Isabella Rossellini
Appearances
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Like cleaning the coop because there is a lot of shoveling and my back hurts. Oh, that's hard on your back. Right. But at least I know how to do it and what it takes. And I think that makes you a good manager because you have a sense of what it takes. Because, you know, farming was so far from the way I grew up. Although it was not so far as it is in America, because in Italy, where I grew up,
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Farm is around, and the culinary tradition in Italy is so present that farmer's market, we only ate food from the farmer's market. We never went to the supermarket. We went to the supermarket if there was, I don't know, a pandemic, a war. I mean, that was the emergency. You never buy frozen food. It was everyday fresh fruit from the market. Yes. And so we had a relationship with farmers.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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We went to see their farms. So it was a kind of different way of eating than here in America.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Oh, I'm going to tell you the craziest thing about bees. What? Male bees, they have a grandfather but not a father. How do you like that? I like it, and I'm curious. Continue, please. So their genetic is different than us. So in the bees, there is only one female, the queen, that reproduces. So she's born. She flies off as a virgin in a nuptial flight. She gets mated with several males.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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She goes back and she starts a hive. And she has a spermateca, like we have a discoteca or a bilbioteca, as we say in Italian. She has a spermateca. She collects the sperm. So she flies off in this nocturnal flight for one day. She collects all the sperm that she will use throughout her life. Her life is generally about three years. And she would use the sperm to create daughters.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And no sperms to create her sons, the drones. But wait, explain to me grandfather and not... So the drone has a grandfather because the queen has had a mother and a father.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Because you have a mother and a father to be a female.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Isabella Rossellini
So the newly born son called the drone has a grandfather, but doesn't have a father. Oh, I understand. Because the queen doesn't use sperm to create the males. It's not a clone because it's a different sex. So it's a different genetics. And to me, dealing with those bees is like going to Mars, to another planet. They're nuts. Tell.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So it depends on the season. So you want to make sure that, first of all, you want to make sure that the queen is laying eggs. And the queen lays about 1,500 eggs per day. Good God. The hive is, you know, 40, 50, 60,000 bees. So you want to make sure that there is eggs and that the queen is alive and well. You also check for disease. Varroa mites is a mite that affects a lot of the bees.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And so you have to put medicines and to try to treat them for it. There is beetles that might attack. Once I found a mouse beetle. inside the hive. They killed it. All the bees jumped on it and they stung it and it was dead, all swollen, dead from the sting. So they defend themselves, but you have to check.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And then it depends on the season, you know, like now it's starting to be, there is not much food for them. They've made the honey, that it is the food that they will eat during the winter. But I stole it. I took it. I just left some, but I have – I'm feeding them in the winter, throughout the winter. I give them two types of food.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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One is a liquid food when it's not too cold, and then I switch to solid food, a patty, kind of a – And then I stop around March when I see them coming and bringing pollen because I know that now they can feed. And then I don't feed them anymore because the honey wouldn't be very good if I give them this artificial, you know, this.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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You want the flowers. You want the...
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I was stung so many times. Once I had to do a mammogram, and I – I attended my bees in the morning, and they attacked my hand. And I had a hand that was enormous. And I went for a mammogram, and the doctor kept saying, no, no, no. What's wrong with your hand? No, nothing, nothing, doctor. I have bees. They just stung it. Don't worry. I'm here for a mammogram. My mom died of breast cancer.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Please do the mammogram. No, no, no. We have to do an x-ray on your hand. No, doctor, please. It's just my bees.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yes, they're female. Well, naturally, 90% of the bees' population are female. Yeah, but what about the animals? Yeah, the chickens. So the chickens, they lay eggs. So I have a hard time killing animals. I'm not a vegetarian. I'm just a hypocrite because I just eat the food, but I cannot eat the animal that I've raised myself. I see. And I have a really hard time killing them. I...
