Isabella Rossellini's next act: Explaining animal sex on TV's 'Green Porno'

It's a sad truth of the entertainment industry that actresses and models seem to come with an expiration date. Once in their 50s (to be generous to the age-fixated Hollywood mentality), women struggle to find roles worthy of their talents and stature.

Isabella Rossellini, 62, once the face of Lancôme and the exotically accented star of films such as David Lynch's Blue Velvet, found herself in that predicament over the last decade. But she didn't rush off to the plastic surgeon; instead, she enrolled at Hunter College in New York, where she's been pursuing a master's degree in animal behavior.

"I've always loved animals, since I was a little girl," the Italian-born Rossellini said last week from her home on Long Island. "So when I started to work less as a model and actress, I wanted to go back to university and study something that was interesting to engage my head."

One unexpected byproduct of Rossellini's educational pursuits has been the Sundance Channel series Green Porno, in which the stunning actress dresses up in hand-crafted creature costumes to explain the diverse sex lives of a variety of species. The show has commanded a cult following with its blend of weird science and eccentric humor, and now Rossellini is touring a live version of the show, which will stop at World Café Live next Friday.

The TV show was born from discussions between Rossellini and Robert Redford, founder of the Sundance Film Festival and its namesake network, about the Internet-age resurgence of the short film. At first, Green Porno was meant to be a collection of shorts to provide content for the channel and let Rossellini try out writing and directing.

The idea of using sex as her subject, however, was pure showbiz savvy. "I chose sexuality because everybody's interested in sexuality," she said. "It started as something that was going to be scientifical in the information, but meant for entertainment. These were not done as things to be presented in school or with a didactical outcome. So of course entertainment always deals with sex. If I was going to do a whole series on animal digestive systems, it was maybe not going to be as popular."

The show has an offbeat sense of humor. Rossellini dresses up in outlandishly perverse kiddie-show costumes while discussing the off-color aspects of animal kingdom hook-ups. All of which took many viewers by surprise, given her striking beauty and her roles in dramatic, often dark films.

But Rossellini insists that the show comes closer to her real personality than any of her previous work. "My family isn't surprised," she said. "I didn't do this to contradict what I'd done before. I had a look that allowed me to be a model, which I'm very grateful for. . . . But as you become an author it's more about your own material and your own personality rather than the way you look."

With no idea how to translate her collection of off-kilter shorts into a full-length one-woman show, Rossellini turned to Jean-Claude Carrière, the French novelist and screenwriter who earlier this year was awarded an honorary Oscar. He's best known for his collaboration with Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel on many of the surrealist master's later films, including Belle de Jour and the Academy Award-winning The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Rossellini credits her friend, the French actress and model Carole Bouquet, with both the idea for the touring version of Green Porno and the collaboration with Carrière.

"Carole loved my films and she said, 'You should make it into a monologue, like a little comical scientifical conference.' I sort of liked the idea, but I didn't know how to go about it, so she called Jean-Claude, who I was very tempted to work with because he's mythical. So we worked for six months, and now we've been touring it for over a year and a half."

Whether transforming herself into a praying mantis or a barnacle, Rossellini puts a wacky human spin on these animals' mating habits. But she's quick to say she doesn't intend the show to reflect on the sometimes equally bizarre mating rituals of her own species.

"Women and men always want to talk about themselves," she said with a sigh. "Even if you talk about a worm, they say, 'Well, what does this do to me?'

"Sometimes science is just for science's sake, but our human nature always wants us to bring it back to us. It's only revealing in the sense that there are so many different ways of reproducing."

She also doesn't intend for the show to have a particular political message, despite her conservationist beliefs and the presence of the word green in the title. In fact, she sees her activism as another side effect of her age.

"Very frankly, this thing of 'giving back' I find to be very American," she said, laughing. "Until 10 years ago, whenever I gave interviews I was always asked, 'We have to ask this question, we know it's private, but our readers want to know - do you have somebody in your life?' These days, I'm not asked that anymore. I'm asked, 'How do you give back? What is your cause?'

"I don't know if something changed in American society or if it's a question of my age, but there's something really strange happening."

Isabella Rossellini, "Green Porno"

8 p.m. Nov. 14 at World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St.

Tickets: $37.50

Information: 215-222-1400 or www.worldcafelive.comEndText