Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Isabella Rossellini
Wed, 26 Feb 2025
Isabella Rossellini is nominated for Best Supporting Actress at this weekend’s Academy Awards. Before the big show, we wanted to give you a chance to listen back to her incredible conversation with Julia. Today on Wiser Than Me, Julia sits down with 72-year-old actress, director, and model Isabella Rossellini, currently starring in the film Conclave. The two dive into a conversation about Isabella’s Long Island farm, why she loves referring to herself as ancient, and her personal journey with sexuality and romance, particularly in her later years. Plus, Julia asks her 90-year-old mom, Judith, to recite a perfectly timed Mary Oliver poem and plots a potential adventure with her. Follow Wiser Than Me on Instagram and TikTok @wiserthanme and on Facebook at facebook.com/wiserthanmepodcast. Keep up with Isabella Rossellini @isabellarossellini on Instagram. Find out more about other shows on our network at @lemonadamedia on all social platforms. Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our shows and get bonus content. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For exclusive discount codes and more information about our sponsors, visit https://lemonadamedia.com/sponsors/. For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: Who is Isabella Rossellini and why is she being celebrated?
Hey, listeners, it's me, Julia. LEMONADA LEMONADA
Hello there, I'm Oja Lopez, a producer on Wiser Than Me. The Oscars are coming up on Sunday, and as you may know, Isabella Rossellini is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Sister Agnes in Conclave. So we're celebrating by revisiting her incredible chat with Julia.
They cover her life running a farm called Mama Farm, why she proudly calls herself ancient, and her shifting perspectives on love in older age. Plus, they dive into the fascinating concept known as cryptic female choices. Enjoy.
Chapter 2: What insights does Julia share about her personal life and pets?
I'm sure I've mentioned here on Wiser Than Me that I have a dog named George, whom I love with all my heart. He is perfect. Well, he's got inflammatory bowel disease, and he is allergic to everything. And he barks way too much when somebody comes to the door. He barks so much, actually, that it makes my Apple Watch give me a decibel alert thing. But still, he is perfect.
And coming for me, that's saying something. Because you know what? I don't have an ideal history with dogs. First, our childhood dog, Pippi, a miniature dachshund. Pippi was run over by a Volkswagen bug. And I know that's kind of funny now, but believe me, at the time, it was a complete horror show. And then there's Jack.
So Jack was a rescue Cavalier King Charles Spaniel that my first husband brought home unannounced one day when I was eight months pregnant, juggling a four-year-old, working a thousand hours a day on Seinfeld, and let's say unprepared for the rigors of dog ownership. Yeah, I mean, my first husband was a nice man, but he brought Jack home with no crate, no food, no dog dishes, and no plan.
And the first thing that Jack did was escape from the house and run as fast as he fucking could east, like perhaps towards Mecca or Jerusalem. I have no idea, but Lord Almighty, did he take off. He was so fast. that my husband got on his bike and I got in a car and frantically chased after him until we finally caught him in the middle of traffic on Sunset Boulevard.
Okay, so at this point, you can imagine, I wasn't exactly thrilled with this first husband of mine, who I should mention is Brad Hall, to whom I am surprisingly still married. So the next day, Brad thought it would be a very good idea to drive Jack the dog an hour and a half up a super curvy road to a little beach house where we were staying. And poor little Jack got very carsick.
And then when he arrived, he proceeded to have projectile diarrhea all over the place. And I screamed so loud that Brad, in a panic, picked the poor dog up underneath his belly and tried to run him outside. And as he ran, the diarrhea sprayed like machine gun fire across all the walls of the beach cottage. And I really actually mean all the walls.
And if I recall correctly, they also had sisal carpeting. So just put that in your mind, okay? Diarrhea, sisal carpeting. Yeah.
It will not come as a surprise that Brad left within the hour to take the dog back to the shelter where he waited until little Jack was happily readopted by a family that was much more prepared to care for this poor creature who I fear that we had probably traumatized completely and thoroughly.
So many years later, I was convinced to get another dog, a black Labradoodle we adopted from Australia, since you couldn't get Labradoodles in California yet. And Brad did his research and figured out how to bring the dog over. which was very good, and it was all very organized. And also, I should say, in my dad's family, there's this tradition of naming female dogs after flowers.
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Chapter 3: How did Isabella Rossellini transition to life on a farm?
If legendary filmmaker Roberto Rossellini and iconic Oscar-winning actress Ingrid Bergman had a child together, you might guess the kid would turn out to be either a brilliant director, a phenomenal actor, or strikingly beautiful. Well, you'd be spot on because our guest today is all three of those things and more.
The strikingly beautiful part, her 14-year contract with Lancôme made her the highest paid model of her time. The phenomenal actress part, she starred in classic cult films like David Lynch's Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart, in Marcel the Shell, and her latest, Conclave, in which she is just sensational.
She also steers her own projects, like directing the incredible Green Porno series that became a viral hit. I love it. Diving into the love lives of the animal kingdom, only Isabella could make snail sex both educational and utterly charming.
She's truly one of a kind, constantly experimenting and pushing boundaries, and always with a fearless authenticity that, even though she's been doing it for decades, is exciting and surprising and even shocking. I just love this. In her 50s, as modeling work and acting roles disappeared, she went back to school to get her master's degree in animal behavior and conservation.
At her graduation, she addressed her fellow students to say, I am here to tell you that if you ever encounter a dip in your life, pay no attention to the voice inside of you that judges you, that is negative, that fosters further anxiety. Just follow your curiosities. That's great for our show. And when Isabella Rossellini follows her curiosity, she goes big.
Today, she owns and operates Mama Farm in Long Island with her two children. They have goats, ducks, turkeys, over 150 chickens, and a small flock of rare breeds of sheep named after iconic female artists like Garbo, Callow, and O'Keeffe. Who does that? The woman is living life entirely on her own terms. But the real legacy she's building is through her work in sustainability, community, and art.
I am so happy to speak today with a twin sister. Mother, grandmother, creative force, and chicken lover who is absolutely wiser than me, the marvelous Isabella Rossellini. Welcome, Isabella.
Wow, Julia, this introduction is so... I'm moved. I'm about to cry.
Oh, cry. Thank you. We cry on this show, so go right ahead and weep away is what I have to say. So are you comfortable if I ask your real age?
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Chapter 4: What unique facts about bees does Isabella share?
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.
Is it called ethology? Is that how you pronounce it? Ethology, exactly. It's called ethology, yes.
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.
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.
Yeah, freedom and serenity. I love that. I love that. Yes. It's funny. It reminds me, completely off topic, but kind of related. Back in the days when I was doing Seinfeld, and there was something that Jerry Stiller, there was a line that he used to say. He used to scream... He used to scream serenity now when he was looking to be calm.
He would scream serenity now, which is not exactly, of course, what you're talking about. But it makes me laugh whenever I hear the word serenity. I think of it. So you have this font. which is incredible. And you are a farmer. And as I mentioned, you have 150 chickens thereabouts and sheep and bees and the whole nine yards, kit and caboodle. What's your routine like on the farm?
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.
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...
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?
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Chapter 5: How does Isabella view her family and community roles?
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.
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.
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.
Did you have to have them castrated, or they came that way? They came that way. I see. That's the way they got entrance.
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.
That is hilarious. You know, your son described you as going from the big city life to a really different lifestyle at the farm. It's almost as if she becomes a different person. So I want to know about that. I want to know what's the difference between big city Isabella and farm Isabella. How would you describe it?
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.
But I mean, is it a different mental state for you?
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.
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Chapter 6: What reflections does Isabella have on her parents and their influence?
Yes, which I love, by the way, love.
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.
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.
That's so funny. That's an amazing thing to consider studying a maternal instinct. God, I have to think about that.
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.
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.
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Chapter 7: How does Isabella's past in the fashion industry intersect with her life now?
But sometimes I wonder if I have missed them more also because they were exceptional human beings.
Yeah, and also people knew them. They're known. So that adds another layer to this that maybe is complicated or maybe it's comforting.
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.
Yeah. Speaking of fame, you said when you were little you didn't really understand your mom's fame. No. And that's such an interesting idea to consider because when my kids were little and – And I was having some fame. I know they didn't understand it when people would come over and say they needed an autograph or something. It was off-putting. It was an intrusion.
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?
That's hilarious. When my son was really little, and at the time I was... Because I was on Seinfeld and we were on a lot of magazine covers, etc. So he was really sort of used to seeing me on the front page of something. And we were walking by... We were walking by a bookstore and the front window of the bookstore had a bunch of books all about Margaret Thatcher.
There was some book that had just come out about her life, biography of, and it was her face on the front. And he looked and he goes, look, mommy, that's you. Any woman on the cover of anything.
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...
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?
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Chapter 8: How did a pivotal year shape Isabella's career and personal life?
All my mom's archive is at the Wesleyan University that has an incredible film archive.
Yes, my son went there. Janine Basinger, the great Janine Basinger. Yes, Janine Basinger. It was his teacher.
The fantastic archivist and film preservation.
Yes.
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.
Oh, I see.
I'm going to be famous. I'm going to make it. That made sense. I thought, oh, my mom, look at this.
Oh, I see. But it just so happens she did. She did, yeah. Yes, of course. So... I know that I wanted to talk about a time of your life because I thought this would be interesting from sort of a, well, from a life experience point of view. 1982 to 83, a lot happened for you, if I'm getting this correctly. Your mother passed away. You got divorced. You got your first Vogue cover.
And you had a daughter.
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