During the Winter 2013 TCA Press Tour, Campbell took some time – more than his publicist was expectingly, frankly, not that we were complaining – to chat with Bullz-Eye about his surprise over being pitched the role of Lincoln, his strong views over Disney’s mishandling of “The Rocketeer,” his even stronger statements to the bloggers who bitched about the Season 1 finale of “The Killing,” and how he was only one audition away from getting the role of Commander William T. Riker on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

Bullz-Eye: To begin at the beginning, how did you find your way into “Killing Lincoln” in the first place? Did you audition for the gig, or did they actually come looking for you?

Billy Campbell: I didn’t audition. They… [Hesitates.] What did they do? [Laughs.] They approached me months before this happened, and I…well, they didn’t approach me. My manager called me and said, “I got this weird sort of feeler: would you be interested in playing Lincoln?” And I burst into laughter, and I thought, “Ridiculous! I’m not Lincoln!” Nevertheless, we sent them a photo which I thought was Lincoln-esque—or a photo that I thought was the least non-Lincoln-esque—that I could find, and I forgot all about it. And then months later I got a call from my agent saying, “You’ve been offered Lincoln.” And I was…amused. But I accepted. And that was it.

BE: Are you a particular aficionado of Civil War history? It seems like a decent possibility that you might be by this point, given that you were also in “Gettysburg” and “Gods and Generals.”

BC: Yeah, I am, actually. I grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia…although I lost most of my accent some time ago, as you can tell by the way I pronounce “Charlottesville, Virginia” now. [Laughs.] Not much of that natural drawl there anymore! But, yeah, I grew up there, and I was obsessed with the Civil War in my youth. When I was 17, I went to my first Civil War reenactment, and I became a reenactor and did that for a few years. In fact, I think that was the beginning of my interest in acting. So, yeah, I was thrilled to be able to go to Richmond, 60 minutes from home, and play Lincoln.

BE: So what were the challenges for you in playing Lincoln, given that you didn’t see yourself playing Lincoln in the first place?

BC: Well, I think the main challenge was the lack of time. When they finally came back, it was about a week before I was supposed to show up in Richmond…and I was at sea! I was on a sailing ship, so it took me another three days to get back to shore, which meant it was three days before I could even download the script and so forth. So I had no time for preparation, I had no time to read the book…I had no time for nothin’! All I had time to do was read the script as many times as I could before we started shooting, which was about a week and a half after I first got back to shore. So the particular challenge was to understand that what I needed to do was just let go and really trust Erik Jendresen, who was the show runner, the head writer, the main guy. He wrote the script, and he was the main guy on the show. And he’s a Lincoln fanatic. So the thing I did was really just to dive into Erik’s script, into his arms, and to trust that these people—not just Erik, but all of these people involved—were passionately intent on delivering an entirely authentic experience and believe in their input. So that’s basically all the preparation I did. I just put my trust in these people.

BE: Not a bad plan.

BC: Well, you be the judge, but I think it worked out alright. [Laughs.] It’s funny, because, as an actor, you think, “Oh, shit, I’d love six months to prepare,” or whatever. But on the other hand, you can over-think things. And on this, I definitely didn’t have a chance to over-think anything. I just dived into what it was, into all of the insane amounts of research that these people had done, and just trusted in that.

BE: Was there anything that you hadn’t known about the Lincoln saga that you learned as a result of working on the film?

BC: Yeah, a lot of stuff. I mean, as I said, I was very much interested in the period and all of it from my youth, but I wasn’t a Lincoln scholar. Erik is and has been in his life a Lincoln scholar. I mean, he truly has been obsessed with Lincoln. So there was a lot to learn. I think the thing that I came away with more than anything else is…y’know, Lincoln was a little radical for his time. Even in his youth he was a radical. I mean, here’s a kid who, at the age of eight or nine, started chopping wood. About as soon as he could accurately hit a piece of wood with an axe, he was set to chopping wood by his father. He grew up on the frontier, chopping trees down, and making a farm life. But this wasn’t gentleman farming, like it is today. It was farming in the face of Indians and animals and disease and all kinds of things that we don’t experience today. So on the rough frontier, when everybody smoked and drank and cursed and chewed tobacco and didn’t think anything was so very wrong with slavery, he didn’t smoke, he didn’t drink, he didn’t cuss, he didn’t chew tobacco, he didn’t believe in slavery and made it known that he didn’t. And he was a book reader! Even as a child, in his home, he insisted on reading books. His father scorned the reading of books, and yet in the face of his father’s scorn, he insisted on reading books. That’s radical. So he was radical for his place and his time, and I didn’t really realize that. I also didn’t realize the depth of his warmth and his magnanimity. You know what I mean? He was magnanimous. He really was. He was a very empathetic human being.

