Interview: Alba Rohrwacher on the Gender Politics of 'Sworn Virgin' and the Actresses She Loves
Wednesday, April 20, 2016 at 6:00PM
Jose here. In the ancient Albanian tradition of “burrnesha”, a woman takes a vow of chastity in exchange for having all the freedom of a man. Once she swears eternal virginity in front of a group of elders - all men of course - she is allowed to live in the community under a new male name that also brings benefits that will allow her to carry guns, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, work, play music and be in the company of other men. By the time we meet Mark (Alba Rohrwacher) in Sworn Virgin, he has pretty much forgotten who Hana, her former identity, was. Feeling incomplete, he decides to leave his isolated village to visit his sister (Flonja Kodheli) in Italy, where he discovers he is living within a prison of his own making.
Sworn Virgin is director Laura Bispuri’s debut film, but one wouldn’t guess that from the boldness with which she tells her story and especially because of the performances she gets from her actors. Rohrwacher, who is on a roll, having premiered Virgin at the Berlin Film Festival in 2015 after winning the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for Hungry Hearts, a few months before, gives her finest performance to date. I had the opportunity to talk to her about her recent films (both Virgin and Matteo Garrone’s Tale of Tales open this week in New York), working with Bispuri and some of her favorite actresses.
Read our conversation after the jump.
JOSE: What attracted you to the part of Hana/Mark?
ALBA ROHRWACHER: When I read the screenplay for the first time I was immediately attracted by the story itself, by the way the screenplay was written, and then I read the book by Elvira Dones on which the film is based and was fascinated by this phenomenon that takes place in the mountains of Albania. After this first sensation of fascination I felt afraid and had some resistance on taking on such an ambitious challenge, but Laura was so sure I was right for the role, and that working together we could do something great, that it gave me the courage to go on this journey.
JOSE: The first image we see in the film is of a goat in the mountains and we understand that Mark wants to be like this goat roaming free. At the 2015 Berlinale you commented how you felt this was a film about freedom, so based on that what did you discover about your own body and your skills by playing Mark?
ALBA ROHRWACHER: I think to tell the story of this character who made a choice of freedom, or apparent freedom but ended up instead being encaged inside of a body that did not correspond to who he is, gave me as an actress an enormous amount of freedom to relate to him and tell his story. The work that I did on my body to become him was very liberating, but it’s a paradox. I think that in reality telling this story of an imprisoned character gave me the freedom to change my body and body language. As an actor you have to feel free but also need to trust the guidance you’re given, and forget the preconceived notions you might have. The same preconceived notions of gender Mark relies on to make his choices.
JOSE: What I found rather great about Sworn Virgin is that we see Hana wanting to become Mark out of a sense of sheer freedom, she envies the goats because she senses they will give her a freedom she will never have living as a woman. So it goes beyond gender identity into something more metaphysical.
ALBA ROHRWACHER: The whole discourse on freedom is very subtle, it goes beyond strict gender roles, it’s about someone who realizes they might not belong to one gender or the other. At one point in the movie where Mark says “we are freer than what we thought”, the niece asks “free of what?” and he responds “free of not having to be”.
There’s a beautiful contrast between what you do here and in Hungry Hearts, in which we see you look as “yourself” but then make the performance all about the external, while in Sworn Virgin, through the costumes and makeup you choose to give such a restrained performance. Going from project to project how does your process change when playing someone who is all about the internal life, and someone “larger than life”?
Do you like Hungry Hearts?
Yes!
I feel that there are very deep differences between both characters, it’s as if they were from two different planets altogether. Mina in Hungry Hearts is extremely aware of her own truth and very much in touch with her emotions that are very deeply rooted inside of her, so much that she imposes this certainty she feels upon the world. She’s never afraid that she might make a mistake. Mark is very much blocked by his interior life. At one point he decides to question every single choice he’s made and seeks his truth in the truths of others. Both characters are about completely different ways in which we relate to the world. For me the point is about truth, Mina says “I am the truth”, Mark says “I am nothing”. 
Watching Hungry Hearts made me think of your character in Sleeping Beauty who starts as a romantic heroine of sorts, pursuing the guy she likes. Soon we learn she’s not precisely that, but it made me wonder if you try to find parallels in the characters you play?
In the case of Hungry Hearts Mina was already so well defined, it didn’t resemble anyone I’d ever played. Maria from Sleeping Beauty is very young and contains within herself a huge range of emotions, Mina on the other side - according to me, not her birth certificate - is a very old character. I play both characters, so it’s not a biological element, but Maria is full of youthfulness and Mina is already old inside by the time we meet her. Maria is a daughter, in a way this defines who she is, while Mina is like “the mother”, she has no link to ever having been a daughter. In truth, Mina might even be younger than Maria, but deep inside they are the opposite.
I like that you brought this up because we have seen you too do this transition from playing daughters to mothers. In The Wonders for instance, many people thought you were playing a version of your mother since the film was directed by your sister Alice who infused it with autobiographical details. How has this transition been?
I hope I get to play more daughters (laughs). In The Wonders, I played a mother who already has grown daughters so in terms of biology it would have meant I had become a mother at age 15, but that’s not really what the character is about. What Alice was looking for was a feeling that was much more important than the body itself, she said to me “I feel only you can portray this mother because we have a shared idea of what a mother is”. It’s not that we were projecting a shared idea of our own mother, but a shared idea that we had as sisters of “a mother”. At the beginning I thought it was strange to be playing mother to all these children, but I learned it was more important to infuse it with subtlety. It’s not an autobiographical film either, but it’s about a universe Alice and I feel close to. 
You won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress the same year your sister Alice won the Grand Prix at Cannes, so congratulations for that. Growing up did your parents encourage you to become involved in film?
It’s important to emphasize that my family was very far from cinema, my mother is a schoolteacher and my father was a beekeeper. We grew up in the country very far away from the world of cinema, but what they conveyed in us was deep trust in our own feelings, a freedom to pursue the road we thought was right for us.
Sworn Virgin was Laura’s very first film, and Hungry Hearts is your second collaboration with Saverio Costanzo. How does your process change depending on who you work with?
For me it’s always very important to have a relationship of mutual trust. It’s a very privileged relationship for an actor, and it doesn’t always happen, to have the trust of the director and being able to propose things, looking for things together, or developing things together. It’s not always that case and that’s right too, sometimes it’s right to be just the actor following the director’s vision. Saverio and Laura are both very different directors, Saverio is already an established director and this is Laura’s first film, so I can’t wait to see what she does next. Saverio always creates great conditions for work, you arrive to the set every day with a sense of surprise which brings such vitality to his work. Working with Laura I never had a sense of working with a debut director, but someone with a vision of where she wanted to arrive. She made me feel we were both parents to this character we created. The sense I want to get from a director is that they’re a person who help you bring the character to life.
You have become a chameleon of sorts and many times you’ve been compared to Tilda Swinton whom you’ve worked with too. So I’m curious as to what actresses you admire?
Tilda is immense. She’s a great artist, it was such a privilege to work with her in I Am Love. When it comes to role models it’s always so hard to choose because I admire so many actresses. Obviously there’s Tilda, but I also love the films of John Cassavetes, so I love Gena Rowland’s work in his films. I love Monica Vitti, I recently saw Clouds of Sils Maria, and what a movie, what performances! Kristen Stewart’s work in it is out of this world.
Reader Comments (3)
She loves Gena Rowlands <3
Alba never caught my attention, but I've only seen her in supporting roles. Since she loves John & Gena, I'll look for her movies (but all actors love John and Gena).
I kind of loved The Wonders, it's a beautiful movie. Jane Campion should have given it the Golden Palm, because it was much better than Winter Sleep.
Loved her in I Am Love. Very expressive face. Disturbing movie when I saw it a second time. One scene.
loved her in Solitude of Prime Numbers.