Asia Argento: 'They were scared of me, so they didn't see how hurt I was'<

Paris Match. Harvey Weinstein is the common thread of your book. After having raped you twice, he shows up on your birthday and comes uninvited to your previews… Why did he follow you all these years? Asia Argento. I thought he was in love with me, but no. He's just sick. He's a serial predator. This is his modus operandi. He wants to dominate the victim, to steal something precious and intimate from him. He needs to feel powerful. Besides, we say it less, but he was just as horrible with the directors. He was omnipresent, re-editing films, stealing the creativity of others. People were afraid of it. He's an ogre, like the ones in fairy tales.

At the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, when you go on stage to give a speech against him, you write that women glare at you… At the time, I wondered why I was doing that. I'm too instinctive. He was free, I had the impression that the fact that all these women had spoken had been for nothing. After my little speech, I became the undesirable. I was already, but it got worse. Unfortunately, there is not really any female complicity in the profession. Too much jealousy...

Italy didn't give you a favor when you denounced Weinstein. Have you regretted having spoken? Yes and no. When I was in the news every day, it wasn't easy. On TV, they held a platform with, on one side, those who were for me and, on the other, those who were against. It was surreal. But I know it helped women, so I don't regret it. Without the phone call from Ronan Farrow, the New Yorker reporter who was investigating Weinstein, I wouldn't have reported him…I would have had a hard time looking at myself in the mirror knowing he was doing the same thing to others. I didn't do it for me, I was the easiest to destroy. To people, I was a whore…and you don't rape a whore, do you? It was not a victory to speak. The only victory is that he is in prison. Now the concern is the deviation from the #MeToo movement.

Are you talking about excess? Let us rather say the false puritanism which it engendered. You can no longer shoot a sex scene in Hollywood without the presence of a specialist who monitors that everything is in order! I didn't think it would get so American. People are even afraid to flirt! I love flirting, I'm a flirt! Catherine Deneuve says there is a thin line between seduction and rape. For me, it is very clear!

Before you go to join Weinstein, the night he raped you for the first time, Leos Carax tells you: “Go sell your soul to the devil!” He was right. I wanted to act in Hollywood films, meet stars. I was 21, I didn't know. If I had stayed with him that night...

The directors who made you shoot all seem tyrannical… I had tough roles and, sometimes, you have to dive into the nightmare to get the truth. Working with Nanni Moretti was hell. I apologize because it was necessary. I used this method as a director. And I'm not proud of it… But it's my job and it's better than going to the bank every day. I chose to tell the shortcomings of the environment, not to denounce them but to allow people to understand the image that I gave of myself.

The famous “Dark Lady”? The Italians created this label for me and it served me well for a while. They were afraid of me, so they didn't see how hurt I was. I thought that's what they expected of me, to bite. In the end, it cost me dearly. By dint of multiplying these crazy, prostitute characters, I no longer knew who I was: the indestructible woman or the fragile kid left on the street.

Your rewards serve as your doorstops. Why do you reject the ceremonial that surrounds your profession? Only the work counts. It's what saved my life when I was so alone. Awards, reviews can drive you crazy. My dad doesn't care either. When I had my first Volpi [Italian Caesar], he laughed: “Who cares.” Everything is ephemeral in this business.

Is that why you take on the food side of your job? I've done a lot of embarrassing movies that nobody believed in, not even the director! Everyone was there for the money. It's important to break this myth of the actor who does it just for the love of art. It is a job above all. I had to feed my two children well. Look at my filmography: before directing a film, I knew that I was going to have to stop for two years; so I chained the turnips!

You say that it was to please your father that you made films… My relationship with him was based on the cinema for a long time. It's still the case, except that now we also tell each other our lives. He's a mentor. When I got pregnant, there was a rift between us. I was 25, he thought I wouldn't be able to be a mom and have a career. And when my second arrived, I preferred to concentrate on my role as a mother. My parents did not make the same decision, their three children were left with nannies.

Today, #Architecture and #Carpentry 1 students participated in an interdisciplinary lesson out in NFA's Constructio… https://t.co/sXMWN0vkTO

— Matt Schweizer Thu Nov 30 23:15:07 +0000 2017

Nannies with whom you smoked joints… I had a special life, not as glamorous as one might imagine! But it suited me, I never envied that of others. Although I have always felt different. We get a false idea of ​​the life of artists. I dismantled the prejudices around my family...

You start with the violence of your mother, Daria Nicolodi, and you end with her disappearance. Why open and close the book with her? The mother is the origin. When she fell ill, I had already written the beginning. She died when I was almost done. But I would have published it no matter what. I had to go beyond the suffering, to transform the poison into an antidote.

How did your loved ones react to the reading? They haven't read it. I warned them and they didn't want to go through that again, especially my sister's death.

Are you a survivor? I like this word. More than that of “victim”. Nobody ever protected me, so I protected myself. Part of me always wanted to hurt myself while the other pulled me up.

Where did your addiction to drugs and alcohol come from? It's my self-destructive side, it allowed me to forget about the pain…until it didn't work anymore. I played a lot with death. Maybe I didn't want to live, but I didn't want to die either. A few years ago, I stopped everything. I never knew how to drink like the others. One glass is too much, and forty, not enough!

You chained toxic relationships… I trusted too easily. Now I'm suspicious. Too much. However, I learned two things from my experience: when you're in the negative, you attract it, and you can't save someone who doesn't want to be.

Are you referring to your companion Anthony Bourdain [who committed suicide in June 2018]? I dreamed about him a month ago, it was the first time. He came to see me to explain to me why he had done that. I still feel incredible pain. I'm sure the moment he came out of his body, he said to himself, "What have I done?" I accept what I cannot change. Life is also death.

You return to the accusations of rape against you by Jimmy Bennett, which terminated your contract with the show “XFactor”. Do you feel that you have suffered the condemnation of the media court? Yes, there was no complaint, no evidence, just an article from the “New York Times”. My friend Marilyn Manson went through the same situation. When a fan made a nasty post on social media, his record label and manager fired him. But I mean no harm to Bennett. He wanted money. I've seen lots of child actors who didn't become what they were promised and who freaked out.

The Weinstein affair took you away from movie sets. Is this a form of double jeopardy? In 2013, I decided to stop everything. And then, last year, I received a script that I loved. That of a bizarre French film, by Jérôme Dassier, “Seule”, whose main character is alone on screen most of the time. I just finished filming. At the same time, I'm producing my father's next film and writing my new feature film. It will be very different from anything I have done. It's romantic, it's not just dark. But I remain me, do not expect a comedy either! [She laughs.]

"Anatomy of a Wild Heart", by Asia Argento, ed. Out of Collection, 320 pages, 19.90 euros.