BE: I wanted to dip into your back catalog for a bit, if I may, and I think the best way to start is to dispel a credit on your IMDb listing. Based on what you just said about being a Civil War reenactor in Charlottesville when you were in your teens, it seems mathematically unlikely that you were in an episode of “The Rookies.”

BC: “The Rookies”? [Laughs.] I don’t even know what “The Rookies” is!

BE: It was a ‘70s cop show.

BC: No. [Laughs.] But you know why that’s there? Because when I first came to Hollywood, I went by William Campbell…and there was another William Campbell. And I see you nodding, so you know him, I’m guessing.

BE: Yep. I know him from “Star Trek.”

BC: Exactly! So, anyway, I have some of his credits on my IMDb page, and…my agents have just arranged for me to get a professional-status IMDb thing, so I’m gonna get in there sometime sooner or later and take away the things that aren’t mine, and put in some other things that are mine that aren’t on there. At some point they had me listed in Delta Force or what the hell ever it’s called. I was never in that. And they had me listed as a wardrobe person on several movies! Apparently there’s a Billy Campbell who’s a wardrobe person. So I’ve gotta clear some of that up. But to confirm that here and now, no, I wasn’t in “The Rookies.” [Laughs.]

BE: You were, however, in “The Rocketeer.”

BC: I was!

BE: Which was and remains an awesome film. Still, it had to be heartbreaking when there were no further “Rocketeer” films forthcoming.

BC: You know, I would have loved for there to have been further “Rocketeer” movies. But it wasn’t heartbreaking, no.

BE: How was the experience of making the film?

BC: Oh, it was phenomenal. Oh, my God. I have to tell you, it’s an actor’s dream to…I mean, I can’t imagine that everyone’s first film that they ever do is the lead role in a movie that’s as cool as “The Rockeeter.” So it was phenomenal for me, in every way. I love period movies, I love adventure movies…I love movies. And I love sexy women…and there was Jennifer Connelly! [Laughs.] In every way, it was a thrilling experience for me. And it turned out to be such a fucking loveable movie! It’s just a loveable movie.

Y’know, I know that Disney are very interested in somehow turning over the property and doing another “Rocketeer” film. And I hope I get a cameo in it, if not something larger. But either way I hope that they pay homage to the original movie, because it’s a movie worth paying homage to. Y’know what I mean? Like, if the movie had been a disaster and they just wanted to turn over something that had been a piece of shit, then… But they’re turning over something that a lot of people feel very passionate about, and I think they ought to pay homage to it.

BE: I think it was that film and “Edward Scissorhands” that first made me really start paying attention to Alan Arkin.

BC: I love Alan Arkin. Shit, you should see some of the rest of his stuff. You’ve seen “Little Miss Sunshine,” but have you seen…

BE: “The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming” is a good one.

BC: Oh, that’s good. And the movie he did with Peter Falk, “The In-Laws”? I mean, he’s genius. He’s the only thing that was any good about that Robert Redford movie, “Havana. “The only good thing. I love Sydney Pollack and I love Redford, but, seriously, Arkin was the only decent thing about that whole movie.

BE: To touch on some of your TV work, you’ve turned up in several sci-fi projects over the years, including a series-regular role on “The 4400.”

BC: Yeah, I loved doing that. I love science fiction. I’m a history buff, but I’m a science fiction and fantasy fan, too, and…I loved it. I had mixed emotions about it, though. We were the victim of a regime change at the network (USA). The new regime came in, and…we were not their baby. And they just threw us into the alley. With the bathwater. We had great ratings. In the beginning, I think we were as highly rated as anything on cable TV. Or something like that, anyway. It was a big, big thing. And it stayed that way! But then you could see between the second and third season… For the premiere of the second season, I was in New York, I was in Mumbai…actually, I don’t know where I was. [Laughs.] But I saw ads on the sides of buses, tons of promotion everywhere. But the third season? Nothing. Dead silence. Dead. Silence. And, of course, between the second and third seasons was when the regime change at the network happened, and they just… [Makes a whooshing sound.] Threw us out.

BE: Being a sci-fi aficionado, is there any story or novel that you haven’t seen turned into a film that you’d like to see adapted?

BC: [Instantly.] Yes! The Integral Trees, by Larry Niven. Yeah, I think with our technology now, with CGI and all that…? The Integral Trees is fricking great, and it would be fantastic. And so would Ringworld, for that matter. What else? Um…y’know, I’d still like to see a really good Dune movie made. I mean, I’m very fond of the David Lynch movie, because it’s so kind of cheesy and twisted and terrific in its way, but I still want a really good Dune movie.

