Isabella Rossellini Quotes

Photo of actor and model, Isabella Rossellini

Isabella Rossellini Quotes

The daughter of actress Ingrid Bergman (Casablanca, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Spellbound), and of movie director Roberto Rossellini (Stromboli, Voyage in Italy), Isabella Rossellini began her first career as a model, where she achieved great modeling success as the face of Lancôme but the company ended the arrangement in 1996, fearing that Rossellini was too old to be seen as attractive.

She took on her first acting roles in Italian productions in the mid 1970s and much later moved on to appear inWhite Nights’(1985) with dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, then in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) and Wild at Heart with Nicholas Cage. Since then, she has had a varied acting career; most recently, she’s been cast as Katya Derevko, Sydney Bristow’s (played by Jennifer Garner) aunt on television’s Alias.

She has been linked romantically to Baryshnikov and Lynch, as well as actor Gary Oldman. She is divorced from director Martin Scorsese. Outside of acting, modeling, and cosmetics, Rossellini is involved in conservation efforts. She is a board member of the Wildlife Conservation Network. Rossellini also trains guide dogs for the blind.

Image: Photo of actor and model, Isabella Rossellini

“I like fashion and photography and emotions and creating.”

“Yes, there’s ageism in modeling and acting. I’m dying to see Diane Keaton or Sissy Spacek more, and we don’t see them as much. The story you hear over and over is about seducing a man and getting married, but women do much more than that. Maybe it will help having more women as directors, heads of cosmetic companies or heads of studios. It’s the whole system.”

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

“Anything you enjoy that much, you hope it will last. But I had a very long career. Now that seems to be rare. It’s even true of actors. The celebrity culture has collapsed your moment of success to four, five, six years – then you’re passé.”

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

– Isabella Rossellini  (1951- )

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