"One of the reasons I wanted to come back is I got sick of seeing really ugly pictures of myself in the tabloids. I got to the point where I'd look in the mirror and say, Where'd she go? Because she's still in there.' I knew she was still in there (she laughs) and it didn't take much to get her out."
"I was a hoarder, and I got rid of everything. Now nothing comes in my home unless it has a purpose. And decor is not a purpose. Home is New York apartment with a table, a bed and sofas. That's it. Everything else is gone."
"All I want to do is model. The reason I'm coming back is for the same reasons that I became a model initially. It's about the clothes and the creation of great pictures. I thought I was old and that I earned my retirement, and enough! It's not enough. I want more. And I'm lucky that I still have that option."
"I got so sick of my face and the flaws."
"My first booker in Paris, at the very, very very beginning of my career, died of AIDS. It was the first time I had heard about AIDS. Everyone was still quite uncertain about what it was. It was still new. I remember visiting him up until his final days. I've had friends pass away from it, and friends of friends and colleagues, so I've been touched persoanlly and professionally. But really, I'm doing my part because I think it's a global issue. I think everybody has to do something. There is nothing beautiful about AIDS. We still live in a world where the stigma surrounding AIDS is truly ugly. I hope to make a difference."
"I have to get off the Internet. It's so unhealthy for me. I do see what they post about me, and it's not always positive. They're mean - though there are some lovely ones. I'm so tempted to post something, but I haven't done it yet."
Summer in Tokyo at 16 years old: "When I got there, I freaked out. It wasn't what they'd said it would be. They wanted nude and funny stuff. They asked me to strip to take my measurements, even though they had them already" Put up for the night in an apartment, she escaped and walked the streets, looking for a phone booth. When she told her parents that a man had helped her and she was phoning from his apartment, they went crazy. She returned home after a day and half. Even so, her mother let her have another try. When she finished school, Evangelista went to New York, on the condition that she would come home every weekend.
"One of my first jobs was in Italy and that's where I saw cocaine for the first time. There was a murder in our group that weekend. I decided then and there that I would never do drugs. I have anxiety attacks, so there's no way I could do them.
LINDA EVANGELISTA: Who do you most admire?
PEDRO ALMODOVAR: There are many directors I admire: Scorcese, for exemple, and I very much like Tarantino - his films are fantastic. I would like to work with Harvey Keitel and Barbara Hershey, but I would also like to work with you, Linda. You would make a wonderful housewife. There would be no point in casting you as a top model, that would be meaningless. I would like to cast you as a regular sub-urban housewife with problems. You know, with a sexy, beautiful girl like you, the audience wants to see you are human, so I would show your suffering, and show that just beautiful doesn't mean you have no soul or pain.
(Elle 1996, Linda Evangelista interviews Pedro Almodovar)
