Asia Argento BiographyAsia Aria Anna Maria Vittoria Rossa Argento (born September 20, 1975 in Rome) is an Italian television and film actress and director. The City of Rome's register office refused to acknowledge Asia as an appropriate name, and instead officially inscribed her as Aria Argento. Despite this, she uses the nameAsia Argento professionally. ("Asia" is pronounced "" in Italian).
Her mother is the actress Daria Nicolodi and her father is Dario Argento, an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter well known for his work in the Italian giallo genre, and for his influence on modern horror and slasher movies. Her first child, Anna Lou, was born on 20 June 2001. Italian rock and roll musician Marco Castoldi (lead singer of Bluvertigo), also known as Morgan, is the father.
Asia Argento was directed by her father Dario Argento in one of her first works, Trauma (1993), when she was 16. During this film she also had her first nude scene. She received the David di Donatello (Italy's version of Hollywood's Academy Award) for Best Actress in 1994 for her performance in Perdiamoci di vista!, and again in 1996 for Compagna di viaggio, which also earned her a Grolla d'oro award. In 1998, Argento began appearing in English-language movies, such as B. Monkey and New Rose Hotel, with Christopher Walken.
In addition to her cinematic accomplishments, Argento has written a number of stories for magazines such as Dynamo and L'Espresso, while her first novel, titled I Love You Kirk, was published in Italy in 1999. She has modeled for and endorses the brand "Miss Sixty". The band Hondo Maclean from South Wales, gained Argento's interest when they wrote a track named after her. She liked the track so much she sent them pictures which they used as the cover of their 2004 EP Chasing Angels.
From the 17th to the 25th of October 2006, Argento contributed a video diary to Nick Knight's website, SHOWstudio. The title of the 54 entries/episodes was "Don't Bother To Knock" and detailed Argento's daily life with three entries (noon, 6 pm and midnight) posted every day. The content of the entries were partially controlled by a discussion forum and together formed a cohesive whole, a sort of "mini-movie" anyone could view for free. In the clips Argento discusses topics such as freaks, her father, Fellini and her sexuality; she also journals a pregnancy, a new love interest and her unraveling psyche. All of these issues come to a head before Argento's final revelations and good-byes. The last visual of the diary is a digitally manipulated portrait of Argento taken by Knight, slowly burning away.
Fantasma dell'opera, Il (1998) (The Phantom of the Opera) is the third film Asia has made with her director father, Dario Argento; in 1992 she made Trauma (1993) (filmed in the US) and Sindrome di Stendhal, La (1996) in 1996. Asia Argento was born into a family of actors and movie-makers (her mother is the actress Daria Nicolodi) and is one of the most sought-after actresses of the moment. She made her debut when she was only nine years old in Sergio Citti's "Sogni e bisogni" (1984) (mini). In 1988 she had the leading role in Cristina Comencini's first film Zoo (1989) and was part of the cast of _Chiesa, La (1988)_ , directed by Michele Soavi. The following year she played Nanni Moretti's daughter in Palombella rossa (1989) (also directed by Nanni Moretti).
It was with Amiche del cuore, Le (1992), written and directed by Michele Placido that Asia's career really took off and she was able to move on from playing very young girls to more mature, complex roles. The movie was well received at Cannes film Festival. In Trauma (1993) she worked for the first time with her father, playing an anorexic girl in search of her parents' killer.
Asia's absorbed, intense style of acting was well-used in Giuseppe Piccioni's Condannato a nozze (1993). In 1993 she co-starred in Carlo Verdone's Perdiamoci di vista! (1994) in which she played Arianna, a physically disabled girl - an intricate, difficult role which won her the David di Donatello for best actress ('93-'94). She also had a featured role in the international cast of Reine Margot, La (1994) directed by Patrice Chereau. In 1995 she worked with Michel Piccoli in Peter Del Monte's Compagna di viaggio (1996), which again won her a David di Donatello and a Grolla d'oro.
In 1994, Asia turned her hand to directing two short films: 'Prospettive' (an episode of the film DeGenerazione (1994)) and 'A ritroso'. In 1996 she directed a documentary on her father, and in 1998 one on Abel Ferrara Abel/Asia which won her the Rome Film Festival award. In 1999 Asia made her debut directing a feature film entitled Scarlet Diva (2000) for which she is the leading actress and author of the screenplay. Scarlet Diva has been released in May 2000 in Italy, and the rest of the world. The movie won an award at the Williamsburg Brooklyn Film Festival. In 2001 after directing a number of music videos she gave birth to her first daughter, Anna Lou. In 2002 she's starring in Sirene rouge, La (2002) by Olivier Megaton with Jean-Marc Barr and the action thriller XXX (2002) directed by Rob Cohen, with Vin Diesel.
Asia Argento is also the author of a number of short stories published in many prestigious magazines such as "Dynamo", "L'Espresso", "Sette" and "Village". Her first novel "I Love You Kirk" has been published in Italy by Frassinelli Editrice in October 1999 and in France by Florent Massot in 2001.
Carla Bruni
