“Death Has No Master”, interview with actress Asia Argento

At the Festival de Cannes 2026, Asia Argento returns with “Death Has No Master”, the new feature by Venezuelan filmmaker Jorge Thielen Armand, presented as a world premiere in the Quinzaine des Cinéastes. The film, also titled “La muerte no tiene dueño”, follows Caro, a woman who travels to Venezuela to sell her late father’s cacao plantation, only to find the family mansion occupied by its former staff.

Asia Argento describes the experience as both destabilising and artistically necessary. Acting in Spanish and spending two months in Venezuela, one dedicated to preparation and one to shooting, placed her in a state of vulnerability that became part of the role. “It made me feel very insecure, not speaking the language,” says the actress. “I used that frustration for my character.”

Caro, inheritance and the violence of ownership

For Asia Argento, Caro is not simply a woman reclaiming property. She is someone already close to collapse, forced to confront what land, inheritance and family history can conceal. The actress describes the character as marked by entitlement, colonial memory, and an unresolved relation to Venezuela.

“There is this primal animal in me,” says Asia Argento, reflecting on how the film explores the instinctive violence attached to home, property and bloodline. In her reading, “Death Has No Master” examines a basic human impulse: the transformation of grief and inheritance into conflict. The mansion becomes more than a location. It is a place where buried histories return through bodies, rooms, sounds and gestures.

The film’s official synopsis frames this struggle as one that unearths violence embedded in the land and its memory, and Asia Argento connects that idea to a more intimate performance process. She explains that she built an entire past for Caro, including details never shown on screen, to inhabit her instability with precision.

Isolation as method

The shoot in Venezuela became, in Asia Argento’s words, an experience of self-imposed isolation. She says she did not go to the beach, restaurants or leisure spaces, choosing instead to remain in her hotel room and reread the script obsessively. “I’m not gonna miss this chance,” says Asia Argento. “So I gave it my all.”

That intensity shaped a performance she now recognises as disturbing and deliberately unguarded. “When I looked at the movie, I was like, wow, I looked really deranged,” she says. The language barrier amplified the unease, the constant evolution of the script, and the atmosphere of the house where rehearsals took place, which she describes as charged with dark energy.

A horror film discovered after the fact

Although Asia Argento initially approached “Death Has No Master” as a political film, she only fully understood its genre dimension after seeing the completed work. With its sound design, photography, blood, tension and psychological disturbance, the film revealed itself to her as a horror-inflected thriller with a 1970s sensibility.

“I had no idea the movie was horror,” says Asia Argento. “When I saw it with the music, with the lights, I understood it’s my turf.” The actress, whose career is deeply connected to genre cinema, identifies the film’s paranormal and psychological texture as part of her own artistic heritage.

Working with non-professional actors

The film brings together professional and non-professional performers, a working method familiar to Jorge Thielen Armand. Asia Argento recalls a month of rehearsals in the house, shared meditations and a process that helped the group reach a common rhythm. She was especially struck by Dogreika Tovar, whose natural presence pushed her to find a balance between technique and instinct.

Her relationship with Jorge Thielen Armand was based on hierarchy and trust. After more than 70 films, Argento says she needs a director who knows where the film is going. “He’s the director, I’m the actress,” she says, describing him as precise, opinionated and able to contain her own need for control.

Cannes, the right place

For Asia Argento, returning to Cannes carries personal weight. She admits she thought she might never return, making this invitation a significant moment. The Quinzaine des Cinéastes, she says, remains one of the sections where she looks for the pulse of contemporary cinema.

“I feel in the right place,” says Asia Argento. “I really love directors and art movies. I feel at home.”

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