When I first saw Blue Velvet back in 1986, I actually felt kind of bad for Isabella Rossellini. Her performance was brilliant, but I always suspected that she was the sole sane person in a cast and crew of perverts and sociopaths. Maybe she didn’t know exactly what she was getting into until it was too late, and being the consummate professional, she didn’t protest when asked, as the Guardian so eloquently described it in a movie review, to submit to “a myriad of indignities.”

Twenty-four years later, the now 58-year-old actress is the star, writer, and co-director (with Jody Shapiro) of Seduce Me, a series of online shorts created for the Sundance Channel about the sexual proclivities of animals. Last August, her strangely erotic take on bedbug fucking went viral, thanks to a perfectly timed bedbug epidemic in New York City. There was something revelatory about watching Rossellini get stabbed in the gut with a penis knife while muttering with orgasmic enthusiasm, “He ejaculates into my wound!” It was a moment when many of us realized that Blue Velvet might not have been entirely a product of David Lynch’s twisted imagination.

The latest season of Seduce Me—which premieres next Monday, November 22, on the Sundance Web site (and then on V.O.D. on December 8)—promises more of the same slack-jawed “What the fuck am I looking at?” hilarity. This time, Rossellini explains more than you really want to know about the mating rituals of deer, seahorses, spiders, and the gay and/or transsexual passengers of Noah's Ark. Sundance was kind enough to offer us this sneak peek, in which Rossellini—who, it seems appropriate to remind you, is the daughter of the late Hollywood legend Ingrid Bergman—explains how dolphins like to get off. Enjoy!

Need a minute to let that sink in? Allow me to remind you of a few dolphin fun facts that are now likely burned into your subconscious. Dolphins enjoy masturbation, homosexuality, and sex involving the fin, mouth, and blowhole. Wow. Just ... wow. If Seduce Me is to be believed (and given that Rossellini took biology classes at New York University as research, let’s assume that it is), Sea World isn’t so much an ideal family-vacation spot as an aquatic Plato’s Retreat.

In a happy coincidence, a few weeks ago the Savannah Film Festival offered a double feature of Blue Velvet and the new season of Seduce Me. So I took a trip to Georgia for the opportunity to watch both in one sitting, with an audience that included Rossellini herself. Judging by the shrieks of disbelief from the audience, there really wasn’t much aesthetic difference between the two. Whether Rossellini was orally raping Kyle MacLachlan in Blue Velvet or watching dolphin penises float by like a gyro spit turning in front of a starving fat man in Seduce Me, it really did feel like two cinematic takes on the same theme. And, weirdly, I left the theater with more respect for Frank Booth than I did for dolphins.

I was thrilled at the chance to speak with Rossellini about Seduce Me and all things animal sex—I’m still not sure exactly how it went wrong.

Eric Spitznagel: I think the main thing I learned from Seduce Me is that the animal kingdom is almost entirely perverted.

Isabella Rossellini: [Laughs.] Exactly.

Did you have any idea before you started this series, or were you as surprised as the rest of us?

I’ve been interested in animals since I was a little girl. I’d bird watch and lift rocks and look at bugs. I was that kind of a person. So I always knew about animal behavior that was interesting to me. But for Seduce Me, I concentrated on their sexual habits, some of which I knew and some of which I had to learn more details.