BOARDING GATE (2007)
Role: Sandra
Director: Olivier Assayas
Completed - On DVD in the USA Info -
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UNE VIEILLE MAITRESSE (2007) Role: Vellini
Director: Catherine Breillat
Completed - On DVD in France - Showing in selected theaters in the USA Info -
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MOTHER OF TEARS (2007)
Role: Sarah Mandy
Director: Dario Argento
Completed - On DVD in Italy - Showing in selected theaters in the USA Info -
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GO GO TALES (2007)
Role: Monroe
Director: Abel Ferrara
Showing in selected theaters in Italy Info -
IMDb
- Official Site
- Release Dates
DE LA GUERRE (2008)
Role: Uma
Director: Bertrand Bonello
To be released in French theaters on October 1, 2008 Info -
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- Release Dates
"I hope I never lose the hunger to do something new, something that makes me grow - this is why I had to direct: I felt there was nothing else that I really wanted to accomplish through acting. And now, since I made my movie, I'm enjoying acting more. I've become a much more humble actress."
Official Site
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Since December 2003 Maintained byMariana Hosted byThe Fan Sites Network Listed atAsia Argento - AskMen.com and Starpulse Currently Online:
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The Hoax Is Deceitful Above All Things
Asia first got involved with JT Leroy's novel when the publishing company in Italy contacted her to do a reading. She had read his previous book "Sarah" before. "I then thought immediately of it as a film. It's a very cinematic book, written like a film. Even the shots were suggested, so it was very easy to do an adaptation. I started talking to JT through Email and I asked if the rights were available and he…she… it didn't answer. Then after my first movie, Muse Productions let me know that if I was going to do another one, they were interested in working with me. It was right before Cannes and right before the reading, so I told them to get [JT's second book "The Heart is Deceitful"] and then we'll meet in Cannes in May 2002. We just had to find the rights, so I met "JT" and Laura in Italy, because they were always together, and they told me that they were interested in me doing it, but they didn't want to write it with me. I'm not sure what to call [JT]…it…they she… Because who I was talking to, who I thought was JT, but I knew it was Laura, because she was always there. I started the long process of making this film. It took a long time to write, and I moved to L.A. to do that."
JT told Asia he didn't didn't want to write the screenplay himself because he didn't have the necessary detachment. "To me, it makes sense because it was his story. It wasn't my story to remember these things, so it made sense to me at the time. Today, I don't know why, but people think that I knew the whole time, but I didn't know anything. I'm also a very naïve person, and I don't like to doubt. If you tell me something, I take it. If you say, "Oh, look. A donkey is flying," I'll turn around and look at the donkey."
Asia didn’t know JT Leroy was another person until the New York Times article came out. "I suspected something because Laura Albert was always present. Twice I was alone with JT, who I know now is Savannah [Knoop], and I had the impression that maybe she was a girl. But I wasn’t sure of that. It was pretty shocking when I found out."
"The invention was completely genius. I'm not idiot, but I completely fell for it."
"Sometimes, there was something that was not quite matching. I mean, I had doubts. For instance, I thought that JT was a girl at one point, but the whole time, I thought the story was true, because the way he answered the questions was so perfect that I had no reason to doubt."
Argento now believes that Albert, Savannah, and someone with a more masculine voice all, at various times, played Leroy over the phone. Any vocal variation was chalked up to LeRoy's multiple personality disorder and any lapse in memory blamed on childhood trauma.
When she asked why Leroy had breasts, she was told that he was a post-op transsexual taking female hormones. "The only thing I couldn't understand was that Savannah had lots of hair on her legs," she says, giggling. "I've never seen a girl with so much hair."
Touring together to promote the film ultimately soured her relationship with Leroy. Usually Argento could excuse his fascination iwth celebrity and his divalike behavior, convincing herself that his hustler's past had made him needy. "I didn't want to disappoint him," she says. "I needed his support so much for the film because I thought this was his story."
But in May 2004, in Cannes, where the troupe was on a tight budget, Argento says she found Leroy's over-the-top requests - for special organic foods and a new Fendi bag - more than she could bear. She told him "You're worse than J-Lo!" Argento recalls Leroy blowing up, shouting "You don't understand - I'm someone who grew up with nothing!"
Argento now attributes the trio's motivation to a desperate need for public attention. "It's more about being in the spotlight than the work," she says, pointing out that Albert and Co. haven't produced much literature lately.
Like many admirers, Argento wanted to believe in Leroy and his survival. After all, his gruesome stories make the run-of-the-mill rough childhood stories look placid by comparison. If fans had known that Albert, a "40-year-old weirdo woman," invented Leroy's horror stories, "we would have thought that she was a sicko," says Argento. "If we think it really happened, we're moved. We want to talk about what happened to us."
Despite all the time she spent, the fact that she almost lost her mind because she had to be Sarah for almost a year (at the end of the shooting, Asia said that Sarah "took over" her), and all the hard work she put into adapting and filming "THIDAAT", Asia didn't feel disappointed when she found out about the hoax. "First of all, I’m happy this didn’t happen to somebody. Even though I’m sure it has all happened to someone. I hold no grudge because I thought it was genius what Laura Albert did. Unfortunately in this male dominated world if it had been Laura Albert who had written this book, we wouldn’t have cared as much. I had to ask myself a lot of questions why I wanted to believe this so much. I don’t need to believe works are autobiographies even if they are. Why do people need to believe that my first film, [Scarlet Diva] is autobiographical, when it’s not. Nothing is true in anything we read, even newspapers." She's been working as an actress since she was a child and she understands how business is.
Asia considers meeting "JT Leroy" both a blessing and a curse. "It's really both. Personally, it's a blessing because it was a very important thing in my life to make this movie, and curse because it was a very hard thing to make."
"Making The Heart is Deceitful... was painful in every possible way that making a movie can be painful, but it was still the best and most fulfilling experience of my life."
Music: Asia Argento - Disco Sux/U Just Can't Stop The Rock/Sad Core (2008)