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I tried to learn how to do it because I thought it was part of my duty, but it's just horrible. So another way of managing the farm is that we don't kill any animals. Plus, there is no good, how you call it? Now, you speak languages, and so sometimes word comes in a different language. Abattoir, French. Matatorio, Italian. Slaughterhouse, English. Finally, it came.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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There is no good slaughterhouse in Long Island. And one of the stressiest moments for the animal is to be transported to the slaughterhouse. So the slaughterhouse can be humane or not. I mean, they say. I mean, I don't know. But I'm sure there is various degree. But the transportation, it's very stressful. So... I decided not to have any meat. So we can have eggs.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Therefore, I need only female because the chicken, they lay eggs. They don't need a rooster. The eggs is like our menstruation, but only they do it every day. Right. So they have an egg every day. You don't need a rooster for having eggs. I have sheep and goats. At the beginning, I had only female. Males sometimes fight. Mm-hmm. But now I have two males that are castrated, and they are angels.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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My neighbor had them, and so I met them when they were little lambs just born, and she was going to eat them. And I said, well, if you don't eat them, I like to have them because I just saw them, and she castrated them for me.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Well, you know, the way of dressing changes completely. You know, in the city, you have to dress up a bit, you have to be clean. LAUGHTER In the country, you know, shoes are different. Clothes are, you know, old. Sometimes I might have a beautiful designer jacket, but old. So it has been promoted to being a farm jacket.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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A little bit, a little bit, but I'm a lot in the country. So either work. I'm very seldom in the city. First of all, if you're from New York, you were born in New York. I was born in New York, yeah. It's difficult to leave New York because New York makes you believe that it's the center of the world. And if you leave it, you're going to become peripheral to culture or peripheral.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So at the beginning, I was going to the city much more often, going to see the shows. And little by little, I'm doing this less. So I go to the city and now I've become like a farmer. I say, so much traffic. It smells so bad. So much noise.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yes, I've become that person.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And my three grandchildren. I have three grandchildren. Three grandchildren. How old are they? The smallest one is seven months. And then there is a three-year-old and a seven-year-old. Oh, how divine. It seems very sort of matriarchal, is it? It is matriarchal. It's funny because people, we have this bed and breakfast. I'm talking to you from this bed and breakfast. Yes.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And often when guests come, they say there is a very strong female energy. And strangely enough, you know, we're booked for... conferences or seminars, and often there are things related to women, whether it's menopause or lactation, birth. Somehow, that's how we got the name Mama Farm. From the beginning, this land had a female energy.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Not only it was me starting, and my daughter is very involved in creating all these programs, so it was Mama Farm because it was Mama's farm. But also the chickens were all female because we don't need a rooster. We just selected for the eggs. So female, bees, 90% of the bees female. And then so many mothers came with their children to show them, oh, this is the season of the carrots.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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This is the season of spinach. Look at the flowers. Yeah. And so it became naturally mummified and still, and it's very, has a very feminine energy. They call it Mother Nature.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Right? Well, I think so. You know, I was wondering, I forgot if I read it or not. There's a new anthropology book. Anthropology is the study of men. They're emphasizing the women role. For example, they say, you know, when our ancestors took the vertical position, unfortunately...
