has carved out a career via her evocative big-screen shenanigans.
As a major player in Italian and French cinema, the celluloid temptress has gained a fanatical following. Those in the know have thrilled to her fiery combination of looks and burning talent, which have led to such powerful movie experiences as Abel Ferrara's deranged New Rose Hotel (with Christopher Walken and Willem Dafoe) and, of course, father Dario's Trauma. With brains to match her beauty, Ms Argento's also been in the director's seat herself - writing, helming and starring in cathartic sense-shredder, Scarlet Diva.
Now, after years as queen of cult Eurochic, Hollywood has finally received a wake-up call to her charms. Thanks to her role as a butt-whipping babe in Rob 'The Fast and The Furious' Cohen's latest Vin Diesel actioner, XXX, audacious Asia is hotter than a holiday in hell. Not bad for a gal once branded by the Italian press "Dario Argento's worst abortion".
You've been acting since you were nine years old...
Yeah. I started working in 1984.
Why do you think it took your dad so long before he had you star in one of his movies, Trauma (1993)?
I never understood why but maybe he wanted to see that I really had talent of some sort.
It was quite a controversial movie you were working on when your father decided to cast you in Trauma, wasn't it?
Yeah, it was kind of controversial. It was about a girl being raped by her father and then she kills him. I was 16. It was called Le Amiche del Cuore, (Close Friends (1992) Dir. Michele Placido). It went to Cannes and did very well there. I received a lot of attention and all that big shit. It was really shocking for me, as I was very young. But I understood that I could do it. Before that movie I was acting and I didn't know if I was any good. After that I felt stronger. Something had changed and I was in control.
In films like Trauma, Stendhal Syndrome (1996) and Phantom of the Opera (1998), your father featured you in very sexually charged roles. How do you feel knowing that his eyes are on you while you perform in such a manner?
Hmm... kind of frustrated and very embarrassed. But there's a certain freedom in it. Like the big 'fuck you' to the world, which is, I guess, kind of unique and liberating.
In photoshoots and movies, you seem extremely at ease with both your body and your sexuality. Has that always been the case?
No. I'm not comfortable in my body, I don't like it at all. I don't like being naked, it makes me feel embarrassed. I don't walk naked in the house, I'm not that kind of girl. So maybe
that's why I decided to use my fragility to overcome some complexes, that's the simplest way to put it. Also, with my sexuality, it used to be very alive, but in the past few years it's really withered away. I'm not such a good fuck (laughs).
(Laughs) You're not?
Actually, I guess I am, since I fuck very little these days, so when I do, it's good (laughs).
Is this something to do with motherhood?
No, motherhood is a result of that.
Did you feel that you were being regarded solely as a sex symbol to the point where it overshadowed you as an artist?
It's my fault entirely, because I created this game. Since I was little I've had this complex about being ugly. Then all of a sudden when I was 21, I said, "Oh my God, people are sort of attracted to me, and I can play this game and see where it leads." So I started playing a role which wasn't really my true self. But I played it for so long I became it (laughs). And it led to some very strange paths...
Dark places?
Dark places, very obscure. It wasn't funny.
In 2000 you wrote, directed and starred in the movie Scarlet Diva. The intensity of the sex scenes and the way the actors interact with each other suggests that nothing was faked and that all the fucking in the movie is for real. Is it?
Well, almost all of it (laughs). I tried to get as much as I could. The only sex scene that's not real is the one with the musician guy. But even that's so real, it's surreal.
You're holding back there... so was it real?
(Laughs) I'm a mother now.
Many of the characters appear too real to be actors, particularly Hamid [played by Alessandro Villari].
