By the mid-1980s, she was gaining English-speaking roles such as the beautiful Greek slave girl Eunice in the TV miniseries Quo Vadis?

[2][3] In 1990 she played Nys, a Montmartre prostitute, in Claude Chabrol's French-language film Quiet Days in Clichy, a dramatisation of Henry Miller's semiautobiographical novel based on his time in Paris.

[4] In 1994, De Rossi shared the David di Donatello for Best Actress award with Asia Argento and Chiara Caselli for her part in the comic film Sentimental Maniacs.

De Rossi has served as a judge on the junior talent show Ti lascio una canzone broadcast on Rai Uno since 2008.

[2] De Rossi is honorary president of "I Diritti Civili nel 2000", a civil-rights organization representing the interests of women and children.