Isabella Rossellini on ‘Conclave’: ‘You can convey a lot of things with no words’

Thanks to her years as a Lancome model — not to mention her famous lineage — Isabella Rossellini may have one of the most famous faces in Hollywood. So even though she’s hidden in a nun’s habit in her role as Sister Agnes in director Edward Berger‘s “Conclave,” her expressions leave no doubt about what she’s thinking at every given moment throughout the film.

Indeed, Rossellini lets her face do all of the talking — except for one scene-stealing moment, where she delivers a single line of dialogue that stuns the cardinals, who’ve been hatching their own schemes in the path to elect the next pope. From the film’s first premiere at the Telluride Film Festival to all of the guild screenings around the world, it’s a moment that’s guaranteed to stir audiences to a round of applause.

It all comes as a welcome surprise to a very humble Rossellini. “You accept a role because the script is wonderful, because you find it interesting, and you hope that the audience will find it, too,” she tells Gold Derby, “but you never can gauge how successful a film would be. So we are delighted that the film was so well accepted.”

Rossellini says the film’s message about the evil of certitude intertwined with the moral wisdom of doubt was what led her to sign on — but she faced an extra challenge. “You listen to the actors who have dialogue, you listen to the actors who pound their fist on the table to show authority,” she says. “And I had to play this interesting character who had to have a very strong presence and very strong authority — but without words.”

The competition for Best Supporting Actress is still very much in flux, with Rossellini consistently in the top 10 predicted to be nominated. Her limited (verbal) screen time needn’t be a factor, given that the Academy has a storied history of recognizing supporting actress performances with even less presence. (Beatrice Straight won the Oscar for “Network,” with just 5 minutes onscreen, for example.)

In fact, that limited presence is key to her performance. “She is invisible; I played her like a shadow, and yet she has eyes and ears,” says Rossellini. “And because she’s not in the brawl, she can see things a little bit detached and with greater wisdom.”

In some ways, she says, this role is a callback to her early modeling days, when photographer Richard Avedon would tell her that “being a model is like being a silent movie star,” she recalls. “You can convey a lot of things with no words.”