De La Hot

She lives on the periphery of superstardom, but then, anyone who sees themselves as a true artist would want to remain there wouldn’t they? I’m talking about the American actor Paz de la Heurta.

She came to my attention via her intriguing sense of unkempt style: fashion aware, but in a messed up, sleazy/sexy way – then I got intrigued about who she is, what she thinks, her career.

Her career to date has been somewhat patchy, but it’s a career that is building – her most recent efforts include a hotter than hot sex addict in “Choke”, Jim Jarmusch’s “Limits of Control” where she’s permanently naked and holding a gun – yum. She is about to be seen as a stripper in French provocateur Gaspar Noé’s “Enter the Void”. It’s a career trajectory that reminds me of Asia Argento, with a little less grit.

Her responses are mostly cliched. When asked “Did you always want to be an actress?” she declared:

“Yeah. It was always, for me, very therapeutic. It’s where I worked out all my shit when I was a kid, and now as well. But I’m also really passionate about life, and experiencing as much as I can in this lifetime. And I feel like you kind of have to live life to its fullest in order to be a good actor. Draw on experiences. The more experiences the better, and I really have had a lot of experiences in life, even at my young age.”

Yawn.

But then it’s not really her thoughts on world peace I am interested in: it’s her performances, her look, her style. Paz is beautiful, but not in a completely obvious way and she has a style that does not shout out “a stylist put this together for me”. There is a dirtiness about her that drives me wild with desire.

With a fantasy list of directors to work with that includes Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro and Pedro Almodovar, things are about to get very interesting …