F! - October 2007 - issue#4

Ellen Pompeo - cover story - Sean Carter

So long the underdog, Ellen Pompeo has finally hit the big time as the star of the award-winning drama ‘Grey’s Anatomy’. The product of a desperately tough childhood - and now the ‘12th most powerful’ celebrity in the world - she tells Sean Carter how it all came good
The dark back office of a Georgian house in Bloomsbury is an incongruous place to be interviewing Ellen Pompeo. But that’s where we’ve retreated after her photo-shoot is over. It’s a far cry from the sun-baked Los Angeles lot where Pompeo is usually to be found, in scrubs, as the title character in Grey’s Anatomy. Dr Meredith Grey - brisk, vulnerable, self-destructive, talented - is a lead unlike any other on American television, and her gripping screen presence and romantic ‘car crashes’ hook 20 million viewers a week.
In its annual ‘Celebrity 100′ power list the business magazine Forbes ranked Pompeo and her co-stars at number 12 this year, while the Desperate Housewives cast languished at number 47. Yet here in Dubai, where the drama is in its 2nd season, Pompeo is hardly a household name.
Male critics have sniffed at the ‘vapid’ scripts and ‘mawkish’ acting in the drama about five trainee surgeons at a Seattle hospital. But Pompeo’s portrayal of a woman totally competent in her work and an utter disaster in her relationships has forced even veteran Hollywood producers to examine how a lead who is such a mess - prone to getting drunk in bars and picking up strangers - can prove so compelling.
The tabloids, for their part, have focused on Pompeo’s weight (supposedly anorexic), behaviour on set (supposedly a diva) and, since her November engagement, the colourful past of her fiancé Chris Ivery, a record producer, and the size of the ring he has given her. This, a dazzling oblong diamond, has caused Pompeo so much angst that she is even now twisting it off her tiny hand. ‘Completely garish, isn’t it?’ she asks in her little, clear voice. ‘He got it in Beverly Hills and spent his entire life savings, which I could kill him for. I was very mad about it. Some days I really love it, and some days I just want to sell it and give the money to charity. All the magazines care about is the size. I think, “Oh, it’s absolute rubbish and I’d like to throw the ring in the sewer.”‘ She looks at me wryly. ‘I know! How fortunate of me to sit here with this giant rock when there are babies in Africa fighting for their lives.’ She has gone from making no money to making great money. How does that feel? ‘I feel guilty.’ She gives a high, truthful laugh of embarrassment. ‘I feel guilty!’
Like so many Hollywood stars Pompeo is small and fragile. Her hand, when I shake it, is like a bunch of twigs and her muscled arms are as tiny as a child’s. She is wearing a black sleeveless cotton dress over thin black leggings and Lanvin ballet flats, and in person looks completely different from on screen - younger and more innocent, a cross between Michelle Pfeiffer and Calista Flockhart. Her long hair is healthy and red, her blue eyes have a tinge of green and she keeps almost constant eye contact in a way that is not at all uncomfortable. Here on her an eight-week hiatus from Grey’s, she and Ivery are looking for a London flat to buy, before zipping on to Paris and Tokyo.
You feel that it is only now, at 37, that Pompeo’s life is starting to make sense - Ivery’s too, perhaps, following his three jail sentences, two for drug convictions, before they met. He now works scouting talent for the music producer Randy Jackson from American Idol. Pompeo, meanwhile, is on her fourth season at Grey’s Anatomy, of which she is the undoubted star (with great support from Patrick Dempsey and Sandra Oh from the film Sideways). The drama has gathered Emmys and Golden Globes since it debuted on the American network ABC in March 2005. Pompeo is paid $200,000 (£99,000) an episode, and her story seems to be a Cinderella tale of late success, even including a mother’s death and a tricky stepmother.
She had a sad, difficult childhood as the last of six - she was eight years younger than her nearest sibling - in the blue-collar town of Everett, near Boston, and was four when her mother, Kathleen, died of an overdose of painkillers. Her first memory is of her siblings attempting to revive her. The trauma in this vignette is hair-raising, and she admits, putting her hand to her throat, ‘I had a tragedy as a child, obviously, my mother dying, and it sort of… I suppose I describe it as… it sort of left me with a broken heart.’ But can you mend a broken heart? ‘No, never completely.’ Her voice lifts, childishly. ‘But that’s OK, because it makes me appreciate my life.’ Had she found therapy useful with that? ‘No, I think my job is therapeutic.
