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If you go to Isabella Rossellini’s Instagram page, and I recommend you do, you’ll see the 71-year-old actress, director, model and farmer wearing a giant wool hat and vest. radiant with joy under the sun on his farm on Long Island. Another photo of her shows her looking into the distance, her face proudly untouched. Reading it, I often wonder how Rossellini feels so comfortable in her own skin at an age when many women are fighting for theirs.
Rossellini’s early life was, in some ways, defined by other people’s fame. She bears a striking resemblance to her mother, Swedish Hollywood star Ingrid Bergman. Her father, director Roberto Rossellini, was a giant of Italian cinema. She was married to Martin Scorsese and another partner of hers, David Lynch, directed her in the famous 1986 film “Blue Velvet.” She but she also built her own interesting and varied career, becoming one of the most recognized models in the world as the face of Lancôme until, when she was 40, the beauty brand dropped her for being too old. Rossellini was suddenly faced with a question, she told me, that she is still working on today: “Who am I and how can I fulfill the rest of my life?”
The short answer is that she wrote books, went back to school, bought a farm, learned to be single, was rehired by Lancôme, and continued acting. In the film “The Chimera,” directed by Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher and opening in theaters on March 29, Rossellini plays a Tuscan matriarch who ages with much less equanimity than Isabella herself. She (she also has a small role in the new movie “Spaceman,” starring Adam Sandler). Rossellini has just started “a little experiment with sheep” on her farm, partnering with design schools to help students better understand wool, and she describes herself as a diligent person. her following whatever amuses her. “I just play,” she says. “I’m playful. And I became more and more playful as I got older.”
I confess that I have been a little obsessed with your farm, where you are now. It is clearly both a refuge and also hard work. Did you always think this is what you’d be doing when you’re 70? Because when I dream of being 70, I’m not working as hard as you. Well, you know, I say you need two ingredients to start a farm: optimism and ignorance. Optimism is like: Oh, it’s a piece of a dream, wouldn’t it be great to have it? Sure, I can make a farm! And ignorance is how difficult it is, how difficult it is to work, but also make it financially viable. All these small farms in the Hudson Valley or on Long Island, we’re all struggling. How do you do it? However, it is a great contribution to the community, it opened up many possibilities and fills my mind with wonder, and I have to study a lot to understand how to execute it well.