Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini (; born 18 June 1952) is an Italian-American actress and model. The daughter of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian film director Roberto Rossellini, she is noted for her successful tenure as a Lancôme model and an established career in American and European cinema. She has received nominations for an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, a British Academy Film Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.
After making her acting debut with A Matter of Time (1976), Rossellini had her breakthrough role in David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) for which she received the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. She had a minor role in the box office hit Death Becomes Her (1992), and had further roles in Cousins (1989), Wild at Heart (1990), Fearless (1993), Wyatt Earp (1994), Big Night (1996), Roger Dodger (2002), Infamous (2006), Two Lovers (2008), Enemy (2013), Joy (2015), and La chimera (2023). She also voiced roles in Incredibles 2 (2018) and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021). For playing the nun Sister Agnes in Conclave (2024), she garnered a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Rossellini received a Golden Globe Award nomination for the HBO film Crime of the Century (1996). She received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series nomination for Chicago Hope (1997). She also has guest starred in the sitcoms Friends and 30 Rock as well as the dramas Alias and The Blacklist. She portrayed Simone Beck in the HBO series Julia (2022).
Early life
Rossellini was born in Rome, Italy, the daughter of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman, who was of Swedish and German descent, and Italian director Roberto Rossellini, who was born in Rome from a family originally from Pisa, Tuscany. She has three siblings from her mother: her fraternal twin sister Isotta Ingrid Rossellini, who is an adjunct professor of Italian literature, a brother, Robertino Ingmar Rossellini; and a half-sister, Pia Lindström, who formerly worked on television and is from her mother's first marriage with Petter Lindström. She has four other siblings from her father's two other marriages: Romano (who died at age nine), Renzo, Gil, and Raffaella. Growing up, she received "a liberal Catholic education".
thumb|right|200px|Isabella (right) with twin sister Isotta, brother Robertino and their mother Ingrid Bergman on the filming set of [[The Visit (1964 film)|The Visit]]
Rossellini was raised in Rome, as well as in Santa Marinella and Paris. She underwent an operation for appendicitis at the age of five. At 11, she was diagnosed with scoliosis. To correct it, she had to undergo an 18-month ordeal of painful stretchings, body casts and surgery on her spine using pieces of one of her shin bones. Consequently, she has incision scars on her back and shin.
At 19, she went to New York City, where she attended Finch College, while working as a translator and as a television reporter for RAI. She also appeared intermittently on L'altra Domenica (The Other Sunday), a TV show featuring Roberto Benigni. However, she decided not to stay full-time in New York until her marriage to Martin Scorsese (1979–1982), whom she met when she interviewed him for RAI.
Career
Modeling
At the age of 28, her modeling career began, when she was photographed by Bruce Weber for British Vogue and by Bill King for American Vogue. During her career, she has also worked with many other renowned photographers, including Richard Avedon, Steven Meisel, Helmut Newton, Peter Lindbergh, Norman Parkinson, Eve Arnold, Francesco Scavullo, Annie Leibovitz, Denis Piel, and Robert Mapplethorpe. Her image has appeared on such magazines as Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, and Elle. In March 1988, an exhibition dedicated to photographs of her, called Portrait of a Woman, was held at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris.
Rossellini's modeling career led her into the world of cosmetics, when she became the exclusive spokesmodel for the French cosmetics brand Lancôme in 1982, replacing Nancy Dutiel in the United States and Carol Alt in Europe. At Lancôme, in 1990, she was involved in product development for the fragrance Trésor. In 1996, when she was 43, she was removed as the face of Lancôme for being "too old". In 2016, at the age of 63, she was rehired by Lancôme's new female CEO, Francoise Lehmann, as a global brand ambassador for the company.
In October 1992, Rossellini modelled for Madonna's controversial book Sex. Rossellini also appeared in Madonna's music video for her single "Erotica", released in autumn 1992.
Rossellini was the inaugural brand ambassador for the Italian Silversea Cruises company in 2004, and she appeared in print ads and on their website. Barbara Muckermann, the senior vice-president of worldwide marketing and communications in 2004, said at the time of the announcement, "Isabella is the ideal personification of Silversea's exclusive standard of elegance, glamour and sophistication."
Film and television
thumb|Rossellini on location at [[Tempelhof Airport in Berlin in 1992 to shoot some scenes for the film The Innocent]]
Rossellini made her film debut with a brief appearance as a nun opposite her mother in the 1976 film A Matter of Time. Her first role was the 1979 film The Meadow, and then in 1980 she appeared in Renzo Arbore's film In the Pope's Eye with her then husband Martin Scorsese.
Following her mother's death in 1982, Rossellini was cast in her first American film, White Nights (1985). This was followed by her notable role as the tortured nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens in the David Lynch film Blue Velvet, in which she also contributed her own singing, most notably covering "Blue Velvet" (1951). Other significant film roles during this period include her work in Cousins (1989), Death Becomes Her (1992), Fearless (1993), and Immortal Beloved (1994). In 1996, she appeared as herself in an episode of the TV series Friends called "The One with Frank Jr."