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It became very, very painful to give birth because our hips had to be smaller and the birth canal became more difficult.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Narrow. So it was difficult to have a baby come out. And that's why it's so painful. But these new women anthropologists said, yes, but that means that that could have evolved only if there was collaboration, altruism, teamwork, because a woman needs another woman to help her deliver the baby, pull it out of her, take care of the baby while she's recovering.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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There was already an enormous mortality and they would have all died if there wasn't collaboration and altruism. Oh, fantastic. It's fascinating, isn't it? Yes, it's fascinating. It's fascinating. And this is how the new study of women point of view, that they don't look at anthropology like competition and who is strongest.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And maybe it was, of course, our culture skews our studies, skews our questions. So now there are these women asking this question. One of the series that I've done as a director, you know, I make these short, funny films.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Thank you. So all my films are called green porno, but actually they are called other things. But the first title was green porno. It was so powerful that no matter what I do, they say she does green porno. So one of the green porno series was called Mamas, and it was about maternal instinct. And it was a series of fantastic ethologists, biologists, women that looked into maternal instinct.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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We all think we know what it is. But then when you really look into it, he's never been studied from a scientist's point of view. Oh, my God. Right. And so they've done all these studies to see, is it true that mothers are ready to die for their children? And the answer is more complicated. Some mothers eat the babies. Some babies eat the mothers. Anything goes.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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There is an incredible movement of women in science that are asking different questions that were never asked before. But I think this idea that women mammals, not female, but male, Because they are sometimes male that take care of, you know, the ostrich is the male that takes care of the baby. The seahorse is the father that become pregnant.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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But I think in mammals, because we have to breastfeed our babies, we also look at them. We have an opportunity to observe them closely than the father. And we also become pregnant. evolve to be more attentive to little indication, to little things that are not verbal. And then I think we are very good at farming or animal behavioral studies. That makes so much sense.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yes, I do. I think so. You know, I think that I have a sense of community. I mean, my farm is very central to our community. My children and my grandchildren live around us. My daughter went to – she studied at the London School of Economics, so she went to London to visit some friends. And when she said, you know, my mom has dinner with us every night and she lives in a house next to ours –
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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They said, is it a problem? Because I think in the Anglo-Saxon world it's ethnic or something. But yes, I am a sheep. You're a sheep.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yes, I speak to so many friends who say, you know, I'm concerned about what am I going to do when I'm old? Who's going to take care of me? How am I going to make it? And Yes, I have no problem. I mean, Wiltshire just wheeled me in front of a coop and take me to the pasture of the sheep. I think it's going to be easy to take care of me when I'm Gaga.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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He would always say to me, I'm so jealous that women can get pregnant. I want to breastfeed you. Why can't I do it? I remember once he was doing an interview and he asked me to sit and wait until the interview was over in a hotel lobby. And the journalist asked him, what kind of a father are you? And he said, I'm a Jewish mother.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And he was a Jewish mother, the stereotype of a Jewish mother. Yes, he would have liked very much to be pregnant and give birth and breastfeed us.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Both. My father and my mother. My father, when I became a teenager, became a very Italian father, very jealous, very worried about my virginity. And a boyfriend, you know, went nuts. So when I was a teenager, I became closer to my mom. But when I was little, I think I hovered more around my dad, who loved animals, was very adventurous.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I think I continued to live my life very closely to how my father lived life.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I think so. I think, you know, I don't know. I lost my dad when I was 25 years old, but I think he would love my great porno and my work at the farm. But he would be... uncomfortable with me as an actress. Oh, really? Yes, I think he was very worried that acting was... You have to be chosen. You always have to please.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And therefore, you can be easily put in a role that it is not active, but reactive. I see. And I think that's what he feared.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Exactly.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I did have control over my life. But I think when I became an actress after he died... because I didn't want to be yelled at.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Can you talk about that shift and how you recover from it? Exactly. It's the ground shift or the ground collapse. I felt that when I had my parents, that there was an anchor, that there was a continuity in the past and I can just be in the future. And all of a sudden, when I didn't have them and they died four years apart, there was this void in my back. And I, you know, and I felt very
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Precarious, very… Untethered, perhaps. Yes, yes. Very… It was… I got scared to live life without them. I was living life. I mean, I was 25. My mother died when I was 30. But still, I think not having them left a very big void. Also, I mean, I wonder… You know, my father and mother were exceptional people, so I'm sure that everybody misses their parents.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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But sometimes I wonder if I have missed them more also because they were exceptional human beings.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Maybe a layer to remember that because I think of them every day. And I wonder if I think of them every day because of my love to my parents or because I'm reminded. Because, you know, when I give an interview, they ask me about my parents or I ran into people. So I don't know.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So I remember once my son, we were at the beach. And my son was running up and down the beach and would go up to people and say, Isabella Rossellini is my mom. And, you know, at the time I was a little bit... So I got so embarrassed. I called him aside. I said, Roberto, why did you say that? He said, I don't know. They seem to like it. And people smiled. Oh, really?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Any woman, because also you're an actress, so you can have a wig, you can change. My daughter, when she was also six or seven, maybe smaller, they were teaching her to remember her last name and her address, just in case she got lost. She could tell a policeman, my name is Electra Wiedemann, this is my address, and the policeman...
