Nastassja Kinski (born January 24, 1961) is a German-born American-based actress who has appeared in more than 60 films. Her starring roles include her Golden Globe Award-winning portrayal of the title character in Tess and her roles in two erotic films (Stay As You Are and Cat People), as well as parts in Wim Wenders' films The Wrong Move; Paris, Texas; and Faraway, So Close!. Richard Avedon's photo of her, nude with a large python, was marketed as a poster.
Born in Berlin as Nastassja Aglaia Nakszyński on 24 January 1960 or 1961, Kinski is the daughter of the German actor Klaus Kinski from his marriage to actress Ruth Brigitte Tocki - this makes her half sister to Pola Kinski and Nikolai Kinski. Her parents divorced in 1968. Kinski rarely saw her father after the age of 10. Kinski and her mother struggled financially. They eventually lived in a commune in Munich.
Kinski's career began in Germany where she started as a model. After this the German New Wave actress Lisa Kreuzer placed her in the role of the dumb Mignon in Wim Wenders' film The Wrong Move. In 1976 she had her first major role in the feature length film and Wolfgang Petersen directed episode Reifezeugnis of the German TV crime series Tatort. Also in 1976, in her mid-teens, she starred in the British Hammer Film Productions' horror film To the Devil a Daughter (1976). Kinski has gained notoriety through nude appearances in these films while still a minor. This is linked to controversy as to the exact year of her birth (see above). She has stated that, as a child, she felt exploited by the industry and told a journalist from W Magazine, "If I had had somebody to protect me or if I had felt more secure about myself, I would not have accepted certain things. Nudity things. And inside it was just tearing me apart."
Kinski starred in Stay As You Are (1978) with Marcello Mastroianni. New Line Cinema released it in the United States in December 1979, helping Kinski to get more recognition there. Time magazine said: "Kinski is simply ravishing, genuinely sexy and high-spirited without being painfully aggressive about it."Director Roman Polanski urged Kinski to study acting with Lee Strasberg in the United States and cast her in his film, Tess (1979). In 1981, photographer Richard Avedon photographed Kinski with a Burmese python coiled around her naked body.
In 1982, Kinski appeared in One from the Heart, and Cat People, and then Unfaithfully Yours, and The Hotel New Hampshire. Paris, Texas won awards at Cannes, however, the film was not widely released in the United States. Kinski then split her time between Europe and the United States, making Moon in the Gutter (1983), Harem (1985) and Torrents of Spring (1989) in Europe and Exposed (1983), Maria’s Lovers (1984) and Revolution (1985) in the U.S. Kinski's luck turned in the 1990s when she appeared in films such as Terminal Velocity opposite Charlie Sheen, and Mike Figgis' One Night Stand.
In One From the Heart, director Francis Ford Coppola brought Kinski to the U.S. to act as a "Felliniesque circus performer to represent the twinkling evanescence of Eros. . . Kinski has one great moment in the film, when she seductively curls up in a giant neon-rimmed martini glass. . ." The film failed at the box office, and was a major loss for Coppola's new studio, Zoetrope. "In the wake of the dismal showing at the box office, . . . after less than two years in operation, Zoetrope Studios was for sale." It became "one of the biggest box office failures in modern cinema history."relevant? – discuss For the film, Coppola had built one of the most expensive movie sets in the history of Hollywood: "His glittering, surreal re-creation of neon Las Vegas alone cost more than $6 million," notes movie historian Gene D. Phillips. Kinski commented about the set during an interview:
Other appearances have included Martin Donovan's Somebody Is Waiting (1996), Neil LaBute's Your Friends & Neighbors (1998), John Landis' Susan's Plan (1998), Chris Menges' The Lost Son (1999), Michael Winterbottom's The Claim (2000), and David Lynch's Inland Empire (2006).She has not appeared in any films since her cameo in Inland Empire in 2006.