Asia Argento
Aria Anna Maria Vittoria Rossa Argento (born
20 September,
1975,
Rome) is an
Italian television and
film actress and
director. In Rome, the city's registry office refused to acknowledge
Asia as an appropriate name, and instead officially inscribed her as
Aria Argento. Despite this, she uses the name
Asia Argento professionally. Asia is
pronounced .
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. She gave birth to her first child, a girl, on
20 June,
2001, with
Italian rock and roll musician Marco Castoldi, also known as
Morgan, as 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 response to 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, Asia began appearing in the American movies, such as
B. Monkey and
New Rose Hotel, alongside
Christopher Walken.
Asia has also proven her ability to work in multiple languages, adding French to the list of languages in which she has performed, with a role in 1994's
La Reine Margot. That same year, she made her first foray into directing, calling the shots behind the short films
Prospettive and
A ritroso. In 1996, she directed a documentary on her father, and in 1998 a second one on
Abel Ferrara, which won her the Rome Film Festival Award. She
directed and
wrote her first movie called
Scarlet Diva (2000) and four years later she directed her second movie,
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (2004), this time in the
United States.
In addition to her accomplishments in the world of film, Asia 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.
While Asia is certainly a celebrity in her native country, the coverage that the Italian press showers on her is not always favorable. She has drawn criticism for her openness toward
drug use and posing nude, as well as the deeply
erotic scenes she has performed in, particularly those that her father has filmed. In 2001, a great deal of attention was drawn to an alleged hit-and-run that Asia was involved in, and her position in this incident wasn't helped by the fact that a bottle of
absinthe was found in her car (the liquor was to be used as a prop in a music video that Asia was directing).
The band
Hondo Maclean from South Wales 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.
*
Coin Locker Babies (
2006)
*
Marie-Antoinette (
2006)
*
Land of the Dead (
2005)
*
Cindy: The Doll Is Mine (
2005)
*
Last Days (
2005)
*
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things (
2004)
*
The Keeper (
2004)
*
xXx (
2002)
*
Scarlet Diva (
2000)
*
New Rose Hotel (
1998)
*
The Stendhal Syndrome (
1996)
*
La Reine Margot (
1994)
*
Trauma (
1993)
*
Demoni 2 (
1986)
*
Asia Argento Official site*
Cult Sirens: Asia Argento*
Asia Argento Interview*
Dark Dreams: the Films of Dario Argento*
Ode to Azia: Authorized Asia Argento fansite
