Model turned actress turned scholar Isabella Rossellini brings her next act to Toronto’s Luminato Festival

Date June 6, 2014

Days after Isabella Rossellini turned 40, she was asked to leave one of the loves of her life. Not a husband or boyfriend—she ended relationships with Martin Scorsese and David Lynch long before celebrating
the big 40. It wasn’t acting, either, as Rossellini racked up stacks of film credits (from noirs such as Blue Velvet to comedies such as Death Becomes Her) before writing, producing and starring in her popular series of short films on animal sexuality, Green Porno. Rossellini, the daughter of Ingrid Bergman and filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, was pushed to abandon her place in the modelling world. And, as she conveyed in her 1997 autobiography, Some of Me, when she was 43 an executive at Lancôme decided that after serving 14 years as the face of the brand, it was time for a younger woman to take over. Rossellini has maintained that she was urged to graciously retire to save herself from embarrassment. Looking back at her track record (she’s appeared on 28 Vogue covers), she decided she would be foolish to step down from such a lucrative career. And at the age of 61, she continues to make modelling a part of her life, recently starring in a Bulgari campaign.

As for acting, Rossellini kept Hollywood at bay to devote her time to her Green Porno project. Having written and starred in more than 45 films on the subject of mating in the wild kingdom (she dresses up as a handful of creatures to demonstrate their sexual encounters), Rossellini, who is currently doing a master’s degree in conservation and ethology, has seen her venture blow up online as well as offline, as millions of viewers have clicked on her educational spots. The project became so popular that Rossellini adapted the films into a one-woman stage show which will have its Canadian debut in Toronto on June 6 as part of the Luminato Festival.

Rossellini may be skilled in the art of spectacle, but she insists that her Toronto appearance will be a fairly low-key affair. “I only change into three costumes, so it isn’t a big to-do,” she says from her home in Long Island, N.Y. “It’s certainly not a Lady Gaga concert or a Las Vegas parade. In the stage show, I come out dressed as a woman, then I undress myself and become a man, and then I become a hamster.” In terms of offering hints on what her costumes mean, Rossellini remains as mysterious as her peculiar persona. “I was born and raised an entertainer,” she offers vaguely, before pausing for her next thought. “Although I want to make people laugh for Green Porno, I have to have sound science backing up my monologue. I offer questions that make you think. At the beginning, it looks very strict, like a science lecture, but then it becomes playful. The podium becomes a theatre, and I do some puppetry and pull out surprises.”

Rossellini’s scenes on stage mainly concern her obsession with animal mating rituals. Things get extra bizarre when she appears as a matriarchal hamster who eats her babies for protein and describes anchovy orgasms—a fish known for partaking in orgies. “The millions of ways that evolution has [occurred] cannot be boiled down to one thing,” she says. “Most people think that all babies come from a female and a male and that mommy and daddy are in a monogamous relationship. Well, [those] are rare in nature. Sometimes you have both sexes in one animal, or an animal that can change sexes. Evolution implies that everything must change.”

Rossellini sees society’s fixation with youth as something that goes against evolution. “We all grow old, but you can be sexy and old,” she says. “There is this silly portrayal of women in fashion and in cosmetics [who are] always desiring only to be a sexual object—which is not true. Women don’t spend their days trying to look sexy or young. I don’t believe in the usual message that you have to be young, thin and blonde to make it or be considered beautiful. That is too limiting for me.”