Biography

Was immortalized in the song "Rosanna" written and performed by TOTO (on their album, Toto IV). "Rosanna" was a Top 10 hit that went on to win Grammys for 1982: Record of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Performance, and Best Instrumental Arrangement With Vocal. Rosanna was the girlfriend of a member of the band, Steve Porcaro.

Lived in England with singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel from 1988 to 1992.

Was among over 80 women who accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual abuse in October 2017.

Was considered for the role of Sarah Connor in The Terminator (1984), considered for the role of rape victim "Sarah Tobias" in Jonathan Kaplan's The Accused (1988), eventually played by Jodie Foster, who won an Academy Award for her performance. She also Auditioned for the role of Emmeline Lestrange in The Blue Lagoon (1980) which went to Brooke Shields.

The family surname was spelled as Arcouet many generations back. Her father had French-Canadian, English, Swiss-German, German, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh ancestry. Rosanna's maternal grandfather, Yusseff "Joseph" Nowack, was a Jewish emigrant from Bila Zerkwa, Kiev, then in the Russian Empire, while Rosanna's maternal grandmother, Claire Hibel, was born in New York, to Russian Jewish parents.

Never eat a Mars Bar offered to you by Marianne Faithfull.

I'm a wreck. I get hurt very easily. I don't have a tough shell. I'm so insecure - it's pretty stupid for me to be in this business, isn't it?

(2011, on landing Pulp Fiction (1994)) Quentin [Tarantino] called me and invited me to go to coffee with him at Swingers, I remember. I think people were talking about me, my agents or somebody, so I had heard about this film. But I had known about Quentin because of his writing. He had a film that... before it became Natural Born Killers (1994), it was called Mickey And Mallory. It was one of the best screenplays I'd ever read in my life, and I wanted to do it. And there was talk of it, but I read the screenplay years before it was actually made by Oliver Stone. I wanted to do that movie so bad! So there was a point where people were talking to me about doing it, so that's how I discovered his writing. And my sister [Patricia Arquette] did True Romance (1993). I just remember him wanting to go and have coffee. So we went to Swingers and had a meal at the counter and talked. And I got to play Jody. So that was neat...I love to see the humor in things, so for me, it was really fun and effortless. I do have a dark sense of humor anyway, so that was fun to do that. He's a master director and writer, but what he was able to do and how he's become that is because he puts together his cast and he rehearses like it's a play. We had all of this rehearsal time, so you could work things out and discover and play.

(2011, on making The Dark Secret of Harvest Home (1978) with Bette Davis) I remember a day where a camera broke. We were in Ohio, and it was hot. The heat was really hellacious. And she kind of grabbed me, gave me a hug, and sat me on her lap, and said, "This is Hell. And just remember, you cannot have a career and a relationship. It will never work." And it haunted me all my life! And you know what? God, she was right! Well, that's not true. Some people do it. But I just remember her telling me this, and I was, like, "Really? Is that the truth?" And, you know, The Red Shoes was always such an influence on my life, and I opened my documentary, Searching for Debra Winger (2002), with that: a woman who has to choose between her art and her love, but she can't make that choice, so she kills herself. It was very haunting, her saying that to me.

(2011, on After Hours (1985)) Probably the most fun I've ever had working, even though we were all so exhausted. Because we did night shooting. The whole thing was done at night. So, basically, you'd start work at 4 in the afternoon and go to 5:30 or 6 in the morning, 'til the sun rose. It was such a fun time. Sleep deprivation can make you a little kooky. So that alone inspired me. And there's another director [Martin Scorsese] who loves to rehearse, but then lets his actors do their thing and gives you complete freedom and trust. Once you have that from a director, then you're just free to do anything. Because you know they have faith in you, then you have faith in them, and it's a great creative marriage when that happens.