In fact none of them are actors [with the exception of Asia's mother, Daria Nicolodi]. The guy who plays Hamid is a DJ. I did a track with this band he was scratching for. We did a few gigs together and he told me that he wanted to be a porn actor. Then he showed me these home movies that he did with this girl (laughs). I always kept that in mind, I was like, "I might need you some day." So I called him up to fuck my best friend Vera [Gemma, who plays Veronica in Scarlet Diva] and he proved to be great. He got his hard-on, which was very surprising, and they happened to fuck for real. We shot that scene here in my apartment in Rome, and they were fucking on my table where I usually eat. Now this table has taken on other meanings for me (laughs).
Is the sex between your character [Anna Battista] and the guy in the trailer real?
Oh yeah, yeah. He used to be a boyfriend.
Because that is pretty intense...
His name is Jeff Alexander... a rapper and ex-marine (laughs). A really tough guy. I called him up out of the blue, we hadn't had sex for a long time. I said, "Are you up for it?"
And he said, "Yes, I'm up for it."
Then there's the incident where the busty blonde shows up at Anna's apartment, you let her in 'no questions asked' and she proceeds to fuck you.
This is something that has never happened to me, well, that is, a girl hasn't knocked on my door... but it did happen with a guy.
So you're saying a man once knocked on your door and you let him in and he fucked you?
No. The guy... he acted more like we had something. And then... no we didn't fuck, but had some foreplay and stuff, I think.
Right. But you hadn't met him before?
Ah, he said we did. We probably did (laughs).
In one of those dark, obscure places you mentioned earlier?
Yeah.
There's a sequence in Scarlet Diva where you're fucked up on Special K [ketamine], which is, in keeping with the overall mood of the movie, extremely intense and real. It's hard to simulate such an experience visually unless you've actually been there yourself. Have you been there?
Yeah, of course. It happened when I was 21 in New York. I was staying at a friend's apartment and this guy gave me Special K. He told me it was something very light, like a spliff or something, and it fucked me up bad, because this guy didn't know I was drunk already. I never touched that stuff again. It was the weirdest trip, I really thought I was going to die.
There's also an out-of-body moment. Have you ever experienced one yourself?
Yeah, that's exactly what happened [when she was in the K-hole for real]. I could feel myself flying away from me like a balloon. And I held on to the string knowing that my whole life was the string, and that if I let go of the balloon I would never come back.
So, Special K was one of your worst drug experiences. What's been one of your best?
Oh, I think some LSD I took when I was very, very young, with my best friend. It was real good clean fun... really trippy and everything was surprising.
Back to the Special K sequence in Scarlet Diva - invasion of privacy rears its ugly head, when the photographer who gave you the drug starts taking pictures of you off your face. Has invasion of privacy been a problem considering how famous you are in Italy?
It used to be, but I don't care about it any more. You have to accept it. It would be like a guy without a dick trying to fuck with a wooden one... it doesn't make any sense. So I can't rebel against it. But I live a parallel life where things very rarely get crazy, where I get those obsessive eyes looking. I don't go out that much and if I do, I go with my face open and I'm not scared any more. It's all in the attitude.
Since so much of Scarlet Diva concerns your personal displeasure with movie-making and the way actresses are recognised more for their sex appeal than their talent, did acting in XXX feel at odds with those views?
No, I wouldn't say that because I think, in this movie, the character for once is not like in 007 where the girls are just there to be fucked and then die for the lead actor. In XXX, the character I'm playing, Yelena, is in charge, she is with the lead guy and they're saving the world together. So it's a very strong female role.
In XXX there is a major sexual frisson between you and Vin Diesel...
Yeah, I'm his love interest.
Did he ever attempt to make your on-screen attraction a reality, off-set?
I wish. He is a very attractive person in many ways, but no. We've become really close allies. He's been around for a long time and so have I. We've both seen a lot. He's been working in theatre since he was a child and comes from a family of artists. I think we both at this time in our lives need a friend more than a lover.
So you share quite similar backgrounds in some respects?
Yeah. He's a manly man, and so am I.
You're a manly man?
Yeah.
I think a lot of people would disagree with that!
I'm telling you, they don't know shit.
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