Penelope Cruz, Zoe Saldana and Matilda Lutz in Full Bloom at Chanel
The Chanel front row bloomed with a full bouquet of celebs, including Penelope Cruz, Zoe Saldana, Whitney Peak and Tommy Dorfman, on the last day of fashion week.
Saldana was getting back on the fashion show wheel after working nonstop. It was a “mind shift,” she said.
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She’s riding high on “Avatar: The Way of Water,” not only because of the global box office success but because it has touched people. “The older I get, the more savvy I become and I’m a sucker for good stories that large masses of people can relate to,” she said. She’s back to shoot some additional scenes for the next installment soon, but just wrapped “Lioness” with Nicole Kidman and is set to shoot a new film with Palme d’Or winner Jacques Audiard.
Billed as a musical crime caper, it costars Selena Gomez and Edgar Ramirez, and means moving to Paris for the next few months. “I am going back to my roots of musical theater and dancing and singing. I haven’t done that since I started acting in Hollywood, so it feels really fresh,” she said.
And she sang the praises of the city. “The quality of life here is so optimal that even if you have a bad day at work you go out and have a baguette and cheese and wine and you’re good to go,” she said.
Chilly temperatures were no match for “Red Sonja” star Matilda Lutz, who is a front row regular at Chanel, with three shows under her double CC belt. She sported high-waist jeans, a midriff-bearing tank with a cardigan thrown casually off the shoulders for what she called “very improvised [with] a rock ‘n’ roll, modern touch.”
It showed off her very toned arms, a result of her training in archery, climbing, horseback riding and sword fighting for the role. She had to eat 3,000 calories a day to build up muscle mass for all the stunts in the superhero film.
“When they gave me the sword the first time I had no idea how to move, I was just swinging it around like, ‘Oh my god, I’m not going to be able to do this.’ And then little by little, the more you practice, it just becomes natural, which is weird in a way,” she joked.
One scene has her shooting arrows while riding on horseback, galloping out of a forest uphill, she said. “It’s really intense but one of the best experiences of my life. I had so much adrenaline from doing the whole training that even if I slept only six hours, and I just didn’t feel tired, I was just so excited to do it.”
She also wrapped the psychological thriller “Magpie” with Daisy Ridley last week and is taking a break.
Penelope Cruz reminisced about last year’s Oscar dress, when she and her husband Javier Bardem received his-and-her best acting nominations.
“That’s like, a maybe once in a lifetime moment, and they made an incredible dress for me,” she said. She’s been with the house since 1999, and through a lot of special moments. “We’ve been through emotional moments together, we share those moments.”
An upcoming moment will be the premiere of “Ferrari,” costarring Adam Driver and directed by Michael Mann, but Cruz has no idea when that might happen, she joked.
“He’s really one of the masters and I haven’t seen one shot of the film. I haven’t seen anything! He wouldn’t even let us see the monitor. I loved the experience of working with Adam, but now I can’t wait to see the movie. I don’t even know if it’s finished,” she said. “I’m very, very curious too.”
Tommy Dorfman, hitting her only show this week at Chanel, just finished directing her first film, titled “I Wish You All the Best,” starring Alexandra Daddario, Cole Sprouse and Lexi Underwood. She wrote the script during the quiet time of the pandemic and produced it herself to get to screen.
Stepping behind the camera has been a totally different experience for the “13 Reasons Why” actress and infused her with a new sense of confidence.
“It was so relaxing for me, honestly, because a lot of my anxiety about this industry stems from the outside, not the inside, and how I’m appearing and how I look. I think just being trans in general, there’s always an expectation of performing some type of femininity. And for me, going behind the camera allowed me to just relax and be authentic to exactly who I am,” she said. “I feel more confident showing up in the world in a more grounded version of myself.”
Park Seo-joon, South Korean star of the upcoming “The Marvels” movie, was soothing his nerves. He gets “really stressed” at big events, but seeing something beautiful like a fashion show “makes me feel more energized and more comfortable,” he said, speaking through a translator.
The show cast a spell, as models walked in a pitch-black room around a glowing white camellia which gradually turned pink to oohs and aahs from the crowd.
Jeremy O’Harris likened the whole thing to “real theater” — even at just 15 minutes long.
Japanese actress Nana Komatsu’s face was projected on the flower, all mysterious. After the show the actress summed up the entire experience. “I was just thinking, ‘Oh my god, what is happening, is this really real?’ It was overwhelming to see myself and simply, so, so surreal.”
Launch Gallery: Front Row at Chanel RTW Fall 2023
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