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Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on August 9, 2002, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
She may be the daughter of one of horror cinema’s grand masters, but Asia Argento wants to make clear that there’s much more to her than genre films. “I’ve had many leading roles” outside the fear field, she points out after our FANGORIA interview has necessarily focused on that side of her career. “You can check out my biography on the Internet Movie Database.”
Indeed, despite launching her film acting career in two of her father Dario’s productions (Demons 2 and The Church) and starring in three of his directorial ventures (the underrated Trauma, The Stendhal Syndrome and The Phantom of the Opera), she has taken on a wide array of Italian features and roles over the past decade and a half. Along the way, she snagged two David Awards (Italy’s Oscars) for Best Actress for 1994’s Perdiamoci di Vista! and 1996’s Compagna di Viaggio. And now, the same day that her mainstream studio breakthrough in the Vin Diesel vehicle XXX is invading thousands of theaters, New York audiences will also have the chance to witness her first feature as writer/director, Scarlet Diva. The heavily autobiographical movie, which debuted in Italy in 2000, is only now reaching the U.S. courtesy of Media Blasters, which brings it to LA September 20 and then other cities ahead of its video release next year.
In the digitally shot Diva, Argento casts herself as Anna Battista, a young actress whose worldwide fame can’t compensate for her personal loneliness. The movie is frank (emotionally and sexually), revealing and aggressively intimate, while maintaining a gritty edge reminiscent of the films of Abel Ferrara (for whom Argento acted in New Rose Hotel) and Nick Zedd. In fact, though it has no scenes set in Manhattan, she refers to Diva as “a New York movie” and couldn’t be more pleased that the city is hosting its first American exposure. This interview, in fact, is conducted on a lower Manhattan street outside a club called The Cock (which sports a giant neon rooster out front, lest anyone misinterpret its name), a favorite haunt of Argento’s which is hosting Diva’s premiere party. Sitting beside her for the duration is Zedd, a close friend of, as well as an influence on, the actress/director.
The obvious first question: Just how much of Scarlet Diva is based on Argento’s own reality? “The film business and my life are intermingled, so 100 percent of it” is derived from her experience, she says. “Every character is a mix of 100 different people; no one person represents only one person. I had to get rid of a lot of demons, and I figured I only had one shot, so I might as well use every character to deal with all the monsters that I’ve met.”
One such “monster” is a lecherous producer who invites Anna to a hotel-room “casting” session, and whom a few whispers have suggested is based on a certain larger-than-life indie mogul. He’s played by artist Joe Coleman, whom genre fans may know for the original, surrealistic poster for Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. “I was the biggest fan of his for a long time,” says Argento, “and to have him in my movie, and in all the movies I will make—I hope he’ll be there for me, because he is the biggest actor in the world, and helped free me from my demons.”
While the writing and shooting of Diva went quickly, she recalls, the postproduction was longer and more challenging. Equally difficult was financing the offbeat project. “That was the hardest part; it took a long time,” she says. “Nobody wanted this movie, so then with my father and my uncle [Claudio], we found this crazy financier who used to do pornos, Gianluca Curti [who has also produced two Italian films featuring David Hess], and he put the money into it.” Despite Dario’s involvement on the production side, Argento notes that her past work with him didn’t influence her approach to Diva. “I was inspired by Nick Zedd’s work,” she says with an affectionate glance at the filmmaker by her side, “so for me, tonight is like closing the cycle. Now I can kill my hero tonight!”
Nor would she consider helming a fright film herself. “I was offered a $3-million budget to direct a horror movie here in New York,” she reveals, “and I said no, because I can’t compete with my father—there’s no point.” Instead, the next production she has in mind is “another autobiography, but not my own”; she won’t detail whose it is, “because it’s bad luck.”
Born in 1975 to Dario and his longtime partner/frequent star Daria Nicolodi (who appears in Diva as Anna’s mother), the young actress followed up her debut in the TV miniseries Sogni e Bisogni with the Lamberto Bava-directed Demons 2, followed by Michele Soavi’s The Church. “I don’t remember much” about this early work, she says, though she recalls The Church as “kind of fun, because I was shooting another movie at the same time. I was 12, and the other movie [Palombella Rossa] was by Nanni Moretti, and he was a pain in the ass; he was a monster. So for me, every time I went to Budapest to shoot The Church, I felt like I was at home. Michele was very good, except that he acted out every scene that I was supposed to do, and he was not such a good actor!”
Argento’s first lead was in the 1989 feature Zoo; four years later, Trauma marked her debut both in an English-language feature and under Dario’s direction. “It was tough, working for my father, but it was wonderful,” she says. “But he got me anorexic for that part.” And then, for The Stendhal Syndrome, “He had me raped [by the movie’s obsessed villain]. It was really horrible, but it was a freeing experience,” she says of the brutal Stendhal.
A lesser-known genre credit is Antoine de Caunes’ Love Bites: “It’s a vampire movie; I shot it three years ago, just after Scarlet Diva, but I’ve never seen it,” she admits. “It was hard for me, because I was acting in French, and I didn’t speak French in those days. Now I do, but that was tough.” She faced a similar situation on Patrice Chéreau’s bloody 1994 epic Queen Margot: “They dubbed me, my French was so bad,” she says. “That was one of the first big-money movies I did.”
And speaking of large budgets, there’s XXX, which casts Argento as Yelena, the henchwoman of lead villain Yorgi (Marton Csokas) who ends up throwing her lot in with xtreme sportster-turned-secret agent Xander Cage (Diesel). When the question arises about making the jump from more personal work to this kind of manufactured blockbuster, Zedd chimes in, “It’s probably quite easy to sell out,” to which Argento adds, “That’s right!” She does, however, express fond memories of working with Diesel: “I loved Vin. He’s the best I’ve ever had as a co-star.”
Unfortunately, the stars’ charisma is all that keeps the routinely written, indifferently directed XXX afloat; both Diesel and Argento deserve better. Not long ago, Argento actually auditioned for better; she was in the running for the female lead in Mission: Impossible II. “I went in for it, but they didn’t consider me much,” she explains. “During the interview with John Woo, they asked me, ‘Why are you called Asia?’ and I said, ‘Because my parents were Communists.’ And there was a big silence, and then Tom Cruise asked me, ‘Are they still Communists?’ and I said, ‘No, no, now they’re anarchists.’ And by then I knew I didn’t get the role.”
But judging from both her demeanor during this interview and the evidence of Scarlet Diva, Argento doesn’t hold Hollywood stardom in high esteem. Asked if there are any filmmakers she aspires to work with, she motions to Zedd and says, “Here he is. He’s the only guy I want to work with.” Then the party and the many attendant well-wishers beckon, and the interview has to come to a close. “I’m sorry if I was too controversial,” Argento concludes—but given how safe most movie people play it in interviews these days, absolutely no apology is necessary.
