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Isabella Rossellini: ‘The Red Carpet Has Become Like a Parallel Business’

Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

She told the Financial Times: “The next day, there are TV programmes, and magazines, and it’s all ‘Do you like the dress or not like the dress?’ and ‘Did she look fat?’ To keep borrowing dresses and jewellery is like a full-time job. And you have to be a fantasy, which you can never be, so you always feel depressed. To be an icon is a big job — it’s beyond acting. And sometimes it pays and sometimes it doesn’t. I remember when we were doing Blue Velvet [1986], Dennis Hopper was just out of rehab. We hadn’t seen him in a very long time, and we all said, ‘Oh, it’s so great to see you, you are such an icon,’ and he said, ‘Icon, icon: who will pay my bills?’”

Isabella Rossellini on the Red Carpet