Isabella Rossellini Continues To Question The Meaning of Beauty

Isabella Rossellini continues to question the meaning of beauty, a theme that has spanned her entire career, first as a model and then as an actress. In Ryan Murphy’s dystopian series The Beauty, the 73-year-old actress plays one of the most enigmatic characters: an elegant, angry woman who refuses to change her appearance despite a society obsessed with physical perfection—and even when she’s offered the chance at youth and irresistible looks.

The role seems to play with the position Isabella Rossellini has often found herself in her career. The daughter of movie legends Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman grew up under the public’s constant eye. “When we were little, paparazzi were always around our house: we had to be careful, constantly under everyone’s gaze: ‘She came out wearing the wrong dress,’ ‘She’s put on weight,’ ‘She’s pale,’” Rossellini told Republica. “We were scrutinized, our parents and us, as their appendage: ‘Will Bergman be a good mother? How are the children?’ Now, with social media, this torment affects many, and the series captures this current theme.”

To build her character, the longtime wife of the man who wants to bring an appearance-changing injection to the masses, “we worked on the physical appearance, spending hours creating this absurd high fashion. One day I said to Ryan: ‘Did you choose me because I have something in common with this over-the-top character?’ It’s true that I come from a fashion background, but I’ve never had plastic surgery, I’m also a farmer…”

“But the director’s skill lies in choosing the actors, and even if you disguise yourself behind poses and costumes, a part of you always emerges. I remain convinced that he was making fun of me a little,” she says.

In fact, there is something in common between her and the woman she plays. “My character loves beauty, but she defines it differently than others: not just youth, muscles, prowess. Rather, it’s an art form, an expression of elegance. It’s in the way you present yourself to others: what you want to communicate through your clothes, rather than obeying the dictates of thinness and youth.” For Isabella Rossellini, this reflection touches on a profound change in contemporary society. “Murphy captures the cultural demands of the moment. Until the 1970s, only actresses and models had to be beautiful. Today, social media has extended this pressure.”

Beauty, inevitably, has also marked her personal path. But Rossellini looks at it with a certain detachment, almost with gratitude rather than pride. She often recalls a phrase from her mother: ”When they told her ‘How beautiful you are, Mrs. Bergman,’ Mom would reply ‘How lucky you are.’ I say the same thing. I owe a lot to beauty, I won’t deny it. It changed my life as a model and actress. But that’s not all I’ve lived for.”

Isabella Rossellini, in fact, always had a plan B: she graduated from the Academy of Costume and Fashion in Rome with the idea of becoming a costume designer. Then life took another direction. “They caught me and made me a model. Which is one of the best-paid jobs, with women paying more than their male counterparts.” What fascinated her most, however, was the photographic image. “My grandfather was a photographer. I thought I had the fascination of the image in my DNA: capturing, in a single frame, a world that allows you to live out your fantasies.”

Of all the photographs in his life, however, the most precious is a private shot, taken at her home in Pantelleria by her photographer friend Fabrizio Ferri. “I have a photo with my son in my home in Pantelleria. My friend Fabrizio Ferri and I went there to take some advertising photos, and he also took other shots: I was dressed, wearing makeup, and so on, and my son would come to me. My private life, along with my professional life, are the photos closest to my heart.”