BE: There are quite a few sci-fi films that are…well, y’know, they are what they are for the era in which they were made, but it’d still be interesting to see what could be done with them in the right creative hands and with today’s special effects.

BC: Absolutely! I mean, think of the things we can do now! Same thing with “Flash Gordon.” I loved that movie, but…well, you get the idea.

BE: One last sci-fi question: I’ve got to ask you about playing Okona on “Star Trek: The Generation. “

BC: I believe you mean the outrageous Okona. [Laughs.]

BE: True enough. A one-off character, but one popular enough that they brought him back for a storyline in the ST:TNG comic book.

BC: Did they? [Laughs.] I didn’t know that! I had no idea. That’s funny!

BE: As a sci-fi fan, that must’ve been entering dream-come-true territory to find yourself part of the “Star Trek” universe.

BC: Oh, it was awesome. But, y’know, what happened was, Junie Lowry—an L.A. casting agent who, in fact, cast me in “The Killing”—has, over the years I’ve been out here, been the biggest proponent of my career. When I was first starting out, I did something for her, I can’t remember what it was, but…well, point being, she called me up about “Star Trek.” She said, “I’ve got this thing going on, and you’re perfect—perfect!—for this second-in-command. It’s you. You’re gonna be it.” And I’m, like, “‘Star Trek’! I could be the second-in-command on ‘Star Trek’! On the Enterprise! Fuck, fuck, fuck!” [Laughs.]

So I went in, and I auditioned, and she’s, like, “Great! Perfect!” And we went through the whole process. And we got to the last meeting. And it was me and Jonathan Frakes in a green room, waiting to walk into a room full of executives. And I start thinking…well, I’d actually started thinking long before that, but I really started thinking, “My God, if I do this…I’m not sure if I’m gonna do anything else.” Because that’s kind of the way it goes with something as iconic as “Star Trek.” And I actually pulled the same maneuver on…“Dynasty” was one of the first things I did when I came to Hollywood, and I did 13 episodes, I think, or something like that. And they asked me to re-up, they asked me to sign on for good. And I refused. Because I knew that if you got too hooked into something that was iconic as “Dynasty,” which was the highest-rated show on TV at the time, there’s a danger to that. And I thought about that while I was waiting for “Star Trek.” And I got petrified. And I absolutely clutched the meeting. Junie had been telling me, had been buzzing in my ear, “You’re the guy! You’re the guy, you don’t even have to worry about Jonathan Frakes. You’re the guy. This is happening.” And I clutched. And Jonathan Frakes…as it ended up, he was the guy. [Laughs.]

And Jonathan Frakes should’ve been the guy. He’s brilliant and wonderful in the role, and it should never have been mine, and I agree with all of that. But later on… I think when I went in the room and I really screwed up the audition so badly, Junie was quite angry with me. I mean, really quite angry with me. ‘Cause I kind of embarrassed her. ‘Cause she had put a lot of stock in me and so forth. And ages later, I sent her an email or wrote her a letter, I don’t remember what I did. Maybe I called her, I’m not sure. But I said, “Junie, I’m so sorry I messed up,” or whatever, and she said, “No, honey, it’s fine. It’s fine! Jonathan is wonderful, and it all worked out wonderfully.” And I said, “Does that mean I can do an episode?” [Laughs.] She said, “You want to do an episode?” “Yeah…?” “I’m on it!” And literally in two days’ time, she called and said, “Here’s the job: ‘The Outrageous Okona.’” And I had to come in and read for somebody, of course, but the job was mine. And that’s how it all came about.

BE: An obligatory question I try to ask everyone: do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved? I’m figuring “The Rocketeer” is in there, but if there’s anything else…

BC: “The Rocketeer” would be number one, yeah. Just because we all know how much that movie deserves to be loved…and wasn’t. And, in fact, “The Rocketeer” wasn’t the failure that Disney claimed it to be. You know, there’s that whole thing of how, if the movie doesn’t do the box office you want it to, they call it a loss and they get to write it off. There’s all kinds of funny paperwork that goes on in the studios. And I think they had a very acrimonious relationship with the director, Joe Johnston. And I think what they did was make it a loss. I don’t think the movie was a loss for them. I think they made it a loss.

