Isabella Rossellini

"Because my mother was Ingrid Bergman and my father was Roberto Rossellini, I was intimidated about becoming an actress and a director…Both [in terms of her parents’ reputations upon entering the acting world]…It opened doors, but the judgment was much more severe…In the press, they said: ‘She looks like her mother, but she certainly hasn’t inherited her talent.’ It crushes you. If they say it today, you just say: well, maybe that’s true. It doesn’t hurt you so much."

"…I have not even been nominated for one. But it doesn’t affect me any more. This is the great thing about getting old: things that preoccupied you when you were young cease to preoccupy you. I would have loved to have had one Oscar. Well, too bad. I have six sheep, two dogs, two children."

"Women executives have a different sensitivity. Male executives only understood makeup or fashion as an instrument of seduction, because that was addressed to them. They didn’t understand that we like to put on makeup or dress up just because it’s a game; it’s pleasurable."

"I’m not there now to represent beauty; I’m there to represent a different dream. It may be defined as joyfulness; life goes on and there are many chapters. I think that’s why they keep me."

"Ageing brings a lot of happiness. You get fatter and more wrinkles, and that’s not so good, but there is a freedom that comes with it. The freedom is: I better do what I want to do now, because I’ll be dead soon. So this is my last chance. Also, there’s a serenity that comes – I had the career I had, good or bad, I did the best I could, and now I continue pursuing what is interesting to me."

"Die meisten Leute haben seltsame Gedanken, aber sie rationalisieren sie. David übersetzt seine Bilder nicht logisch, deswegen bleiben sie roh, emotional. Wenn ich ihn frage, woher seine Ideen kommen, sagt er nur: es ist wie Angeln. Er weiß nie, was er fangen wird."