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So they were teaching all the children, remember your last name, remember your address. And then they were asked, they were interrogating the children to see if they understood it. So they went to my daughter and they said, okay, Elettra, her name is Elettra. Elettra, you are lost at the airport. What do you do? And she said, well, I'll sit under my mom's poster. And she said, what would that do?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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She said, haven't you noticed in the streets and the airport photos of mama and daddies everywhere? So if someone gets lost, you just sit there. She hadn't even understood what was my job. She thought it was photos of all the mommies and daddies. So you can get lost, you go underneath that poster.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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She wrote a diary. Yes, she wrote a diary when she was young. And then I think when she became very known in Hollywood, she stopped writing it because she was afraid that somebody might steal it and publish it or something. And so she stopped writing her diaries.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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But we do have her diaries from, you know, age 12, 14, when her father gave her a little book to keep a diary, all the way until she was maybe 36 or 37. Oh, wow.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So I couldn't read them because she wrote them in Swedish and I couldn't read Swedish. Oh, hilarious. But it was really interesting because the first diary opens by saying, my dad gave me this diary and I'm really happy to keep a record of when I'll be an actress and I will become very known. That's the first thing she wrote. Really? So I thought, this is extraordinary. It's astounding.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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All my mom's archive is at the Wesleyan University that has an incredible film archive.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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The fantastic archivist and film preservation.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So it's there. And so Janine had the diary translated, so we read the most interesting passages. But this was your opening. And then a friend of mine gave me the answer. He said, oh, I think a lot of diaries start like this. Just a mother it happened, but a lot of people's diaries.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I'm going to be famous. I'm going to make it. That made sense. I thought, oh, my mom, look at this.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yes. Yeah, it's true. I've never thought about that. Yeah, that happened all in between 82 and 83. Big changes.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Oh, so hard, yes. No, I didn't have it, of course. Yes, it was hard. And that's why I tried to be not only very present. When my children had their baby in March, I was offered to do a series. But that's where my third grandson was born. And I said, no. My accountant was berserk. She said, you're going to make so much money. I said, yes, but more important to be here for my son. Hmm.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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But you can be a grandmother later on. I said, no. The grandmother is here the first day the baby's born, the first child. The first child is the hardest, wasn't it, for you too? It's such a surprise.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And then that everything you do, it becomes so complicated. You know, you say, oh, I forgot to buy the meal. Let me go out. Ah, no, you can't go out. The baby's sleeping. There's no babysitter. You cannot leave the baby alone at home. Everything becomes so difficult. Yes.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yeah, well, I was told the same many times. But it is the best, you know, because there are other jobs that come and there is nothing, there is a quality of life. And the quality of life comes not only with the jobs, comes also with the family and the relationships. Yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I also think, I don't know if you agree with me, I also think that all of women of, I mean, I'm older than you, but, and I'm wiser. Yeah. When you say wiser than me, I say, oh my goodness, now why am I going to say that he's wise? Now you own it. You own it, Isabella. But I think that, you know, my generation, your generation, younger generation, we had career. We moved into...