If you’ll recall…well, you may not recall, but their relationship with Joe Johnston was so acrimonious…oh, he hated them so very much. He’d done “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” with them, “The Rocketeer” was the second of a three-picture deal with Disney for him, and they were so meddlesome at the time—I don’t know if they still are, they may be or they may not be—that they had hired some of the best people in the business to work for them, including Joe and Jim Bissel, the production designer. They hired these top-notch Hollywood people to make their movie, to write the script, to design the look of the characters, of the sets, of this, that, and the other thing. And then they assigned three, or maybe it was four, creative executives to oversee the movie. [Witheringly.] “Creative executives.” These are not people who’ve been through film school. These are people who’ve been through business school, at Cornell or wherever, some of whom could’ve conceivably never taken an art class before in their life. And yet these people were giving costume design notes, set design notes, script notes to people who had been designing sets, designing costumes, writing scripts their entire creative lives. And these notes were supposed to be implemented and taken care of.

So Joe was furious. Absolutely furious. He hated the studio. And I don’t know if you remember Premiere Magazine, but there was a 10-page spread on “The Rocketeer” before it came out. 10 fricking pages! That’s an enormous spread. And the very last line of the article quoted Joe Johnston. Because it was so apparent throughout the whole interview how much he scorned Disney, they asked him, “Well, Joe, if you dislike Disney so much…you have another movie to do for them. What’s gonna happen with that?” And he said, and this is the last line of the article, “I will fake my own death before I work for Disney again.” Seriously! That’s the ultimate line of the biggest piece of publicity for their movie, for Disney, of the whole campaign! So you can imagine what Jeffrey Katzenberg is sitting in his office thinking.

As a sidebar to that, years after doing “The Rockeeter,” I was in a restaurant somewhere in Hollywood—Cha Cha Cha, a Jamaican place—and I was on my way to the restroom when a guy stopped me, an Asian guy. He said, “Billy Campbell!” “Yes?” My name is blah blah blah, and I was in the publicity department at Disney, and I directly worked on ‘The Rocketeer.’” I said, “Hey, nice to meet you!” He said, “I gotta tell you—I have to tell you—how we dropped the ball.” And I said, “How did you drop the ball?” And he said, “Number one: Katzenberg had this notion of the movie as being an adult film. A film for adults.” The primary poster for the movie was an art-deco thing that nobody under the age of 35 would’ve ever given a shit about. And originally we were going to have a Roger Rabbit cartoon before the movie, “Roger Goes to World War I” or something like that, but that was nixed, too. So he said, “We absolutely dropped the ball. All of us in the department, we knew what we should be doing, but the studio dropped the ball. All of the directives that we had to publicize the movie, none of them were to get the people in to see the movie that should’ve seen the movie, which were kids. None of them.” We opened within two weeks of “Terminator 2” and “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” we had no box office stars, we were a period movie, and the movie was not sold to the right people. So…there you go.

BE: It’s still very fondly remembered, though, despite all of it.

BC: Yeah, it is. And like I said, I still love the movie.

BE: Lastly, let’s talk about “The Killing.” What was it like for you, a cast member of the show, to deal with the whole of the internet screaming their disappointment about the direction of the show and the lack of closure at the end of the first season?

BC: It didn’t bother me at all.

BE: Really?

BC: Well, here’s the thing, and it kind of speaks to maybe a somewhat larger issue. There’s journalism, in which people do research, and then there’s blogging, in which people spout off what they’re feeling at the moment. And anyone who’d done their research knew that we were derived from a Danish television series. And anyone who had bothered to research the Danish television series would’ve known that we would not resolve the murder of Rosie Larson before the end of the second season. Anyone would’ve known that. So the people who were most sort of vociferously disappointed in the cliffhanger for the so-called first season should’ve known that there would’ve been a cliffhanger. And that’s really the gist of the whole thing: the people that flew off the map about the cliffhanger were really just expressing their ignorance. Anyone else knew that it wouldn’t be resolved at the end of the first season.

See, the Danish series did their first season and…they didn’t have two seasons like we had two seasons. They didn’t have two seasons of 13 each. They had one season of 20. So there’s some confusion, because they had 20 episodes and a resolution, whereas we had 26 episodes, which we had to split. We certainly couldn’t do it in 13—that’s seven few episodes than they did their resolution in—so we had to go the extra distance and make it 26, ‘cause 13 episodes is the standard cable season. The only conceivable thing than anyone did wrong was for the network to use the tagline, “Who killed Rosie Larson?” That’s the only conceivable thing that anyone did wrong. But, honestly, most of what was done wrong was done by the fricking bloggers, who acted like children who didn’t get their candy when they wanted it. Because…okay, I’m sorry, did you not enjoy the show up until this point? Were you not enjoying it? Because if you weren’t, then why the fuck do you care about the cliffhanger? And if you were enjoying it, then why the fuck do you care about the cliffhanger? What is your point?

