Isabelle pasco can seduce you with her voice. Her broken English, bathed in a heavy French accent, practically belongs on a long-distance telephone call; her expressions of delight, her suggestive giggles, her turns of phrase that evoke the exotic tastes and smells of Paris are perfectly complemented by the elusive crackle of the overseas connection. The lady's an audio postcard.
Perhaps it is this youthful charm--with its mischievous hint of sexuality--that led film director Peter Greenaway to cast the 23-year-old ingénue as Miranda in Prospero's Books, his visually dazzling version of Shakespeare's The Tempest. "I play a fifteen-year-old virgin girl--pure, naïve and sweet," says Isabelle. "I am covered from the foot to the head."
How, then, does the Continental beauty explain her au naturel appearance here, which marks her debut on the pages of an American magazine? "I don't want people to know whether I'm a virgin girl or a sex symbol," she says coyly. "I don't want to be put in a box." And that's when you can hear the half-smile creeping up the corners of her mouth. And then a little laugh--as if she were keeping secrets.
The irrepressible Isabelle was just 16 when Elle magazine first photographed her at her mother's spa in Perpignan in the south of France. Elle's Paris editors were so delighted with the photographs--and the model--that they immediately invited Isabelle to come to the City of Light. A few months later, she adorned the covers of both Elle and Vogue; a year later, she was a veteran of two French movies, Ave Maria and Hors la Loi. Before long, Isabelle will have tucked three more European movies neatly beneath her 24-inch belt. "I like to be emotional in front of the camera," she explains of her on-screen appeal. "And if I can make those emotions reach the audience, that's fantastique."
Thankfully, Isabelle's sudden ascendancy to French movie stardom has not spoiled her. Off screen, she practices her Italian, Spanish and English and works out at the gym; when she's tired and tense, she plays UB40 on her stereo--loudly. "I dance like a crazy woman until I am exhausted. Then, when I'm through, it's a big, hot bath and straight to bed." Alone? "Absolu-ment! I'm not a very social girl. I'm looking for someone to spend my life with, but I haven't a type yet. Remember, I am the queen of paradox. I love to be in Playboy, and I like to go to church on Sunday."
There's that laugh again.
