Paz de la Huerta (born September 3, 1984) is an American actress, model, and painter whose career has moved between art-house cinema, mainstream studio projects, and highly public personal controversy. In film, she’s best known for her work in Enter the Void (2009) and for playing Lucy Danziger on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire (2010–2011). Outside acting, she has also exhibited visual artwork, often described as surrealist and shaped by religious imagery and autobiography.
Early life
María de la Paz Elizabeth Sofía Adriana de la Huerta y Bruce was born in New York City. Her father is described as a Spanish nobleman, and her mother is American. She and her sister were raised primarily in Manhattan (including the SoHo area) by their mother. De la Huerta has spoken about being raised Roman Catholic and has repeatedly framed her worldview, and later her painting, through explicitly Catholic language and symbolism.
She attended Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn on scholarship. In later years, she has described early medical issues as well, including recurrent cystic hygroma that required multiple surgeries.
Modeling and first screen appearances
Before she became widely known as an actress, de la Huerta worked as a teenage model. Her earliest on-screen work included a small role in The Object of My Affection (1998), followed by supporting appearances in higher-profile films like The Cider House Rules (1999) and A Walk to Remember (2002). These early roles positioned her as a distinctive presence—less “careerist Hollywood,” more downtown-intense—someone who looked like she belonged in the frame even when the scene didn’t require it.
Finding her lane in independent film
Through the 2000s she continued working in independent cinema, including a supporting role in Choke (2008) and work with directors known for colder, more stylized worlds. That trajectory culminated in her lead role in Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void (2009), a film built around grief, neon, disorientation, and bodies in motion—exactly the kind of project where her raw, theatrical intensity reads as a feature rather than a liability.
Noé has been quoted (in the material you provided) describing her as having the “profile” for the character because she could go to extremes emotionally and physically on camera—screaming, crying, appearing nude—an unvarnished description that also hints at why de la Huerta’s career has often been defined by boldness and fallout in equal measure.
Boardwalk Empire and wider visibility
In 2010, de la Huerta joined Boardwalk Empire as Lucy Danziger, the mistress of Steve Buscemi’s Nucky Thompson. The part put her into a much bigger spotlight: prestige television, period glamour, and a character designed to be both comedic and tragic—ornamental on the surface, desperate underneath.
She appeared across the first two seasons (2010–2011). After season two, she departed the cast; later she publicly discussed the exit and also expressed interest in returning, suggesting the door was not entirely closed creatively even if the show moved on.
Later acting work
After Boardwalk Empire, she continued acting, including starring in the horror-thriller Nurse 3D (2013). She also appeared in the drama Bare (2015), a film that leaned into the same qualities that made her memorable in earlier work: vulnerability that can turn feral, sensuality that can flip into menace, and an emotional temperature that runs hot even in quiet scenes.
She has also shown up in documentary-adjacent or pop-culture moments—for example, footage of her included in Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games” music video montage—one of those strange modern artifacts where celebrity becomes a collage, and a person’s worst night becomes somebody else’s aesthetic.
Painting and visual art
Alongside acting, de la Huerta has pursued painting for years, dating back to childhood by her own account. The work you provided describes her as exhibiting a collection of fourteen works in Paris in 2024 under the title “El Vallé de Lagrimas” (“The Valley of Tears”), made in watercolor, ink, and oil resin. She described the work as “very Biblical” and shaped by her Catholic faith, and the paintings were presented as tied to parts of her life—less “art as escape,” more “art as confession.”
Personal life and public controversies
De la Huerta’s public narrative includes legal disputes and health-related claims, some of which have been widely discussed in interviews and filings (as described in the text you shared).
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2011 legal matter (bar altercation): She was involved in an altercation that led to legal consequences; she later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge and was ordered to complete counseling and other requirements.
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On-set injury claim: She has said she was injured while filming Nurse 3D and that the incident harmed her career; the material you provided also describes a lawsuit connected to that claim.
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Harvey Weinstein allegations: In the account you provided, she alleged that Weinstein raped her in 2010 and later filed a major civil lawsuit accusing him of assault and subsequent harm to her career. (These are serious allegations; in describing them here, I’m summarizing what you provided rather than stating them as proven fact.)
More recently, the text you shared includes additional extreme claims she has made in interviews about family abuse and “Satanic ritual abuse.” Those statements are presented as her allegations and beliefs; they are not something that can be treated as established fact based on the biography text alone.
What her career “is,” in one sentence
Paz de la Huerta is one of those performers whose work and persona blur together: she’s at her most compelling in projects that don’t try to sand her edges down—films and roles where intensity is the point, not a problem to manage—and her life story, as publicly told, often reads as turbulent, operatic, and inseparable from the art she makes.
