Asia Argento

No. I saw these characters, I saw the landscapes, the light, everything. I saw a film that resembles very much the way the film came out.

Well my family’s not like that. But my upbringing was very problematic and I didn’t have a happy childhood. I wouldn’t go back to my childhood for anything. What saved me was the work. I started working very young and that’s what saved me and made me more confident. I learned to love myself a whole lot through my work. Misfits are often artistic because it seems that instead of going to a shrink, they work. That’s what I did and I think I felt sorry for my character. At first I hated her when I read the book but the more I studied the character, I found that I couldn’t demonize her. I could judge her actions and think its wrong but at the same time I wondered why she is like that. What happened to her and made her like this? So I demonized more the society we live in that abandons a 14 year old girl. We think all women have mother’s instinct but what if one doesn’t have it? Sarah didn’t, so she did what she could with where she came from and her tools.

A lot of it was from the book because since I thought it was somebody’s real story I wanted to be very careful not to change it so much. But the character had a life of its own. At first I thought I wouldn’t be so affected by playing this character. I’ve acted all my life so I thought I could create characters and then go back to my life. But all the time I spent with this character, researched this character and living with this character sucked away my life. Not that I became Sarah, but it was creating these emotions in me and then playing them creates some chemicals in my body that made me crazy. I always say Sarah directed this film. The film would have been very different if I didn’t act in it because a lot of things the crazy things in it that I’m proud of came about because at the moment I was so crazy.

I didn’t know until the New York Times article came out. I suspected something because Laura Albert was always present. Twice I was alone with JT, who I know now is Savannah [Knoop], and I had the impression that maybe she was a girl. But I wasn’t sure of that. It was pretty shocking when I found out.

No. First of all, I’m happy this didn’t happen to somebody. Even though I’m sure it has all happened to someone. I hold no grudge because I thought it was genius what Laura Albert did. Unfortunately in this male dominated world if it had been Laura Albert who had written this book, we wouldn’t have cared as much. I had to ask myself a lot of questions why I wanted to believe this so much. I don’t need to believe works are autobiographies even if they are. Why do people need to believe that my first film, [Scarlet Diva] is autobiographical, when it’s not. Nothing is true in anything we read, even newspapers.

That’s a cinematic trick. I wrote it like that. When my best friend Gaspar Noé read the script, he said “I’m not sure about that scene.” Then when he saw it, he was like, “That’s like the most disturbing scene I’ve ever seen.” He thought it was his favorite scene in the film. I could have never shot that scene with a kid, so it was because of necessity but at the same time it turned into my favorite because it’s one of those cinematic tricks that you remember.

The crows symbolize violence. It’s something that the child creates to accept the horror he’s living so it becomes a kind of cartoon. He is a boy that has never seen a cartoon so I imagined this very old school animation. I didn’t want to make it modern, computer generated image so I [animator] Christiane Cegavske shot that for two months in my garage. I found Christiane on the Internet. I saw this small clip she did and it looked exactly how I wanted the scenes to be. I gave her complete freedom but I was observing while she worked in my garage.

With the children and all that, I didn’t feel the necessity to have that in this film.

When I wrote the script, I never thought I would find young actors to play this role. I interviewed Dylan first and he blew my mind. He was so wise, so profound. He moved me. Both were two of the most profound and deep people I’ve met in my life. Such great professional actors, a lot of older actors could learn from these kids. I learned a lot from them.

They just do it. When they have to cry, they just cry. They don’t take it all apart.

Une vieille maitresse, An Old Mistress.

I play the mistress. It’s a costume movie but it’s not as pornographic as her other films. She’s a woman director that I look up to a lot. Without her movie, Romance, Scarlet Diva never would have never existed. She opened the door for me. She’s somebody who freed a lot of women sexually through her movies.

No. They ask me to work. Usually it’s not the actor that decides, it’s the director. So it’s them that are calling me and I say yes. I’ve been lucky because I haven’t worked with a lot of female directors before. Sofia is somebody who’s completely different to me as a director. On set I am pretty crazy, a pretty nervous type, not very kind, not very calm. She’s the opposite. She’s very calm, very kind, very relaxed, keeps it together without going crazy like I do. She’s able to have kind conversations, detached but at the same time brilliant. I look up to that, I wish I was like that.

Not at all [laughs]. But that’s great. I love that most people are often completely different from me.

I was lucky that after xXx I found The Heart… book and making the film became my most important goal in life. So because I was loyal to this film, I didn’t take any acting jobs for a long time. I got a lot of offers for action movies and kick ass chick roles. But I couldn’t do it because of my film. I just missed that train, which is a lucky thing because my career could have taken a totally different direction. Now I’ve been doing a lot of great and demanding roles and I could have just become a chick with a gun.

I think after directing this last movie I appreciate acting a lot more because I asked so much of myself and I learned that acting can be creative. I always thought acting was just showing up on the set and not a lot is required from actors. Then I worked with this French director Tony Gatlif [on Transylvania] and that was the best experience I ever had as an actress. We did a movie in Romania with gypsies. It was very tough and I started appreciating acting again.

I don’t leave the apartment very much. My daughter goes to school and I sleep while she is there because I work at night. When she comes back from school I stay with her for the rest of the day and then at night I read, I listen to music or whatever. So I barely leave my apartment unless I am DJing. I would never go to a club unless I’m DJing.

My mother is present; my father is not very present in my life. But he wasn’t mean to me as a child, he was just absent. Everyone has a parent that sucks. I never heard somebody say that they had a great childhood.

I don’t know Roman, it’s just that I love him so much. He’s my favorite director and the only director I’m obsessed with. Actually the only time in my life I was star struck is when I met him. I was all wobbly. He’s somebody I really look up to and I imagine what he must have suffered so I didn’t want to upset him.

Yes, I thought it was fun and very beautiful.

Well I have no idea what I’m going to do next. I never plan for them to be disturbing but they turn out to be like that. I must be a disturbed person because that’s what intrigues me.

There are things that disturb me but also intrigue me like abuse against children. It was almost an ethical reason to make a movie about it. I watch movies that talk about child abuse in such a sweetened, unrealistic, moralistic way and I wanted to make a film that would make people think about it. As opposed to things like Walt Disney, where the mean guy dies or there’s redemption. Real life is not like that.

I grew up with people telling me I was very ugly and awkward and then when I grew up all of a sudden it changed. I started making movies and people started thinking that I was pretty which didn’t make sense to me. Then photographers started asking, why don’t you take your clothes off, expose your tits. I was very flattered with people thinking that I was pretty and it’s funny for somebody like me who is very intellectual me to become this sex symbol. It’s really the opposite of what I am. Through it I am able to live a part of myself that would never come out in life if I didn’t have the chance to invent this sexy bitch from hell persona. It’s a way for me to deal with the world. People think I’m stronger than I am. I make them think that so that’s what helps me go out of my apartment every day.

I got this cross on my left arm last summer. I was on vacation and this tattoo artist said to me “Please can I give you a tattoo, it’s so important for me. I can put it on my website.” He was so gentle, I was like “Sure, can you just do a line like this and a line like that?” Also I love jail tattoos. My newest jail tattoo is one done in my handwriting. I disappoint the tattoo artists all the time because I want to just want jail tattoos. But I decided that I’m going to continue the angel that stops on my bush. I want to continue it down and maybe on the side. Maybe make it into a mermaid. I contacted Leu the famous Swiss tattoo artist. For the first time I’m going to have a really great tattoo artist, because all my tattoos were done randomly.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck