BLACK SILK SPIDER GOWN MAISON MARTIN MARGIELA

The bigger test came from acting opposite Michael Madsen, who plays her ex-lover, a thuggish entrepreneur whom she lures into a kinky pas de deux. The actors partly improvised the rough sex talk and mindfucking role-play of their long, talky scenes together, and Madsen sometimes got carried away. “He’s not scared of going all the way, and neither am I,” Argento says of her co-star. “There was a very strange feeling on set in those scenes. You never knew what would happen next.” (Assayas explains that whenever Madsen went too far, Argento could be counted on to get the scenes back on track. “It often felt like she was helping me direct Michael,” he says.)
This year’s Cannes turned out to be an auspicious one for the Argento family. Asia accompanied her father to the premiere of a restored print of his 1977 classic, Suspiria. Also showing was the eagerly anticipated trailer screening of Dario’s The Third Mother, which stars Asia and is the final installment of the trilogy that began with Suspiria and its 1980 sequel, Inferno. The fourth film Asia has made with her father (and the first since Phantom of the Opera nearly a decade ago), Mother also features Asia’s own mother, actress Daria Nicolodi (who is separated from Dario). “My mother and father were having a decent relationship after so many years,” she says of the on-set family reunion. “They were really sweet to each other, and it was really moving to see. But when the movie was over, their problems began again. While we’re shooting, it’s a happy family.” Given the family business, it’s not surprising that Asia grew up on horror movies. “It was forbidden, but encouraged at the same time,” she says.