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Paz de la Huerta, 26, who plays Lucy Danziger in Boardwalk Empire is on the cover of PAPER’s Winter 2010-2011 issue, on stands now, and Paz discusses sex, nudity and her foray into filmmaking with writer Peter Davis. Below are some highlights from the interview:
De la Huerta on nudity and sexuality: “Nudity is a non-issue for me. Sex is a huge part of life. To pretend it’s not is being a liar, and people who are afraid of their sexuality are suffering.” Director Jim Jarmusch, who wrote a part especially for de la Huerta in his 2009 film The Limits of Control, says, “I always joke that it’s harder to get Paz to keep her clothes on than take them off.”
On being expelled from school in sixth grade, meeting designer Zac Posen and hanging out with her friends’ parents: In sixth grade, she was kicked out of Grace Church School. She says classmates picked on her for being too skinny. One day she just lost it. “I broke a chair over a girl’s head,” she says flatly. “That was it. I thought it was a horrible school. They had some evil teachers. I always hated school.” She transferred to the artsy Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn, where she met her friend designer Zac Posen. “She’s wild and crazy, but has a heart of gold,” says Posen, who later had her model in his first fashion show. “St. Ann’s was interesting — a lot of rich kids and a lot of kids whose parents were successful artists,” de la Huerta recalls. “Because I was already a model at 15 and out in the world, I was meeting their parents. The kids had a lot of jealousy. But kids are like that.”
On eventually releasing her short films The Hairy Beast and Pupa, Papa, Puta: “I have so much I want to do. I just feel like everyone and their mother thinks they can be an artist. You can’t. Sorry. I know I was born to be one.”
On her distant relationships with her mother and father: “I always felt like an orphan,” she says, before adding that she is a lot like her father. “Out of everyone, I understand my dad the most. He’s not a very healthy person. He should have been an artist, a painter or an actor. I get all my artistic integrity from my father because he is brutally honest. I’ve inherited that from him … My father never liked to wear clothes either.”
On wanting to move to Europe one day: “They write roles for mature women in Europe. Americans — they don’t get it. They make women look ugly. Then they all make fun of them. It’s really a cruel culture. I’m half European and I feel more European than American inside. I’m a Spanish woman. I’m in the wrong country and wrong era.”
