gave David Lynch a scholarship to study in Rome.

Animation translates well to a small screen. When you look at Walt Disney or Chuck Jones - you know, Bugs Bunny - there really isn't any difference if you watch on a very big screen or a computer screen.

Women who stay true to themselves are always more interesting and beautiful to me: women like Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe and Anna Magnani - women who have style, chic, allure and elegance. They didn't submit to any standard of beauty - they defined it.

I would like to be forgotten. What's so good about being remembered?

I'm always a little worried when people have met me in person because I'm worried they'll be disappointed.

By the time I was successful with covers of 'Vogue' and 'Harper's Bazaar' and 'Vanity Fair' and the Lancome contract, someone asked how old I was. They almost fainted when I said 33.

I graduated from Academy of Fashion and Costume Design in Rome. At first, I thought I was going to be a costume designer for films, and then I ended up working in fashion - not as a designer, but mostly as a model.

The problem with middle age, at least when it comes to modeling, is you seldom see a model who is past 27, 28. If they use anyone older, then it becomes automatically a 'personality' story.

There are so many spiders, and their rituals, their mating rituals, their courtship ritual, can be very, very different.

Market research shows that older women like seeing older women in ads, and that younger women do, too - because they see them and are not frightened of growing older.

One of the great issues in biology is the origin of altruism - of why you would do something for someone else that could hurt you - and Darwin posited that it might be rooted in maternal instinct, in sacrificing yourself for your children.

Before Darwin, our world was very religious. People saw altruism as something given by God for us to be good so that we could go to Paradise.

If you look at most beauty advertisements, you would think that makeup is only for beautiful women in their early twenties.

Adoption carries the added dimension of connection not only to your own tribe but beyond, widening the scope of what constitutes love, ties, and family. It is the larger embrace.

I loved modeling. I absolutely loved it. I was so happy to get the cover of 'Vogue' - 23 times. I keep each copy. I made more money as a model than as an actress or as a filmmaker. In monetary terms, beauty pays more than anything.

The secret of using makeup for fashion is to have fun with it. When people see that you are playful, that's attractive. Sometimes people apply makeup because they have bags under their eyes or because they don't feel good, and that just reads 'insecure.'

There is this idea that you have to play heroines or women who succeed.

That is the great pleasure of working with great directors. You get to look at the world through many different prisms. I guess I love talent, whatever form it takes.

Most people divorce because one in the couple falls in love with someone else: it's a common cause of divorce. I still think that it's tinted - this is my opinion - with a veil of racism and American puritanism.

It's a new business for me to be a filmmaker.

Once I realised that my job as a model was to emote in front of the camera, I thought, 'Well now, I just have to add words, and I can do films.' But also, my success as a model made me more confident about becoming an actress because, just in case I failed, I thought, 'Well, you know, if I failed as an actress, I can do another job.'

If a hamster has too many babies she knows she cannot carry, she not only abandons them, but she eats them. That means she doesn't have to go out and hunt for food for herself.

I don't wear much makeup, except during work. I felt lucky to be chosen to be a model. I used to joke, 'The next best thing to winning the lottery is having a beauty contract.'

Ever since I was a little girl, I have always loved animals and been fascinated with them.

But I don't really see myself as a role model. I'm not a dictator, or someone who wants to be adored!

If we are completely honest with ourselves, everyone has a dark side to their personalities.

I didn't want to become an actress because the competition with my mother would have been to much to live up to.

When David left me I became totally brokenhearted.

To be an icon is a big job - it's beyond acting. And sometimes it pays, and sometimes it doesn't.

Every time you work, it's a new film, and generally when you work with auteurs, people that write and direct their films, there's always an originality.

I live my everyday life as a person, and I react to my photos from a certain distance. When I look at a photo, I detach myself and look at it as a product - not as me, Isabella.

I became an actress way into my 30s because I thought that I had to find my own way, and that's why I worked so much in modelling, until I realised that the differences between acting and modelling weren't that great. I always say that modelling is a little bit like being a silent actress.

The red carpet has become like a parallel business. The next day, there are TV programmes, and magazines, and it's all, 'Do you like the dress or not like the dress?' and 'Did she look fat?' To keep borrowing dresses and jewellery is like a full-time job. And you have to be a fantasy, which you can never be, so you always feel depressed.

In interviews, the first question I get in America is always: 'What do you do to stay young?' I do nothing. I don't think aging is a problem. What irritates me a little is growing fatter. It irritates me that if I eat what I want to eat, it shows.

It always amazed me that people believed I was this beautiful object.

I am much more radical in my beliefs than my products represent me to be.

I wanted to make a film about my dad, a sort of love letter, and explain what I understood of his cinema, which was so utopian. I also wanted to give the sense of his cinema, because they have never been very big box-office, but they were very influential.

The reason of my life is not to be the most beautiful woman in the world.

When I was young, it was difficult to imagine entering a world where my parents succeeded so much and I could have risked failing. It would have felt much harder.

I seldom look at myself to avoid any self-criticism.

My films are comical films. They are made to laugh at. They are comical - and scientifically correct.

I always dreamed when I was a little girl interested in animals that I would go live in Africa. Then I found out that you can look in your backyard, and you can do your own safari.

It's nice to go and be a guest on a television sitcom. It pays well; it's easy because generally it's a supporting role, so you go, you do two or three things, you're in touch with people there. They're widely popular, so they're seen by many people.

I like to extend myself as an actress and David really helped me.

I never really think about what I have to do to stick to my image. I just follow what I like to do. Sometimes it's glamorous, sometimes it's not.

I started modeling at 28. I'm 5-feet-7 1/2, and I never went on a diet. I followed what my doctor told me: 'It's good to have a little bit of fat. Your weight is fine. Don't go any lighter.'

Food is a big part of my culture, so everyone knows how to cook. When I came to America and asked a babysitter to softboil an egg for my son and she didn't know how, I was shocked.

There is often a great disparity between a director's personal style and the movies he makes.

My father's films are often very slow for the modern audiences, which are used to a lot of editing. It's the audience that watches the film instead of the director dictating the reaction he wants from you.