(audience clapping)
Thank you for coming back, Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you.
Yeah, do you have any plans?
besides Christmas,
Visiting talk shows?
Do you have any?
Not that that's not a lot of fun and a warm tradition.
Not a very big plan this year,
because I have a daughter who is 11
and she's already gone to visit her dad in California.
And I have a little one who's a year and three months
and he wouldn't understand much of Christmas.
(laughs)
He's easy to buy presents for.
Yes, he's easy, just a little plastic thing that we have.
(Conan laughing)
You can give him something from like a six pack of beer,
you know, just that plastic thing.
Yeah, exactly. And he's like really happy.
(laughs) Yes, right.
No problem at all.
So I'm just gonna spend it with my sisters.
This is now, you actually,
you have an identical twin sister don't you?
No, she's not identical.
I have a, you call it fraternal?
Yes, I think it's called fraternal, when they're not
Fraternal?
Fraternal twin.
What is that, so that means that?
So it means that we come from two eggs and two sperms.
Oh my God.
Sorry to say those words. Please.
(audience laughs)
Please, this is a family show.
(audience laughs)
They're identical, you know, they come from one or more,
(mumbles under breath)
(both laugh)
One. Okay, all right.
You two sit around and talk about this much?
Hey, you came from another egg.
No, but we wish to be identical, you know,
it would have been fun because you hear that they have
telepathic things, you know?
I've heard that.
I've heard that
You don't have that connection
No. If your sister's like
on the other side of the world, she burns her hands.
We only have exactly the same voice.
And it helped us a lot in life.
You know, especially when we were young,
cause my sister is very shy.
So I made all the phone calls for her, you know,
[Conan laughs]
Anything that just needed voice, It was me.
And now, do you still sound exactly alike?
Pretty much, yes pretty much,
pretty much the same voice.
So if you've got, say a voiceover job,
you know, with Volvo,
I always say that. You could send her instead.
You can go up and have a vacation
I always say, you know, when you're in between
films and you have to loop a film
that they say, oh, you only have a day.
I always say oh, but I have a sister
as my voice, who will come in.
If there is anything else to be done.
That would come in very handy I think
Yes. Now I've actually
heard that twins have this, strange, you know,
there's supposed to be this strange bond between them, but.
Well there is, there is in a way there is,
well, first of all we grew up
dressed the same, sleeping in the same room,
you know, so there is, for many years we wore the same then.
But when we were 12 mum and daddy decided we had to
be different, So they dressed us different.
They cut our hair differently.
(Conan Laughs)
Okay. So we become independent
of one another. How differently?
you had the dresses, like the cop and the village people,
and she was the Indian,
(laughing)
Almost. Just very arbitrary.
You're the construction worker.
And I love your, I really do love your accent.
Your accent is a, there's nothing,
I don't think there's anything sexier than an Italian accent
really, its fantastic.
I come from Boston and I had to get rid of my Boston accent.
But I'm trying to get rid of mine too though
(Isabella laughs)
Really?
Well, don't get a Boston accent
not a good idea, but it,
really does make, you know, when you hear it,
it's so nice, it's so pleasant to listen to.
Is it? Yeah.
Very pleasant to listen to.
They all complain about it.
Who's complaining about it?
Because they say you can't do films, you know?
'Cause you have an accent, they limits your roles.
Oh, its so exotic, it's so worldly.
I mean, it just, it makes things sound
like you could just say, you know,
if you said, just fill it up with unleaded.
I think it would sound
(laughing)
Exotic. I think it would sound
Yeah, It'd be like, say that again
(laughing)
please, no do you, I mean, are you conscious?
I mean, how do.
No, you know, I'm, that's the problem with accents.
You, I think that I speak English perfectly.
[Conan] Well you do,
You know, I don't hear my voice and I have to,
I've worked very hard with dialect coach to,
capture the little subtle differences that I make
so that I can correct them and trying to get rid
as much as possible of an accent.
But doesn't English sound very ugly
to European people?
Isn't it supposed to, I mean, I have no idea
what it would sound like,
Well English sound so different you know,
But doesn't American, when you hear an American,
what does it sound like to you, is it just,
(Imitates)
That's the Italian imitation of American
Well thanks a lot.
(Laughing)
That's how, this interview has sounded to you
(Imitates)
like the teacher on Charlie Brown.
(Everyone laughs)
That's how we all sound to you.
That's how Italians imitate Americans.
They don't know the language.
Now, tell us a little bit about the,
movie you're doing, this is a movie about,
About Beethoven, the composer,
About Beethoven, not the dog, the composer.
No (laughs)
That's actually a distinction you have to make
in this country, it's about Beethoven.
Really?
No, no, no, not the dog.
(audience laughs)
The classic composer.
Oh,
(Isabella laughs)
I'll see that on cable, yeah.
No, tell me about that.
Tell me about this movie.
Well, Beethoven, when he died, a letter was found,
addressed to an immortal beloved, where he left all this
money to her, but the woman was never found.
That it would never identify who the Immortal beloved is.
So the film tells the story of Beethoven secretary,
Anton Schindler, going around to Beethoven's mistresses,
to Beethoven's friends, family,
trying to like a mystery story.
Its a little like a Citizen Kane.
They're trying to figure something out.
Exactly, it is very much built like Citizen Kane,
trying to find out who it was, and Beethoven was a,
a gray character, very grouchy, very violent.
You, he;s considered the first kind of rock and roll star.
You know, he created great scandal with his music.
His music was considered passionate, and vulgar, and obscene
because it came from the gods.
So, you know, and he was deaf.
So he wrote all his music.
He had a progressive disease.
He was never able to listen To his music.
He Couldn't hear it himself?
No, he heard it at the beginning, and then
as he became more and more deaf, you know,
he could never do it, you know?
And it was a very loud deafness.
He heard whistle and, sounds,
and throbbing of the heart, and
Oh my God. it was quite torturous, yes.
But the, I guess one of the interesting things
about your role in this movie is that
you age throughout this movie, is that right?
Yes I do, I do
Now, I'm always curious when they do that,
are they going to, does that mean they glop you up with,
Absolutely. They put all
this junk on you and make you look,
Yes, no this one was done, they,
stretch your skin and then they put glue a kind of
special glue, you know, it does the same thing as you,
when you get glue on your fingers,
that they all kind of wrinkle up.
There's the same thing, when it dries, you become more like,
Because sometimes when you see us, and they do it
badly in movies and the person ages,
and they don't look old, they just look
like a bomb went off in their face, you know,
(audience laughs)
Its like, you know, the character age is like 40 years
and they've got all this gloop and gaap
coming off their face.
It's like, well, wait a minute,
People don't melt when they get older.
(audience laughs)
They do a little bit.
Pardon me, some of my face is falling off,
but this is, how did they do this?
So they do it in a way that you're comfortable with?
Yeah, well sometimes you can put
prosthetics, you know, so you can, you have to put
plastic thing to put a double chin or
make you fatter and all that.
And sometime it's just,
So there's someone who's getting paid
a lot of money to make you look ugly.
Oh yeah, it takes hours, you know,
sometimes you have to be in makeup four, five hours.
You have to be very patient,
Right But it's fun, I love it.
Really, did you walk around afterwards
and pretend to be a different person?
Yes. If I were ever to be in a
movie and they did something like that to me,
I would, leave the set.
And I remember once I got to be in a,
production of something and I had to, this is years ago,
but I had to play a policeman and I just left the set and,
you know, and started like telling people off on the street,
like move it along, move it along you.
(audience laughs)
'Cause I just thought, why not?
I know, that's why It's fun to be someone else
for awhile. Yes, it is.
That's what I like.
I had the crap beat out of me, but
(audience laughs)
So it was a fun experience all around.
That's all I like.
I like, I always say I like the Halloween aspects of film.
I like the fake noses, the wig, the wrinkles.
Just become someone else.
Yeah, I love that.
Its a lot of fun.
Well, the movie is Immortal Beloved,
and it's opening very soon and it was really nice
to see you again. Thank you.
It's always a pleasure to have you on the show.
Thank you so much, thank you for having me.
Thank you very much, Isabella Rossellini, everyone.