Isabella Rossellini's Roles Range Far Beyond Stage and Screen

Isabella Rossellini, 72, has come full circle. While growing up in Italy, the daughter of famed actress Ingrid Bergman and director Roberto Rossellini attended a Catholic school, where her teachers were nuns. In Conclave, opening Oct. 25, she plays Sister Agnes, a nun amid powerful religious men who are in the process of selecting a new pope. The model, actress and director — who also runs a farm with her daughter just outside New York City — talks about always being passionate, reinventing herself at 55, and why she’s never had plastic surgery.

You went to Catholic school as a girl in Italy. Did you base Sister Agnes on any of your teachers?

I based her on the nuns. I went to lower school and middle school, and (the nuns) were anything but submissive. They'd accepted the vow to be in a secondary position in the Catholic Church, but ... they had great authority. I wanted to portray that. I loved (being) able to play a role that is silent and yet has a great presence and great authority.

I interviewed your daughter, Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann, a few years ago, when she released her cookbook. How did you imbue your children with that sense of confidence?

We all try to do our best. We make mistakes and we'll say, "Oh, that didn't work, (but) that worked." I think that ultimately, action is stronger than words. When people say, "Why don't you tell your children to do this and to do that?" I try to do it more with action.

Your daughter has two sons, and I know your son, Robert, recently had a baby. Congrats!

My third grandson. He's seven months old. At the beginning, I helped them a lot, and the baby was often here at night staying at my house so that they could sleep and recuperate.

Isabella Rossellini stars as Sister Agnes in "Conclave," which opens theatrically Oct. 25.

Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection

That’s incredibly generous of you.

Some of my friends said, "Oh, come on, you're spoiling them. They have to toughen up and do it (themselves)." Maybe one day, when they are grandparents and their daughter or son says, "Oh, please help me," they won't say, "Toughen up." They'll remember their grandmothers. It might give them an idea of generosity or family. It takes a village to raise children.

When I spoke to your daughter about beauty, she told me that she learned all of her lessons from you. What is your beauty philosophy now?

Incredibly enough, I never had a beauty philosophy. And I never did any plastic surgery or anything like that. I have family members and friends who had plastic surgery, and some of them felt better. (But) some of them... I think they feel they won the battle, but lost the war. For me, I was born with a deformation of the spine, and I had a very severe back operation that put me in great difficulties sometimes, healthwise. I just didn't want to add another operation. Health comes first.