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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became producers, became director, you know, feel that men dominated. But the job is still organized according to this division where there is always a woman at home taking care of the family. Oh, yes. That is the next step, I think, that the feminine world has to enter into the world of jobs, films, everything, right? I mean, just look at the tax.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I can take as a tax break, if I go to lunch with you to discuss this interview, we can make it into a... Yes, which we must. I insist we do. But it's a tax deduction. You can take it off your taxes. Yes. But if I have a babysitter, I can't take her off.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It continues to be a problem that has to be resolved somehow.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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You know, talking about women in government, I think that's how I got my job back at Lancome.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So I got this beautiful contract with this firm. extraordinary cosmetic line, Lancome. And I worked for it for 14 years as the only model and extremely successful. And in the midst of this enormous success, I got news that my contract was not going to be renewed. And I was very surprised.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And then I Turn 40 or 41, and I will start rumors that I will not renew my contract. So I asked to talk to the top guy at the time, and he explained to me, gave me a rationale. He said, women dream to remain young. advertisement is about to dream. You are going to be 42 soon. And at 42, you cannot represent that dream. That's why we have to find somebody younger.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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We're very grateful for your work. We're very gracious, but you're not going to work with us anymore. I asked, I mean, they had all the marketing tools, you know. So when I asked my friends, do you like to stay young? Nobody said yes. Nobody said no. I want to be elegant. I want to be playful. I want to be sophisticated. I don't want to stay young.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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But some said, oh, yeah, it'd be nice to stay for 23 forever. But it was really a minority. But I didn't have the instrument they had. So 23 years go by. Mm-hmm. And I receive a call from a woman saying, I would like to hire you back. And I said, what about the dream of remaining young forever because I'm 23 years older? Can I come to Paris? Can you pay my airplane to come to Paris?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Because I want to meet with you because I don't understand it. So I arrived. I was very anxious. I arrived at the restaurant before everybody else. And then I was waiting and I see a motorcycle. Wait a minute. Hold on a second. Why were you anxious? I was so lost, you know, 23 years of and now they want me back. I didn't understand.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I said, if you want somebody older because you want to fight ages, get Helen Mirren, get Meryl Streep. If you get me back, that story that was controversial because when they let me go, that was controversy. Some women got very offended. It's going to come back. I don't know how to protect you from this story. What am I going to say to the press?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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blonde hair flowing like Brigitte Bardot. She came and she said, hello, my name is Françoise Liman. I'm the new CEO of Lancome. I said, said no more. And now I understand. You are a woman. And she said, yes, my...
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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intent is to be more inclusive, to define beauty not as a certain age, a certain race, a certain weight, but trying to really give instrument to everybody to embellish, to play, to be creative. And that's how I define beauty. And so I got back. And I've been now with them for 10 years. Wow.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Isn't that amazing? It's an amazing story. But I think that the sensibility that she had is that she understood that you can reach out to women that sometimes feel discarded, feel that I have no voice. Because we all want to be elegant. We all want to be creative. Of course. I'm changing my makeup based on that principle. Okay. Explain that. You know what?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I've noticed that I've used my makeup as hiding my age. I would put things under my bags, under my eyes, and I'll put a little bit of rouge on my cheek. And then I said, wait a second, I don't represent that. And I saw, incredibly enough, at Lancôme, there is a lovely man who uses makeup. But he doesn't use it to look younger. He doesn't use it to look like a woman. He uses it as a decoration.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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He uses it as a creative expression. Mm-hmm. And I said, I'm going to do your makeup. Tell me what you're using. And now I am putting a little orange under my eyebrows. I always used very little makeup all my life. I mean, sometimes I use a lot of makeup because I'm an actress or a model. But in my real life, I use little makeup.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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But now I'm using it as a touch of color, not as trying to be younger or... trying to hide something that I think is wrong, like a pimple.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So do you know that generally you put an eyeliner and then you put some color in your eyelid and then in the – Right underneath the bone, you put a little darker, so a little shade so your eyes seem more deep, like when you are young and you don't have the eyelid drooping. But if you do the makeup, just a color underneath your eyebrow, it still looks like makeup and it looks interesting.