In 2003, Rossellini was a recurring character on the television series Alias. In that same year, she also appeared in the Canadian film The Saddest Music in the World, directed by Guy Maddin. In 2004, she played the High Priestess Thar in the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries Legend of Earthsea, and the director Robert Lieberman stated that Rossellini "brings a very big persona to the screen. She carries a great deal of beauty. We needed someone who had a feeling of authority to be this kind of mother superior type and at the same time not be totally dour and unattractive."
In 2006, Rossellini appeared in several television documentaries. First, she narrated a two-hour television special on Italy for the Discovery Channel's Discovery Atlas series. Then, alongside Segway PT inventor Dean Kamen, she spoke about her past and current activities on an episode of Iconoclasts, a series that featured on the Sundance Channel (known as SundanceTV from 2014 onwards), an independent film network founded by film industry veteran Robert Redford. The Sundance Channel then purchased the 2006 Guy Maddin-directed short film My Dad Is 100 Years Old, a tribute that Rossellini created for her father. In the film, she played almost every role, including Federico Fellini, Alfred Hitchcock and her mother, Ingrid Bergman. Rossellini's twin sister, Isotta Ingrid, criticized the short film, calling it an "inappropriate" tribute.
In 2007, Rossellini guest starred on two episodes of the television show 30 Rock, playing Alec Baldwin's character Jack Donaghy's ex-wife. Around the same time, Rossellini enrolled at New York University where she undertook an undergraduate degree in Art and Environmental Studies, and then pursued with a master's degree at Hunter College in New York to study animal behavior. Then the Sundance Channel commissioned her to contribute a short-film project to the environmental program The Green.
Green Porno was followed by two other animal-themed television productions: Seduce Me: The Spawn of Green Porno and Mammas. Seduce Me: The Spawn of Green Porno is a five-episode online series that was premiered in mid-2010 and explores the topic of animal courtship. As with Green Porno, Rossellini wrote, directed and acted in the series; she is also a producer of the series. Rossellini explained in 2010, "I always wanted to make films about animals – there's not an enormous audience, but there's an enormous audience for sex."
thumb|upright=0.68|Rossellini at the [[2013 Toronto Film Festival]]
Mammas debuted in the United States on 12 May 2013, Mother's Day weekend there, and is a celebration of the maternal aspects of the animal world. Rossellini is again the primary actor and plays the maternal versions of animals such as spiders and hamsters. Rossellini explained in a 2013 interview part of the research process for Mammas: "First of all it's about diversity. When talking about motherhood, I would find examples of ten different species that either don't get pregnant in the belly but in the mouth or back. Or species that abandon their children all-together so that I don't tell ten stories that are too similar." in Vladislav Alex Kozlov's Silent Life: The Story of the Lady in Black, a feature-length version of the director's silent, black-and-white short film Daydreams of Rudolph Valentino. Kozlov's film was due for release in 2012, but, as of February 2014, the film has not been officially released.
Rossellini was the president of the jury for the 61st Berlin International Film Festival in 2011. In April 2015, she was announced as the president of the jury for the section of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
In 2016, Rossellini was cast as Rita Marks, the matriarch of the Marks crime family in the Hulu original series, Shut Eye.
In 2023, Rossellini was honoured with Lifetime Achievement Award at the 18th Rome Film Festival.
In 2024, Rossellini received acclaim for her portrayal of Sister Agnes in the political drama, Conclave, opposite Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow, for which she received a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the 97th Academy Awards.
On February 15, 2025, it was announced that Rossellini would be joining the cast of Ryan Murphy's upcoming television series, The Beauty. On February 26, 2025, it was announced that she had been cast in Mike Newell's Wallis Simpson biopic, My Duchess, playing opposite Joan Collins. Rossellini is also set to star in Jeremiah Zagar's upcoming film The Painted Bride, alongside actors Jeremy Allen White and Mandy Patinkin.
The distribution rights to a documentary starring Rossellini, A Season with Isabella Rossellini, were secured by Escapade Media in September 2025. The documentary, directed by Marian Lacombe, sees Rossellini reflecting on her life as a celebrated model as well as her colorful life.
Rossellini was cast in Marco Perego's film Petrichor shot in Italy over the summer of 2025. In May 2026, it was announced that Rossellini had been cast and was currently filming Alice Rohrwacher's Three Incestuous Sisters.
Stage and live performance
In 2004, Rossellini acted in an Off-Broadway production of Terrence McNally's The Stendhal Syndrome, with Richard Thomas.
Rossellini's friend, Carole Bouquet, also a model who later became an actress, suggested that Green Porno could be transformed into a lecture format with a longer duration. Bouquet then introduced Rossellini to the French filmmaker and screenwriter, Jean-Claude Carrière, and they created a 70-minute-long monologue that expands upon the Green Porno films. The structure of the performance is in accordance with the types of reproductive systems: