THE BEAUTY: Official Podcast Episode 11: Ashton Kutcher and Isabella Rossellini

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Welcome back to The Beauty: Official Podcast. I'm Evan Ross Katz, and I am thrilled to have these two powerhouse actors from FX's The Beauty together in the same room, Ashton Kutcher and the iconic Isabella Rossellini.

Ashton, Isabella, thank you both so much for being here. I want to start by asking about your reaction to finding out who was going to be playing your spouse in this series, because I imagine it might have been very exciting.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: Oh, for me, it was very exciting to have Ashton, who I love. Yeah. Handsome young man. I'm old woman. It was an adventure.

I really enjoyed it.

ASHTON KUTCHER: When I signed on to the show. I knew the premise of what was going to happen, and Ryan and I started sort of ideating on this relationship without going into, like, who was going to be, but just like what the relationship was and what it meant and how it was. And one day I got a text and I was like, I don't know if I can do this show because you're like, in a league of world class, legendary thespians that is like so astounding.

I was like, I don't know if I'm going to have the courage to, like, hold a room with you.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: And we have to also talk to one another.

ASHTON KUTCHER: So I was like, I was like, it's like meeting the Queen. You're like, I don't know if I'm going to have the right etiquette. Am I going to be awkward? Am I going to like, you know, not curtsy the right way? I'm like, is she going to look at me and be like, I can't do this. Like, I was terrified and Ryan’s like, this is going to be amazing.

And I was like, oh, I'm so scared. And then you're so disarming and nice and kind and generous and extraordinary in this.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: You know, you said world class and all this. Of course, my background is I have a very good pedigree. Ingrid Bergman’s, daughter of my father's Roberto Rossellini. But, you know, I found that incredibly enough, in the series, there is much what used to be called author ism. Ryan Murphy is a real author, although his shows are incredibly popular and they reach a big audience.

So they are very commercial if you want, but there is a real art in it. And so I was very attracted to it because in a way, he was familiar to me in a, in a, an odd way.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: We're talking about episode 11 today, but I want to rewind episode eight, actually, because it's very interesting. I mean, your character, Frannie Byron comes in, he decides to give your two sons the shot, and I imagine there's a sort of a conflict there, because on the one hand, you don't want them to take it. On the other hand, it's going to be the thing that saves their lives.

So how did you kind of feel about, Franny's conflicted emotions in that moment? How did you play that?

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: They are naughty boys. They are, but I love them. I mean, I have to say something about the actors that played them before the transformation. They were so marvelous at playing losers. You know, in every gesture, in their appearance. And then they come in with these two incredibly beautiful young men. And at the beginning, I'm like, stunned.

Is that them? Yes. It's the children I always wished I had. And now they are. So little by little I get myself transported and we start dancing. And I'm old and I'm dancing with them. And then, bang, they get me and I have a second to react to the horror, because then it's not me anymore.

ASHTON KUTCHER: Yeah, I remember that scene, where the boys get revealed and it's kind of like there's the two feelings happening at the same time. Like there's the one feeling of, oh my God, they're alive because she thought that they were going to be dead going into the scene or dying, and this is the last time we're going to see them.

And so it's like this extraordinarily fine line of bittersweet anguish of like, now they're this mass manufactured version of beauty, but at least they're alive, underpinned by extraordinary anger.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: You forced my hand like never before. I will ensure that vengeance grieves you until my last dying breaths. You have been warned.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: I was wondering in this scene why Frannie doesn't just kill Byron. You know, she. She mentions the fact that she wants to seek revenge. And I'm watching them thinking I know how I would do it. But from your perspective as an actor, why do you think it was that Frannie chose to keep him alive?

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: I don't know. She hasn't killed anybody. She. You know, she's not a murderous like some other characters. They do it by job. So she's not a murderess. But she. I'm sure she's my be thinking about it. She might be at night alone saying, how can I do it so that it is an accident? And I probably also think is going to get is going to die.

He's going to die. He wants to live as youthful and having girls. He's going to get a venereal disease and he's going to die of it, foaming from his mouth. You know, I'm sure he has all these fantasies that give a great satisfaction. And then she falls asleep and she hasn't done it right. And then the next day, she starts again

EVAN ROSS KATZ: all over again.

ASHTON KUTCHER: I was just hoping you'd say. Because you secretly love him,

EVAN ROSS KATZ: that too.

That that's what they do.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: Yes. I mean, but I think the hatred of each other. There is a bond. They feel a life, you know, they feel alive in that anger and in that thing. So if they if they would separate, life wouldn't be as spicy.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Yes, absolutely. And I think it's interesting what you were talking about to this idea of synthetic beauty. And so I'm wondering, you're inhabiting all of these incredible costumes. I mean, you've worn some incredible costumes throughout your career in television and film as well as in real life. What were these costumes like for you?

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: So it was, you know, I worked as a model, so I also wore many beautiful costume models.

ASHTON KUTCHER: Models unite!

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: When I finished high school, I, enrolled in Italy in a fashion school, and I graduated to become a costume designer. So costume for me is very important. Once my character is dressed, I have a feeling of who the person is. It's very psychological. And we knew that my costume had to be really exaggerated because beauty. The series is all about extreme, so I am dressed in a way that did you so absurd that in a way my costume is.

ASHTON KUTCHER: Is that word you're looking for? Fabulous.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: So Ryan said to me she believes in beauty, but she thinks that single handedly she can saved haute couture, which is the handmade high fashion in France. I might warn the world about what you're up to wearing the most delightful Christian Lacroix from the 1988 collection that is beauty.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: There's a costume that we see in this episode. It's, an iconic throwback to one of your iconic roles.

ASHTON KUTCHER: Frannie,

NICOLA PELTZ: don't act so fucking surprised, you smug idiot.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: How did Ryan present that to you? And this idea of bringing this iconic imagery from death becomes her into this.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: Well, he never mentioned Death Becomes Her. I think I read it in more on on Instagram and all that. I don't I mean, I'm sure he likes Death Becomes Her. Death becomes her slowly. He's, you know, he told you

Confirmed.

And Death becomes when it came out, it wasn't very successful. I mean, little by little has found his, reputation and his success.

And nowadays I cannot tell you how many people they used to say. Oh, blue velvet, you do blue velvet. That was fantastic. But now they say more. Oh, you did a death Becomes Her, which, you know, it's. I'm surprised too, because that was happened many years ago. So Ryan never talk to me about Death Becomes her. But, you know, I suspected that that may be it.

Was it reference to it? But I think that Ryan has a culture of films and photo and fashion. So when he gives direction, I don't know if he says, you know, here you walk like Betty Davis and little foxes in here, you do a little Evita Peron by the window. And I knew exactly what he was talking about, strangely enough, because we all have these images branded in our brain.

ASHTON KUTCHER: It’s like a film file.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: Exactly. But I think that he has an incredible sensitivity to the absurdity of the red carpet that has become such a pressure. And, you know, last year I was nominated for an Oscar, so I had to do a lot of red carpets, and I was astounded because most of the people hadn't even seen the films. It was all about how you appeared,

EVAN ROSS KATZ: right?

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: I was so surprised.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Is that a shift from how things used to be?

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: Yes, very much so. So my mom had about seven nomination, three Oscars. You know, major Hollywood star. Name was Ingrid Bergman. And I remember that when she went to the Oscars because I was a little girl, she would do her own makeup and, she would have maybe a friend, a costume designer, help her put the dress together. So it was much more subdued.

It wasn't at all what he has become.

ASHTON KUTCHER: Do you understand now? Like, when do you just drop things like, get my mom. And then her name was Ingrid Bergman, and you're like, imagine knowing that coming in and being like, I've studied your family to try to be better at what I do. And you go like, okay, now I'm going to like, go...

EVAN ROSS KATZ: do a scene.

ASHTON KUTCHER: toe to toe. It's terrifying.

It's terrifying. And the nonchalantness

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: But no, but by the way, that I have been in the terrifying, I have been in the terrifying shoes, you know, because I was their daughter. And I decided to be in film. That was pretty terrifying.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Yes.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: But I never thought I could be as good as them. I don't even know. Today I'm as good as them. But.

You are.

But then one day I just said it's just the love of the thing is a love of the, you know, has. They say you you don't love the destiny. You love the traveling. Is it the journey? The journey, not the destiny. So I said, yes, the journey is making film that it is so much fun rather than the result.

Are you nominated? Do you get an award and. Ryan, saw that. So that in our culture and worked it in in this series, I think in a very fun, ironic way.

ASHTON KUTCHER: I was having all these feelings about you, an admiration of you and I, I remember having a conversation with Ryan. I was like, I think this Franny, is the only thing in the world that Byron thinks is interesting. She is the only thing on this planet that is unpredictable, that is authentic, that is willing to tell him no.

And so I was like, I'm going to use all of my admiration for you as a person. Pack inside this character and use every moment of his existence as an action of getting her approval. And it became like the center arc of who this character was, but it comes from it. Authentic admiration for.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: Oh. Thank you.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: I'm wondering what your favorite moment of shooting this season was.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: So I think working with you was wonderful because I work sometimes in avant garde films. Or, you know, I didn't know if I could, you know, you're always insecure, you are. You might think you're because of my family. And I was like, could I match this culture that is popular and fun and glamorous and beautiful? Can I belong?

And you make me feel welcome. And it was so much fun to play with the scene with you. I sometimes, you know, like playing with an actor is almost like playing ping pong or tennis is acting is also reacting. So, so much of who you have in front, characterizes who you are. And it came so easy and it was so playful.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: I think the ping pong analogy is very apt, because if you're playing against someone and they can't get the shot back over the net, then you're done. No matter how good.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: You are, you can say hello, how are you? And you can say a million different and it can be concern. It can be cold, it can be disgusted. And in the reaction it will, you know, starts the game. And with Ashton it was always very easy.

ASHTON KUTCHER: With the two characters are just finding new interesting ways to take jabs at each other. And there were moments in time where you're like, that's it, you've done this a thousand times. Like, that's not even that doesn't even hurt, right? Like, I know what that shot feels like. And then there are moments, times are like, well, okay, that one got me a little bit.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: Let me tell you something. And I hope you listen to me very carefully. Your mother is the only person that will ever remember you, and that's because the pain you caused her when you were born. That's how insignificant you are.

ASHTON KUTCHER: It's a fight. And you're receiving punches and giving punches in, like, a good fight scene. You wanted to ramp and escalate in a way that's authentic. It's like sometimes the people that are closest to you, that you love the most are the people that you are willing to show the most amount of hostility towards, because you know that they'll love you at the end and afterwards.

And so it's like getting to that comfortable place to leave.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: I've seen that in life, you know. I've seen that in life. Sometimes when people are saying things to one another, you say, well, why do you stay married? But actually is intimacy. Intimacies I’m allowed to say something that other people's can't say and the truth that he's demolishing. And you have to kind of wrap it up and answer back and you becomes this kind of, game.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Right? Well, and underneath all of it, as you said, is this deep admiration that Byron does have for Frannie, and you even characterize it as the only interesting thing that he's ever seen. So it's like, even though there's these jabs back and forth, there is this singularity in terms of what he sees in her, that he sees in it.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: And she probably has an incredible pleasure at dominating him.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Totally.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: No. And because she takes all the money, she takes all the wealth and then intimidates him, and that's a pleasure because built her ego.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Yeah, it's a pleasure to watch. That's how much a.

ASHTON KUTCHER: Fight will make you feel.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: Yes, indeed.

Well, thank you both so much. It has been a pleasure.

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: Thank you so much!

Sir.

ASHTON KUTCHER: Thank you,

ISABELLA ROSSELLINI: thank you.

EVAN ROSS KATZ: That's all for this time. It's truly been a pleasure talking to the cast of Faces the Beauty. Be sure to rate, review and follow Tthe Beauty: Official Podcast wherever you watch or listen. I'm Evan Ross Katz, and thanks for.

Joining me.