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It looks a little bit punk, a little bit rebel. And it is a little bit rebel, but a 72-year-old rebel, nothing to be afraid of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Grandma rebellion. And, of course, lipstick, right? Lipstick. Lipstick I've always used because the makeup artists, all of them that I worked with the best, they all gave me the same answer.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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They said, choose a feature in your face that you like about yourself and make it bigger. And everybody said that I had good lips, so I made just red lipstick. Done. Done.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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First of all, I was chubby. Then I had scoliosis, which is, you know, they took me to the hospital. There was deformity department. Oh, oh. Wow. Wow. It's clear what I had. The scoliosis is a very common deformity of the spine, only that mine was very severe. So in my life, I had to have two major operations. I have 17 vertebras that are screwed together, basically. Do you have pain in your back?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I do. I do have pain in the back. I mean, I have strategies. I swim. I do exercise, massages. I have to have a regime, yes, to keep me from pain.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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There was an element of great surprise, you know. I always felt that my forte as a model was that I was a very good accomplice with photographers and they understood what they wanted. And it was almost like creating a character for films. In fact, I didn't want to act because my mom was so famous, Ingrid Bergman. And so I was intimidated. My father didn't want me to be an actress.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So when I became a model, it was great because it was something that I was... I didn't realize that it was something that I grew up with. I thought it was a complete different job. And then until Richard Avedon one day said to me, Isabella, the models are a little bit like silent movie star because I'm not photographing a beautiful nose, a beautiful mouth. I photograph emotion.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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You have to show me emotion and that's what I photograph. I see. And then that's why you should be an actress, he said. And, you know, as a model, you're always worried. You always think the thing would last a couple of years, and then what do you do next? And so I was thinking, what do I do next? And it was Avedon that encouraged me to be an actress. And I tried.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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He said, you just have to add words. So I added words with an accent. Yes. There was a problem, but now it isn't a problem. I'm working with Pixar. It's an asset. Now it's an asset.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So, I don't have sexuality. You know, I haven't had a boyfriend in 25 years, but for a brief moment during COVID, how lucky I was. I didn't have a boyfriend for years. And then just before COVID, as we were on the lockdown, I met a man who I liked a lot who then left after COVID. So the COVID lockdown for me was fantastic.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So how it happened, I had my children and I adopted my son as a single mom because I was getting older and I come from a family of a lot of brothers and sisters. So I wanted my daughter to have that. And I was getting old. I didn't have a man then or a man with whom I wanted to have children. And so I adopted my son Roberto.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And I still had boyfriend going out, but it was difficult, you know, and the day never ended. You know, it started at five in the morning to get the children ready to school and then dinner and then, you know, bath and reading the story. And then the boyfriend was another dinner, another, then he wants to make love. The day never ended.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So I was going to the therapist and I said, how do I handle this? And You know, I get up at five. It's still one o'clock. I'm still doing something for somebody. And she said, but have you ever tried not to have a boyfriend? And I had not. I always had somebody, you know, like if it wasn't a boyfriend, still somebody who went out trying to figure out if he could become a boyfriend and all that.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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She said, try it. And since, as you know, I am very adventurous, I said, yes, right. I'm going to try to be single for six months.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Let me try. I never tried. It was fantastic. So it was fantastic. It was so serene. There was no up and down. You know, I slept. I could take care of my children without worrying that… Somebody else needed attention. Somebody else needed attention or that there was tension among them because when he's not the father, they don't like it so much, the boyfriend.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So the six months became a year, two years, three years. And then I thought, well, you know, it happened. And I spoke to other friends. Oh, yes, I haven't been married in three years. Okay. So I never made the choice, but 25 years went by without a boyfriend, but for that very brief COVID parenthesis, luckily. Otherwise, I would have been locked up by myself. Okay.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I think because I have a big community, I don't need a man. I mean, if I fall in love, yes. But otherwise, a lot of friends of mine say, oh, you know, come to dinner. I have somebody who can be a companion. But I don't need a companion. I have plenty of friends. I have grandchildren. I have my community here in living in the village. It does have to be single.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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It helps to live in a farm because you're part of a community. In the city would be harder because going to parties without a husband or a companion is the worst. I cannot enter a party by myself. I hate it to go to a party. What do you do? Do you take a friend with you? Well, but they don't want to come because most of the time it's boring or too much chitchat or, you know, red carpet.