The first time I heard the name Paz de la Huerta I assumed she must be very famous and that I had simply missed her on my radar. Her name has that ring, that majesty; it’s the kind of name you want to repeat to yourself out loud, just for the
The first time I heard the name Paz de la Huerta I assumed she must be very famous and that I had simply missed her on my radar. Her name has that ring, that majesty; it’s the kind of name you want to repeat to yourself out loud, just for the pleasure of hearing it. De. La. Huer. Ta. Did Nabokov name her? Like all European names, the “de” suggests a lineage descending from aristocracy. Maybe it’s that same background that has made it possible for Paz to be so nonchalantly late today. Who knows? In any case, somewhere out there, among the jostling, overambitious hoards of Manhattan, making her way from Midtown to Tribeca, where I wait for her, walks a beautiful young actress, a woman whose name means “Peace” in Spanish, and who is about to be famous beyond her wildest dreams (or perhaps exactly like them).
When Paz finally arrives, exiting onto the floor from a vintage 1930s-era elevator carriage, she is damp with August heat, the sweltering greenhouse reality that has been our New York summer. It’s not the most flattering way to meet a starlet, but Paz pulls it off with an aplomb that is serene and unapologetic. After briefly greeting each other she excuses herself to the washroom, and then, after dousing her face and hair with cold water, curls up in an armchair, sufficiently cooled.
As we chat – ranging over her life in New York, her father in Spain (“the most talented man I know, he could have been an artist”), and her enigmatic part in the new Gaspar Noé film, her most visible role to date – Paz frequently shifts her posture. An arm over a leg over an armrest; the other leg over the armrest and her head tilted back; both legs swung back and folded on the seat cushion, arms encircling them. It’s as if I’m watching a cat reposition itself over and over until it’s content. But that’s the curious thing about cats, you never know if they’re restless or if they simply enjoy the way their bodies move, which is elegant beyond compare. It wasn’t until later that I found out just how innately feline Paz is, when she mind-melded with the cat during our shoot.
After years of fringe independent movies and Big Apple it-girl status, Paz is about to gain a much wider audience with the release of Enter the Void, French director Gaspar Noé’s latest cinematic provocation. It’s an unsavoury story about a creepily special relationship between a brother and sister. Following the loss of both their parents in a car accident when they are very young, the two make a pact to never leave each other. Ever. After a brief and apparently pained separation, Paz’s character is reunited with her brother in Tokyo, where she immediately falls in with the debauched demimonde that is his milieu, working as a stripper in a nightclub and becoming her boss’s regular fuck. These are two lost souls in a soulless world. And yet their spiritual bond persists, unbroken, into the afterlife.
The movie contains the best — as in the most stupendously gorgeous and experientially true — depiction of a psychedelic trip in cinematic history. Seriously. It is worth seeing the film for this sequence alone. And there are other visual storytelling devices that are equally innovative and thematically brilliant, something that’s become a Noe specialty. Unfortunately, some of them are overused, while character, plot, and dialogue seem to have gotten little consideration. Paz will be noticed; not necessarily for the strength of the character she plays, but for the alluring style with which she inhabits the screen, suggesting greater gifts to be tapped.
“Gaspar had been speaking to me about this part for years,” Paz says, “and then one day he called and said, ‘Come to Tokyo, we’re filming.’” Which is not unlike how her character gets there. As is often the case with making movies, it’s a project Paz finished quite some time ago and she’s already on to something else. These days, the most exciting thing happening for Paz is her regular appearance in Boardwalk Empire, a new Martin Scorsese-produced series for HBO that premieres this fall. So, you’ll definitely be seeing more of her feline movements and hearing her lyrical name.
Enter The Void goes on general release from September 24.