So as far as I’m concerned, there was no controversy, and all they were doing was showing what a big bunch of fucking babies they were. And that’s it. I thought the show was brilliant, and I thought our people did such a fantastic job. They had to come up with extra material to make it 26 episodes instead of the 20 that the Danish did, and they came up with some phenomenal extra material. And it was genius. I thought the show was fucking genius. Patty Jenkins, who directed the pilot and who directed the Season 2 finale…between the pilot and the Season 2 finale, you find me two better episodes of TV, in the history of TV, and I’ll be surprised. I really will be surprised. When that car goes into the water, did it not raise the hair on the back of your neck? I mean, oh, my God.

BE: When people started getting up in arms about the series not resolving the mystery of who killed Rosie Larson by the end of the first season, all I could think was, “It’s not like they resolved who killed Laura Palmer by the end of the first season of ‘Twin Peaks.’”

BC: Yeah! I mean, all they did was…I mean, they didn’t do anything crazy like they did on “Dallas,” where Bobby’s in the shower and the whole previous season was a dream. It was a legitimate twist. Why was there outrage? To me…well, like I said, it seemed like a bunch of fucking babies crying because they didn’t get their candy exactly when they wanted it. It honestly did! And, y’know, I have no problem saying this now. I’ve been more diplomatic in past interviews, because the show was still going on and I was still on the show, but…fuck them! [Laughs.] You know what I mean? Seriously! And you can print that! You can write it if you want. Honestly, I was kind of angry about it. Much angrier than they were.

But I loved the show. It was one of the very best experiences I’ve ever had in this business. It was an incredibly well-written show, it was impeccably directed, I had the privilege of working with an amazing cast. Tell me who’s better on television than Mireille (Enos) and Joel (Kinnaman). Tell me who’s better than those two guys. Or Brent Sexton as the dad. Or Michelle Forbes as the mom. Or anybody on the show. Tell me there’s a better cast on television during those two seasons. I don’t think there was. So to my way of thinking, I was on a show that was incredibly well-written, amazingly well-directed, with a brilliant cast…and I was on an ensemble cast, so I went to work sometimes only two days a week. [Laughs.] How can you beat that? And I’m living and working in Vancouver, BC, which is one of my favorite cities on God’s green earth. So it was heaven for me. It was a perfect storm of enjoyment for me. It really was.

BE: And yet it made entertainment-news headlines a few months back when it was announced that, even if there was going to be a third season of “The Killing,” you wouldn’t be coming back for it.

BC: Yeah, which made for great headlines, except it wasn’t that I didn’t want to do Season 3. Here’s the thing: anyone who’s been following the Danish series knows that the Danish series, after they solve the initial murder, they go on to an entirely different scenario. It was always going to be that way for me, for my character. I always knew it. Two seasons and out. I knew it from the beginning.

Prepare for your heart to go pitter-pat as you read…

Isabella Rossellini: Hi!

Bullz-Eye: Hello! How are you?

IR: I’m fine, thanks. And you?

BE: I’m wonderful. It’s a pleasure to speak with you.

IR: It’s nice to talk to you. Thank you for interviewing me!

BE: (Laughs) Not a problem! Well, “The Phantom” is certainly not your first foray into the world of science fiction, but are you actually a fan of the genre?

IR: I’m not really a fan of the genre. You know, I do see some films, but I must say I don’t go see them religiously. I love working with the producer, Robert Halmi, with whom I’ve done several films, so when Halmi called me to play this small role in “The Phantom,” I had no hesitation. I’ve been with him for five or six productions in the last 25 years, among which are “Merlin,” “The Odyssey,” and “Don Quixote,” and they’ve always been wonderful. They’ve always been… (Hesitates) It’s been great to work with the group, he has a fantastic eye, and every time he hires a director, it’s always somebody young who…well, he just has an eye. He hires them, and they turn out to be fantastic and, a few years later, they’re top directors. That’s how it has been with Paulo (Barzman), the director of “The Phantom.” So the reason why I said “yes” to this small part was because of this history that I had with Bob Halmi, and…I was surprised, actually. I had a doubt. For me, the Phantom was so much that image that I had from the 1930s, and he kept on saying, “No, no, it has nothing to do with that. It’s not trying to be retro.” And that image of the original comic strip was so strong that I was amazed, actually, when I arrived and had seen how they had transformed it to be a contemporary, modern film.

BE: So what are the challenges of playing a part like this? Because I’d think it would be a challenge to play a live-action comic book character without taking it over the top.

IR: Well, actually, you know, to tell you the truth, there were no challenges. At the beginning, you search a little bit for the look, especially when you play a small part. Every beat counts, you know. Sometimes when you have the lead, if you think it, you maybe play a part too seriously. You think, “Maybe I should smile,” and you have other possibilities later in the film to add a smile or to add some softness to your character, for shading. But when you play a small role, in a way, you have to hit every note correctly, so I think that the way she looked also was very important. When I was told that they wanted me to be a blonde…because they told me on the phone: I live in New York, but the film was shot in Montreal…I said, “Oh, blonde, it wouldn’t work with me. I’ve tried it several times, but I can’t go with it. My hair is brown. I can become easily black-haired. I can even become red-haired. But blonde has never worked with me.” But when I arrived, inevitably, there were all these blonde wigs, so I said, “Okay, I’ll show you what I mean.” And, instead, it worked perfectly, because the character should be totally artificial. I had these metallic clothes that always tended to be on the silver side, so, actually, the look of this evil person was helped a lot…it helped me to imagine the character. But the challenge is not the words. It’s so much fun that I’m always amazed that I even get paid for it. (Laughs)

BE: As far as the blonde look, I felt like it actually added to the iciness of the character…

IR: Exactly! When I saw it in with the silver clothes and with the lips and the heavy make-up…she is a person who has no feeling. (Starts to laugh) She loves technology, she loves what she can do, but she has absolutely no feeling. And no morals. She is totally amoral.

BE: …and I was actually preparing to ask you if playing the villain is as much fun as it seems to be, but you just addressed that.

IR: Oh, it is! It really is. I don’t know why it is so much. Maybe it’s because, in our lives, we’re always considering ourselves to be good. The majority of us make an effort to be good and nice, so that when you’re given free reign to be evil, it feels so liberating! (Laughs)

BE: Your character also gets to play off another villain, played by Cas Anvar. Did you guys have fun trying to match each others’ evilness?

IR: (Laughs) Yes! It was fun to work, but I have to say that I was on the set very briefly. I was on the set…I think hardly a week. I think it was less than a week. So my evilness casts a shadow in the film, and you certainly remember the horrible lady, but unfortunately I think I only shot three or four days. Bella was memorable because she was so nasty… (Laughs) …but we shot it very fast, my role, so I didn’t really have much time to have many scenes or to get to know everybody well.

BE: To jump back to discussing Robert Halmi for a moment, I’m sure I’ve talked to two dozen people who’ve worked for him over the years, and every one of them has spoken of what a wonderful guy he is.

IR: Yeah, you know, he is. Generally, I choose my roles based on who’s directing. I never really…you know, you look at the producer to make sure he’s serious, that he has the distribution, that he knows how to manage financially a film, but I never really look at the producer. I always look at the name of the director. And with Bob Halmi, I don’t even look at the director…sometimes I don’t even know their work!…because he has this incredible eye where he can always cast a new director who’s done a small film somewhere in the world. Also, the other thing with Halmi is that he’s Hungarian, so he speaks Russian, he speaks English, he speaks Italian…he speaks every language! He travels extensively all over the world. I’ve worked with him with directors from England, from Russia…we worked with Andrei Konchalovsky, who then became such an established director…because he can see talent. He really is not only a fantastic producer but a real talent scout.

BE: I’ve never heard anyone say a bad word about him. But I have heard people do some really bad impressions of him.

IR: (Bursts out laughing) Yes, because of his accent…and because he has no patience!

BE: I can’t remember who it was, but I spoke to someone not long ago who was talking about how he’d pitched a project to Halmi, and his response was, “Goddammit, we’ll do it!”

(Writer’s note: It was Patrick Stewart.)

IR: (Laughs) He’s a do-er, definitely! You know, I met him in a very funny circumstance. When my mother died, my mother had just published…well, ten years earlier…her autobiography, and when she died, her agent wanted to make it into a film. And in the way she was saying it, she was trying to convince us children…we didn’t really want to have Mama in a film on television, but she said, “No, you’d better do it yourself, because if you do it yourself, then you have control of it.” She said, “If you don’t do anything, then the film can still be based on press articles and interviews with other people, and they can still make a biography of her, and then you have no control, and that’s when it really is a problem.” So it was my mom’s agent, Kay Brown…imagine, of all people! She was working under (David O.) Selznick, and she was the one who brought Selznick the script of “Gone with the Wind,” so you talk about a long history with the cinema! But it was Kay Brown who suggested that the four of us…Ingrid Bergman’s children…meet with Robert Halmi, and I went with the most hostile attitude, because I felt like I did not want to have a film made about my mom, and yet I was given no choice, because otherwise they were going to make a bad film about her, no doubt. So I went with such anger, and he charmed me instantly. And since then, we ended up not making the film about Mama, but I’ve made lots of films with him, and we are good friends. He’s been one of the most wonderful friends, but he’s also been one of the best work collaborators that I’ve had.

BE: Well, having brought up your mother, I wanted to ask you about how you first came to acting. I know you’d kind of dipped your toe into the waters when you appeared with her in “A Matter of Time,” but what made you decide to shift from a pretty successful modeling career into the family profession, as it were?

IR: Well, you know, what happened was that modeling…I knew that it was not going to last. I did not want to act, because I thought that I could never be as good as my mom, and so I was always going to be a frustrated person in my life because everyone would say, “Oh, she’s not as good as her mom,” and it was going to be very difficult to match my mom’s career. So I thought that I wasn’t going to be an actress. When I became a model, and then I became quite successful as a model, I still loved films very much, so I thought, “Well, let me try and be an actress,” because then I had the certitude that I could do it, that I could make it. I did know how to have a career, and I’d had a big career as a model, so I thought, “Well, let me try, and if it works, it doesn’t work, it wouldn’t be as big a mistake as it would’ve been when I was 18,” because I knew that I’d been successful in my career, and now I was trying to evolve. As a model, you have to evolve into something else. You know that it’s one of those careers, like a sports person or a dancer, where you stop when you’re 30 or 35. But it was the success of modeling that gave me the courage to attempt acting, and model and acting are very related. There is no dialogue or there is no story that you tell, but you have to emote in front of the camera, you have to express emotions. So the success of being a model gave me the confidence to think that maybe I could learn lines and place them into a story… (Laughs) …and could just do it! And my acting career has been only rewarding. I’ve loved it!

BE: As it happens, I caught a bit of “White Nights” on cable last night.

IR: Oh, you did? How nice! That was one of my first films! It was the first film that I said, “I’ll be an actress.” With “A Matter of Time,” I did that because my mom was in Rome filming that film, and she thought that it would be fun to have her children one day on the set with her, so she got us a job on the set, so one of us could be with her all day and see what was happening.

BE: With “Blue Velvet,” what was it like to work with Dennis Hopper? I mean, he was a pretty big name, and for all practical purposes, you were still a pretty new actress at that point.

IR: Yes, because that was only my second film! (Laughs) You know, Dennis Hopper was wonderful. When he did “Blue Velvet,” he had just come out of rehab, and as David Lynch said, “It’s like sitting next to a ticking bomb.” (Laughs) We never knew if he was going to remain sober or not! But he had gone through Hell and came back out the other side, and he had that wisdom and compassion. He was non-judgmental of other people, he was open, he had heard it all. You could really tell Dennis anything, and he would laugh or make you feel good about it. There are very few people who come out of what he had come out of, his journey, but when they do, as Dennis did, they are really tremendous people, and Dennis, for sure, was one of them.

BE: Your performance in the film as Dorothy…I’ve always wondered how David got such a gut-wrenching performance out of you, and if the role left any residual effects.

IR: (Laughs) Well, David is a very good director, and it was very well written, the script, so all of that obviously…sometimes you can be as good as your role is written, then you can enhance it, but the role was fantastic, so I definitely owe it to David’s talent. No, it didn’t have a lasting effect on me, but it makes me a little bit nostalgic. It still does. Recently…I forget where I was, but they were showing clips of me and my films during an interview, and there was obviously one of “Blue Velvet.” I don’t know why it hit me that time, but I was hit with just an incredible heartache, and I became so nostalgic of that film and of the group of people that I worked with. It was even before Dennis died, so I think now it would be even more devastating to show a clip of “Blue Velvet,” now that Dennis is dead. I was really lucky. When we were doing the film, we realized it. I thought that I was doing a special film, but certainly I didn’t know that the film was going to get so much attention and so much success. But it did feel special when we were doing it. It was wonderful. It was a wonderful set.

BE: I have to admit something to you: as soon as I saw your name amongst the cast of “The Phantom,” my first thought was actually not of “Blue Velvet,” but of your episode of “Friends.”

IR: (Laughs) That is incredible, you know? One day, one scene! Once, I was…I live in the country, and my neighbor said, “Isabella, can you do me a favor? I will win this game if I can bring the most famous star to this radio show. Can you answer for me?” And I said, “Of course,” because it was a mere phone call. And then the next day, the radio calls me, and they had to make sure that it was really me, that it wasn’t just somebody putting on an accent…so they said the line from “Friends” about the list, and they said, “What is this?” And I didn’t remember! (Laughs) But then I finally got it, and I remembered that it was the line from “Friends.” But I was so stunned that the television show was so popular that, to identify yourself, you’d have to repeat the line. More than my name or my accent, it was, if I knew the line, then I was for sure Isabella Rossellini. (Laughs)

BE: I also think about the way David Letterman has stretched out the pronunciation of your name.

IR: Oh, you know, it’s a nightmare, because every time David Letterman says, “Eeeeeeeesabellllllla Rrrrrrrossalliiiiiiiini,” for the next three or four days, as I walk down the street, I hear people say, “Eeeeeeeesabellllllla Roooooooossalliiiiiiiini!” (Laughs) And they fill me with embarrassment!

We interrupt this interview for an MP3…

Okay, I never do this, but I feel obliged to include an MP3 of this particular exchange, because the written word just doesn’t do it justice, so here you go:

Eeeeeeesabellllllla Rrrrrrrosselliiiiiiini

…and, now, back to your regularly scheduled interview!

BE: I’m actually a member of the Television Critics Association, so I was there when you were doing your panel for “Green Porno” for the Sundance Channel, and I just think those are a stitch.

IR: (Laughs) What does this mean, “a stitch”?

BE: (Laughs) It means that I think they’re hysterical. And educational, too!

IR: Well, they’re meant to be funny… (Laughs) …but then I wanted people to say, “Oh, I didn’t know that,” so I wanted that reaction.

BE: So how did the idea for the films come about?

IR: Well, I was always interested in animals since I was a little girl, and Robert Redford was of the idea that the internet can be a new outlet for short format films, because short format films had fallen out of grace. Now, the shortest form that you can do professionally is the half-hour of television. Any short film is done by a student at university to showcase their talent, but they don’t have an outlet. They have festivals, but not a professional outlet where they earn money. But Redford thought that the internet might be a possibility, so he reached out to some of the community, including me, because, you know, I’ve done so many independent films. (Laughs) Every other year, I’m there at the festival! And he had caught the first film that I had written, called “My Dad Is 100 Years Old,” and he really liked that film, so he proposed that I would do a series, and he said, “You know, if the series can be about the environment, I would pay more attention to it, because I want Sundance to be very involved with the environment.” And at the time, Sundance was doing…and is still doing today…a series called “The Green,” and that gave me the idea to call it “Green Porno,” because I was more interested in animals, but I said, “Nobody’s interested in animals, but if I make it about the sex life of animals…” (Starts to laugh) “…it’ll be interesting to me, it’ll be interesting to a big audience, and Bob will be happy because it’s green!”

BE: I wanted to ask you about a couple of your other television appearances. You were a recurring character on “Alias” as Sydney Bristow’s aunt. How did that come about?

IR: Oh, the character on “Alias” was…actually, it was the great J.J. Abrams who asked for me, and I was incredibly honored. When…oh, what is the name of the fantastic Swedish accent who played the mother? Lena Olin! For whatever reason, Lena Olin couldn’t do the whole series, because the series lasted for many, many years. Then J.J. said, maybe because I’m half-Swedish, “Could you play the sister, so we can still have this evil family?” (Laughs) So I did! I came in and played a few episodes for that season when Lena couldn’t do it, and it worked perfectly well, because Lena and I could be sisters. I think we have a similar accent, and we’re physically similar. We’re often up for the same parts! So it was great.

BE: I have just two more quick ones to close. First, do you think we’ll ever see you return to “30 Rock”?

IR: You know, everybody asks me this, and I am asking myself the same question every time. When we did the show, I got so many compliments, but also from Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin, and they said, “Oh, you’ve got to come back! This is too good, with you as the character of the ex-wife!” So I was convinced that I would have, nearly every year, been able to play a couple of episodes with this fantastic relationship and this unresolved love that translated to great hostility and hatred. So I am actually surprised that I haven’t been asked back…but I haven’t!

BE: I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it may yet happen.

IR: They certainly have the gift of making you feel that you’re the most important person on Earth with the way they compliment you! (Laughs)

BE: And, lastly, you were in the film “The Saddest Music in the World,” so I was just wondering what, for you, is the saddest music in the world.

IR: (Laughs) Oh, I haven’t thought about that! I was about to say “Happy Birthday,” because for a lot of people it is, but I have to say that I don’t mind growing old. My birthday is soon, so I’m organizing a big party for myself! (Laughs) But I could understand if “Happy Birthday” is sometimes the saddest music in the world, especially as the years grow bigger. I do love working with Guy Maddin, with whom I’ve done several films. I’m about to leave in two weeks to make his new film, “Keyhole.”

BE: Oh, excellent. Yes, I knew you’d narrated his film “Brand Upon the Brain.”

IR: Yes, and he was also the director of “My Dad Is 100 Years Old,” which I wrote and starred in. We’re very good friends, so I wanted to do “Keyhole” with him.

BE: Well, since I won’t talk to you on Friday, let me wish you a happy birthday now…

IR: (Laughs) Thank you very much!

BE: …and say thank you for speaking with me.

IR: Thank you for interviewing me!