<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n<\/p>\nIts owner, wearing only a studded leather bra, is standing in front of a full length mirror, gazing at herself and languorously shifting from side to side while a kneeling assistant inches a pair of rhinestone knickers up her ankles.<\/p>\n
Knickers now on (some very un-cheap merchandise, naturally), Paz sashays on to the set, shrugs off her bathrobe and is instantly working it like a 50s pin-up, slowly writhing her coltish limbs like she\u2019s moving in honey. There\u2019s an 80s rock soundtrack playing in the background and she frequently shouts: \u201cI love this song!\u201d <\/p>\n
There\u2019s a sizeable team of people watching Paz \u2013 about a dozen \u2013 and they all seem pretty dumbstruck. Stylist Emilie Kareh, gazing at her from the sidelines, purrs that it\u2019s so easy to dress her because, \u201cshe knows how to mooooove\u201d, while photographer Danielle Levitt earlier describes her to me as, \u201ca very charismatic and energising creator.\u201d She adds, perhaps just a touch archly, that, \u201cshe does \u2018fantasy world\u2019 very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
At one point though, Paz seems to feel there isn\u2019t sufficient adulation in the room. Her brow suddenly furrows, she juts her lips into a pout and calls plaintively to the camera, \u201cI need you to be in love with me! Aren\u2019t you in love with me?\u201d It\u2019s a little ridiculous, but not without its own strange pathos \u2013 hilarious and heartbreaking all at once. Her astrologer has told her that she was \u201cdefinitely\u201d Marilyn Monroe in a past life.<\/p>\n
Paz was born in SoHo in New York in 1984, the child of I\u00f1igo de la Huerta, a Spanish rancher and Duke of Mandas and Villanueva, and Judith Bruce, a policy analyst for women\u2019s issues in developing countries. It was, by all accounts, a fairly unorthodox childhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was a little girl I was quite shy, and my mum took me to acting classes aged four so I could open up. It really became my outlet for me to express myself. That and painting; I paint a lot. There was a lot of drama in my household, so I had a lot of anger at times \u2013 especially when I was a teenager.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, she was kicked out of the sixth grade for breaking a chair over a girl\u2019s head, having been bullied for her skinniness. She went on to St Ann\u2019s school in Brooklyn, where she befriended Zac Posen \u2013 she still models for him. It was while at school that she landed her first film role, playing Mary Agnes in The Cider House Rules<\/em> after she was discovered on a SoHo street.<\/p>\nJim Jarmusch cast Paz in Limits of Control<\/em>, in 2009, having written the character of \u201cNude\u201d especially for her. A character who \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 isn\u2019t a great wearer of clothes, except for a transparent plastic raincoat, that is. Jarmusch has said, \u201cI always joke that it\u2019s harder to get Paz to keep her clothes on than to take them off.\u201d<\/p>\nA less charitable summation of her came from her mother, who supposedly described her as \u201cGenghis Khan meets Marie Antoinette\u201d in an interview for New York Magazine. When I raise this with Paz, the words are barely out of my mouth before she silences me with a waved hand. \n\u201cFirst of all the guy who wrote that article was an ex-boyfriend who was severely heartbroken and had a lot of ulterior motives so it\u2019s not journalism. It\u2019s against the law for an ex-boyfriend to interview you. So I learned from that experience. Always learning.\u201d<\/p>\n
And in terms of keeping private life private, there will probably even more learning to do now – after Boardwalk Empire and her captivating performance in Gaspar No\u00e9\u2019s psychedelic Enter the Void<\/em>, her fame is going to spread a lot further than the Lower East Side. <\/p>\nShe thinks the world would also be happier if everyone lightened up about sex: \u201cI don\u2019t really consider the nudity, it\u2019s just like another costume. I approach it from an emotional space. That\u2019s why it shocks me when people are like \u201c`Oh, she\u2019s nude!\u201d \u2013 well what about the fact that I\u2019m crying? Or I\u2019m laughing? It\u2019s an emotional scene. A lot of crazy things happen in the bedroom. Not just sex. Lovers quarrels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is sex important to you?<\/strong> \n\u201cLove is,\u201d she coos. \u201cLove, baby, love. Love is really the most important thing. I can\u2019t have sex with someone I\u2019m not in love with. I still love every ex boyfriend I\u2019ve ever had and I talk to them all the time.\u201d<\/p>\nHow would her ex-boyfriends describe her?<\/strong> \n\u201cComplicated? Fun? Umm. Passionate. Definitely passionate. I think they would say I\u2019m passionate above all. I keep it honest. I don\u2019t like games. And in my work, it really makes me feel things very deeply. I can get to places that I need to get.\u201d<\/p>\nStyled moodily in black dress and plum-coloured lipstick, Paz turns away from the camera to \u201cget into the right emotional space\u201d. There are a few suppressed smirks. When she turns back a moment later though tears are running down her face.<\/p>\n
She says she wants to \u201ctry everything\u201d and be thought of as, \u201csomebody who gets to people, whether good or bad. I mean, if you get to someone, it means you\u2019re making something in them aliven and awaken and make them question themselves. So I\u2019d like to be a provocative actress. I really know I\u2019m capable of everything and I have so much I want to play \u2026 a lot I want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
What sort of thing?<\/strong> She thinks for a moment. \n\u201cI would love to do some Victorian like …\u201d she searches for the term.<\/p>\nCostume drama?<\/strong> \n\u201cYeah, costume drama.\u201d Paz in bonnet and crinoline \u2013 that really would be a shock.<\/p>\nPhotography: Danielle Levitt \nFashion: Emilie Kareh \nWords: Hermonie Hoby<\/p>\n
A full version of this article first appeared in <\/em>Wonderland Issue 25, Feb\/March 2011<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The very first sight I get of Paz \u2013 or Mar\u00eda de la Paz Elizabeth Sof\u00eda Adriana de la Huerta if we\u2019re being formal – is her bum. I walk in to the Brooklyn studio where her shoot for Wonderland is taking place and I\u2019m confronted, smack in the eye, with a bare expanse of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3632],"tags":[265,406,374,281,410,409,405,408,407],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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