The Name of the Rose: What happened to Valentina Vargas, the actress in the movie?

Director Jean-Jacques Anna’s fourth feature film, released between Fire Wars and The Bear , The Name of the Rose is a pure masterpiece. From a very dense and seemingly irrelevant book by Umberto Eco, the filmmaker created a masterful medieval thriller, which was very high not only thanks to his talent as a director, but also because of the fantastic cast of actors.

Of course, Sean Connery, who finds here one of the biggest roles of his career, F. Murray Abraham, who, nevertheless, was absolutely unruly and especially unpleasant on the set, according to Anna. Not forgetting Michael Lonsdale as the rector of the abbey, or Ron Perlman more disgusting than ever.

The film also marked the debut of a very young Christian Slater, barely 16, in the young upstart Adso de Melk outfit, under the tutelage of Sean Connery. In front of her is a young 22-year-old aspiring actress from Chile, Valentina Vargas. The only (main) female character of the film. Silent, he has no name. He is a “peasant”, a “savage”; It is the embodiment of the temptation of the flesh that young Adso succumbs to during one of the greatest erotic scenes of 80s cinema.

“This is the first story”

“First I chose a guy, Christian Slater. And, like in this story, he discovered this girl… This is the first story, and Christian himself was a virgin. I told Valentina Vargas what was happening on the scene. And I forbade her to tell Christian about it, so that the discovery to finish He will tell Anaud in an interview in 2015.

who also decided not to warn the actress that she would be completely naked in front of him, so that Slater’s reaction would be as spontaneous as possible. The scene, at the actor’s request, was shot with the smallest group and one time.

The two actors ignore Anna’s “Cuts”.

“What I was interested in was not the moment of action, it was the tenderness. I put my cameras down for the ‘end’ and asked them to kiss me a little.” Relax where the bodies fall apart and I start spinning, I kiss them and I tell them I’m close to them, and now nothing happens.

Then I think they need a little more time, after a minute I say “very good we are going to stop now” and it doesn’t stop… I say “OK!” In a higher voice “good now, we’ll cut it soon”.

Nothing happens… 9:30 minutes pass and then Valentina gets up, sees that I’m there, somehow finds out, finds the cameras and says: “Are you okay?” .. “Valentina, I’ve been happy for ten minutes.” (…) Physically nothing happened, but psychologically everything was there…”

A busy career

While Valentina Vargas made a big impression on the minds and retinas of viewers thanks to her role in The Name of the Rose, the rest of her career on screen was more discreet and laborious. After Anna, he played a few minor roles (Le Grand Bleu, Dirty Games, Hellraiser 4) before rising to the ranks of forgotten films in 2002, such as the raunchy and not-so-savory Bloody Mallory.

However, she was able to star alongside Antoine de Caunes in Chili con carne (1999), a comedy by Thomas Guilloux, then on television in José Diane’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses with Catherine Deneuve and Rupert Everett.

In 2012, he starred in Raul Ruiz’s last film, La Nuit d’en Face. And it will be another five years before he gets back in front of the camera in what appears to be his last screen appearance. new action movie here Johnny 100 pesos: Capítulo Dos.

If Valentina Vargas is away from the set, it’s because she has a music career at the same time. His first album called a little sun Released in November 2013. You can also listen to some songs Its official website. He announced recently His Instagram account Publication of his autobiography: La Vida: Alma, Amor y Pasión por el Cine, Released in August 2024, still untranslated by us.