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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So they are shoveled in the corner waiting for me. And so they don't want to come. None of my family wants to come. And then sometimes other friends don't want to come. And so I don't go to parties, but I never really liked them. So I don't miss them. Yeah. Sometimes I miss the companionship, you know, like, oh, let's go see this movie together, you know, coming out and discussing it.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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But it's not something so big, the missing, that would make me forced to get... That requires a change. Yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Well, you know, I can give an example come to mind. I don't like, you know, my neck. You know, I'm just looking at my dog's neck, how much I like it. And I look at my neck and I don't like it. And I say, why do I like my dog's wrinkles and I don't like my wrinkles? But so getting old has this aspect. But I'm ancient and I love it. I had a wet nurse. I was born in Italy after the war.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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There was no formula. My mom was 38, I think, when she had me and my twin sister. So she didn't have enough milk for two. And I was raised by a wet nurse. So that's ancient. And I love things in me that are ancient, that I can connect to something that existed in the past but a long time ago. And they don't exist anymore.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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No, we don't feel a psychic connection, but I'm definitely closer to her than my other seven brothers and sisters. Seven? Yes, we're seven big families. Some of them are half brothers and half sisters. But there is a bond. But I also fought with her the most, too. So it's the most bonded, but also the most fights.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Oh, a lot. Yes, yes. We see each other a lot. We almost speak on the phone every day.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Right. Isn't that a fantastic name? Cryptic female choices, again, is the point of view maybe of the masculine point of view that looked at courtship. But this is a scientific term. It's a scientific term. Yes. They looked at courtship as a way, for example, I don't know, birds dancing until the female is ready.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Succumbs. Exactly. Look at the word you've used, succumb, because we are so used to thinking that it's the male that does something spectacular and the female gives in to it. Cryptic female choices instead is what the female might do to keep control and not succumbing to a male. For example, my chicken. You tell me if this isn't fantastic and I'm slightly envious of them.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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If a rooster jumps on them and they don't want to be mated, they can spit the sperms out like we would spit our saliva. Isn't that great? It's phenomenal. Phenomenal. Ducks. Ducks, they have a vagina like a labyrinth.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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They have a vagina like a labyrinth that has many canals. One canal leads to the eggs. The others don't. So the penis penetrates the female duck. Cryptic female choices. She sends him to a dead end. because she has several canals, so she doesn't care. She lets the duck she wants to be the father of the baby in the right canal that leads her to the eggs. Cryptic female choices.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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You don't give up power. I mean, it is too good. It is too good. And those are all new studies that are coming to the surface. And a lot of them, a lot of the great questions are asked by female scientists.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Absolutely.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yes. I mean, life, you know, life is so interesting. It's full of interesting things. I just signed up for a course in ornithology to learn more about birds.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Oh, I see. Yeah, I should have done it earlier. And my film about animals, you know, yeah. I think they're good. They're fun. I should have done more of it. I should have cultivated that voice more.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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But sometimes you need a lot of time to get to a certain point. To get to a certain point, yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yeah, that's a very good question. Well, maybe having boyfriends, frankly. Maybe I should have been single more frequently, here and there. Just be with the one I really loved.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Well, I'm not worried about you. I have the feeling that I'm not worried about you. Okay. I say you laugh because laughter, I mean, laughter helps a lot, isn't it? I'm not worried. I think he would find it very wonderful. I found it very wonderful. People don't believe it, but it really is wonderful.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Me too. That far is really wonderful. Yeah. The only thing that I'm a little worried is if I get sick. With pain. Yes. I had pain with my back, severe pain occasionally, and that's very hard. That is hard. But short of pain, everything else, sometimes I wondered if I could, I sometimes lost the ability to walk twice in my life. Oh, scary. And I had to relearn, and it was scary.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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But, you know, it was also interesting, I have to say. What was interesting about it? It was interesting, the contact with other people that live like that, discovering the solution, discovering a whole community. I think, you know, I volunteer for the Guide Dog Foundation, and mostly we raise dogs for people that can't see. And people say, how do you separate from the dog after you raise them?
