Back To School

Isabella Rossellini had long ago cemented her status as an icon of cinema — daughter of Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman, one-time muse/squeeze of David Lynch, modern-day partner-in-crime to Guy Maddin — when, in 2006, she found herself in a situation familiar for so many women. “I was over 50, children grown up, not really working as much as a model or as an actor,” recounts Rossellini, now 61. “I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands, so I went back to school.”

Enrolling in New York's Hunter College, Rossellini set out to study something she'd always been fascinated by: animals. At that point in her life, she had little to prove; so, it was for her own edification. But it turned into a radical change in her career.

In 2007, Rossellini  conceived of a series of two-minute shorts about peculiar mating habits, in which she'd dress up in home-sewn costumes and enact these rituals. Its title? The internet-friendly Green Porno. “IWe know that people are interested in sex. But they're also interested in everything that comes with it, so, even though it's called Green Porno, we do courtship, and motherhood too. The intent was to make funny films about science. I wanted to make people laugh, but make sure that everything I did and said was scientifically correct.”

Green Porno proved hugely successful: beginning just as a pilot, but soon growing into 40 short films. There's a request for ten more, but its star/creator finds herself too busy, given she's currently touring the world with a live stage-show for Green Porno. Along the way, she also made her directorial feature debut, Animals Distract Me, and is still studying: she's now a grad student at work on a Masters in Animal Behaviour. It's a turn in her career that's taken her back to her childhood, growing up in Italy as cinema royalty. There, she first dreamed of making films for National Geographic, that initial impulse taking a backseat to when modelling (she was long the face of Lancôme) and acting (where her American break-out came in Lynch's Blue Velvet) came along. “I was really very, very fond of both those jobs, but animals always remained a part of my life.”

Now, she's become an ambassador of animals; an activist, conservationist, philanthropist, and one-woman show. Touring Green Porno, she sees kids in the audience (“they love the costumes”), and loves having teenagers in the crowd (“you need only to say the word 'penis' and they giggle”). And she finds that the monologue form invites her to elaborate and philosophise upon smaller points from the series. Like homosexuality. “Homosexuality has been proven to exist amongst nature, with certain animals and insects. When humans condemn it, say it's 'against nature', well, it isn't. Sex isn't just for reproduction, and it doesn't just involve mothers and fathers. We make love to create intimacy, to create bonds, heredity, families. There's more to mating than just procreating.”