Isabella Does Bug Porn

Who made the costumes and which costume was the most difficult to wear?

I draw the costumes, and everything had to be more or less be made with paper, partially because of budget and partially because it is something that everybody can do in their kitchen. It looks like a little homemade theater. I didn’t want it to look like all those special effects and spectacular – I wanted to preserve the homemade feeling, so paper seemed to be a good way. I draw them and I do think of some of the executions, but the people who execute the costumes are two friends of mine. One is Andy Byers and the other is Rick Gilbert. They add a tremendous amount of detail. The most difficult one [to wear] was the worm. I was caught in the different rings and I couldn’t move and I was 35 feet long and I was trapped there all day – without drinking, without being able to scratch my face.

There’s a titillating interest in sex, and I took advantage of that in making a film about how the animals have sex instead of a film about how they take care of their babies. If we made a film called Different Ways To Be Mamas, we wouldn’t get the same hits.

During your research, did you discover any insect mating habits that repulsed you?

Um…no, all of it is fascinating. I mean, some animals are a little more squirmishing than others, but not in terms of sex – sometimes they look funny. I’m now doing a whole new series on marine animals -- you know, barnacles, shrimps, squids, starfish, anchovies -- and they all have different ways. Some fish even change sex. Males become females and females become males and it becomes even more interesting.

Of the sea creatures, can you give me an example of one of the sex acts that you found the most fascinating?

Starfish. They have two ways of reproducing. One, they can have sex regularly - male exchanging sperm with the female. Or, they can clone themselves.

Really?

Yeah. That, I thought was pretty wonderful. Another one that I loved is that not all shrimps, but a species of shrimp, is born male, then becomes female when it becomes older. Sometimes we also wonder, “What would it be like to be a man?” And a man wonders, “What would it be like to be a woman?” Shrimps don’t have that question. They are both sexes in different moments of their lives.

These films were made specifically to be watchable on a mobile device. Do people want to watch stuff like this while in transit?

We don’t know yet. We do know that more and more people are abandoning magazines, abandoning televison, and they’re getting their information on the web, on the mobile. It seems like mobiles are going to become more and more like iPhones—better screens, much better viewing. The only problem is, to Robert Redford, it seems absurd that you see on mobile a lot of films that were conceived for the big screen—like to see Apocalypse Now on the mobile would not do it justice. Robert Redford was thinking, what if we create an art form that is conceived for the mobile. That’s why Green Porno is very vivid in color, and we decided to do them in a studio because we tried to do them outside but once you have a background it gets all muddy.

You’ve performed in unconventional sex scenes before, in your roles in Blue Velvet and Cousins. Do you seek out these types of roles or is it coincidence?

I think it is coincidence. December 9, I’m doing a reading at the Metropolitan and I cannot believe that the reading that the Metropolitan is asking me to do is about erotic poems of the Renaissance. I’m delighted to do it, but sometimes I think, what is this?