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Because you're part of a community and that community is so clever and so full of life and so challenged and yet so capable, so strong. They are an inspiration. So my dog is my connection to them. Yeah.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yes, community and laughter is a very good combination.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Now, are you going to talk to your mom? Yeah. What should I say to her? Well, say hi. Ask her if community and laughter has been her secret.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Oh, great. She has a problem with Zoom. I have a problem with Zoom, too. Yeah, who doesn't? I know.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Absolutely. Come. Anytime.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Thank you so much.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Wow, Julia, this introduction is so... I'm moved. I'm about to cry.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Yes, 72. Not and a half, because when I was younger, I would say three and a half, four and a half. Now I took the half away. So it's 72, not yet a half, but soon.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Well, you know, it's funny. I never, I mean, inside you don't change. I haven't changed since I was like maybe a teenager. I mean, teenager years are a little bit of torment. Yes. But once you hit 20s, it doesn't change inside. The outside changes, but the inside stays the same. So what do you think? You think you feel like you're in your 20s then? Yes. I don't know. I never really think of age.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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You know, I know a lot of people talk about my age. Yeah. I lost my job for age. I got my job back for age. So my life is very based on age. But I never really think about it so much because I don't know what to do with it. I mean, it just happens.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Well, you know, yesterday I saw an interview with Jodie Foster and she answered for me. I wish I could memorize what she said so I can repeat it exactly.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I'm curious. But I think that what happens is when you're young, you have so many things to prove that you're financially independent. Maybe there is, you know, you have to prove that professor, they gave you a... Bad notice that you were intelligent, capable, then you have good mother, you raise your children, good wife.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And then as you become older, that preoccupation lifts and you just say, well, I am who I am with the limitation. I am that intelligent. This beautiful, this fat, this old. And you accept it. So there is a certain amount of serenity. And with that, a kind of a freedom, because you also say, wait a second, here's not much left.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Let me do what I always wanted to do and I didn't do it for whatever reason. Like for me, it was going back to study. Yes. First of all, there wasn't animal behavior. It was a new science, so the university didn't offer it when I was in my 20s.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And it wasn't offered at the time because it's relatively, there was biology, there was zoology, but not ethology. So that was one reason. And then I stopped modeling. I was working. So I thought, everybody's saying, ethology, what the hell is that? You're working with a chimpanzee. There's no way to make a living, which is true. You know, modeling and all that seemed more concrete.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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But then when you're old, you just say, well, I have my pension. You know what? I'm going to study ethology. There is a freedom that comes with it.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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Can you describe it, Isabella? Well, you know, I also have employees because, of course, I somehow work as a model and as an actress came back. So I'm often traveling. I really more manage it. You know, the only thing I do, because everybody's afraid, is the bees.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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And they don't need to be attended every day, but every week or every two weeks, which allows me to travel, be an actress, come home, attend the bees. Yes. But, you know, feeding the chickens. I mean, what I try to do, I manage it. And the principle is that I can do things that I can do. Yeah. Because if ever somebody's sick...
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
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I know how to feed them, how to clean the coop, how to water it, how to give a certain medicine if it is not too sophisticated and we need to call the vet. So I developed the farm with things that I could do directly. I see. But you know what's happening? What? I'm getting old. And some of the things that I decided 10 years ago, I can't do anymore. Like what? Like what?