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INTERVIEW BY JEFFREY DEITCH

oday's cynics see the entertainment indus­try as an elaborate piece of scripted fiction. Celebrities are controlled by their publi­cists, told what to say, what to wear, whom to date. Meet the glorious antidote: 28-year-old actor, painter, film director, model and all-around ambassador of lust Paz de la Huerta. Raised in Manhattan (her mother an American, her father a Span­ish duke), Paz is best known for her role as Steve Buscemi's vampish girlfriend on HBO's Boardwalk Empire. Herewith, a few words with the dreamy starlet. Q: You are more of a performance artist than a conventional model. True?

A: Whenever I step onto a set, whether it's a photo shoot or a film shoot, I always speak to the photographer or director beforehand. We work on cre­ating a character and story together. I feel that when people hire me they know it's going to be a collaboration and that they hire me for what I give on all sorts of levels, from my movement to the emotion I bring to the project, the passion, all of it.

Q: You have an extraordinary rapport with some of the great photographers— Mario Sorrenti, who took these photographs, Ellen von Unwerth and others. I can see you inspire them. A: I've been taking photographs with Ellen since I was 16 and with Mario

since I was 14.1 did my first nude shoot with Mario when I was 17. He made me feel beautiful, and I really feel it was on that shoot that I overcame my fear of being naked. Mario is such an artist. He has taken photographs of me in which my body looks like a sculpture. Q: How do you characterize your approach to acting? A: I used to be so Method in my approach that my own life would start to mirror the life of my character. This wasn't always the healthiest approach. At times I would get so lost in my char­acter that I wouldn't know where I ended and the character began. There were no boundaries; we were definitely one. I'm at a point now in my craft

where I can go into the zone and live the character and then, through meditation, get back to my life and whatever is going on. I love doing films because I can live the life of the character for two or three months and then say good-bye.

Q: Film directors admire you for your naturalism and comfort with nudity. You performed in Jim Jarmusch's film The Limits of Control almost entirely in the nude.

A: Jarmusch wrote that role for me. I was completely naked through­out the film—except for a pair of glasses and, in one scene, a see-through raincoat. It was also a way for me to conquer my fears about my body and learn to love my body. Although she was com­pletely naked physically, she was very mysterious as a character. I loved working with Jim Jarmusch and was flattered that he wrote the part for me.

Q: Why did you choose to pose for playboy?

A: The lineage. Cindy Crawford and Marilyn Monroe have appeared in piayboy. I celebrate nudity every day. It's our first wardrobe. And Mario is such an amazing photographer; he brings so much mystery and sen­suality to his photographs. We did the photos with no makeup, and we both wanted them to have a very natural feeling. It was more about bringing out a part of myself that has not really been shown to the pub­lic, a more honest portrayal of where I am now in my life.

' See more of Paz- at playboy, corn.