‘It was quite a tragic thing, all these children having no mother; it was quite difficult on my father,’ she continues. ‘And then he remarried shortly after my mother died, and, ah, much too soon. It was… quite a bad situation for all the children.’ Why, what was her stepmother like? ‘Oh, I’d rather not discuss that. So I would go off and stay with various people. I was always being shuffled around. Who could baby-sit me this time? So I would go for the summers and the weekends to my aunt Ellen, who I’m named after, and my uncle Jimmy on the Upper East Side of New York. My uncle Jimmy took me to the theatre. And another of my mother’s sisters, Sister Maureen, was a nun and lived in a convent in the Bronx, and I would go stay there often, as well.’
Pompeo says, batting away sympathy, that those ‘different experiences’ gave her a lot to draw on in her acting. But she also concedes that, ‘I was just completely confused. I knew I had a lot of people who loved me. There were a lot of different types of people in my life, and I had all these brothers and sisters who were crazy hippy teenagers, smoking pot in the wild 1970s - rock ‘n’ roll - and I had my dear, dear grandparents…’ Everyone, but no one? She pauses. ‘I did… well, you know, I had everybody but the one person I really wanted.’
Her father, Joseph, a tobacco salesman, was a strong character. ‘He intimidated everybody. He’d wait at the window and when they dropped me off in front of the house he’d fly out of the door and rip them out of the car by the neck,’ she has said, alarmingly, of her teenage dates, but he also told her she could do anything she wanted in life. What she wanted was to act. So the moment she turned 19 she made for Miami, where she got a job as a cocktail waitress. Despite her fragile, feminine appearance, she was no pushover. ‘I’d abuse the customers, yell and scream at them and make them wait. If they put money down on the bar and it wasn’t enough, I’d go wait on someone else. Pretty soon there would be $20 on the bar,’ she once told Playboy. I love that image of you at the bar, I tell her. ‘Right!’ She laughs with real amusement. ‘Well, I don’t know if you’ve seen The Departed, but Boston, my home town, is a corrupt place. I grew up in an Italian-Irish neighbourhood, and there were Irish gangsters and Italian gangsters. It’s very much like a modern-day Gangs of New York.’
After two years in Miami she went to New York. But her dream of becoming an actress still seemed ’such a grand thing. I felt so overwhelmed, you know, “How do I figure out how to go about this?”‘ She was also suffering profoundly from her childhood. ‘It’s as if the floor beneath you is… as if a board is always going to fall through.’
She was 25 when she got her first break; an acting agent approached her as she was working the bar at the SoHo Kitchen. The agent put Pompeo up for three adverts; she got all three. Then Pompeo landed a part opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in the 2002 film Moonlight Mile. He, by chance, had come up to her in a car park three weeks previously and told her she was ‘the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my entire life’. For her the coincidence was life-changing. ‘It sort of hit me that I was being guided,’ she says. ‘I had sort of spent my twenties up until then looking for some sign of my mother, you know, “Make the chandelier swing and show me that you’re with me.” And at that point I put my faith in the idea that life gives you signs and, whether it’s my mother’s spirit or not, I’ve had too many coincidences in my life for it to be normal.’
Another was the way she met Ivery. They had grown up two miles apart but met only in 2003 when a mutual friend introduced them at a Whole Foods shop in Los Angeles. ‘I knew his background and I knew the circle in which he ran and I didn’t want anything to do with it,’ she admits. ‘You think you want to get away from your past and be this completely different person. And then I run into him again two days later and by this time in my life I know that’s no accident. I knew he was supposed to be in my life.’ He had gone to jail briefly? ‘Oh, yes, a couple of times. But most people I knew in Boston did. It was very common, which is why I had to get out.’
Something of Pompeo’s childhood vulnerability comes off the pages of her previous interviews and you hope, before you meet her, that Ivery is good news. He drives her to work and visits the set most days; she says they do everything together. ‘To know someone - the real them, not the reinvented Hollywood them, with all of their flaws and all of their past - that’s a true relationship,’ she says. ‘I feel very lucky. It’s very solid.’
I ask what she makes of her character’s romantic travails in Grey’s Anatomy. ‘She has a complete lack of emotional intelligence,’ she exclaims. ‘I just want to smack some sense into her.’ What would she advise her? ‘Don’t ever beg a man.’ (She is referring to the scene where Meredith pleads with her married lover Derek to choose her.) ‘He should be begging you!’
What next for Pompeo? Halfway through a six-year lock-in for Grey’s, she and Ivery are now trying for children. Does their forthcoming wedding excite her? ‘No, I’m not someone to stand on ceremony. That’s why I have such a problem with the ring. It is a symbol. Just rather an extravagant one.’ She gives another high laugh of embarrassment.
I say it must feel like it’s all coming right. She smiles. ‘I think so. A friend who I moved to Miami with when I was 16 or 17, he was photographing me back then and said, “You’re going to make a great 40-year-old.” I didn’t know how to take that at 16 or 17, but I never forgot it. Now I feel like the older I get the more I am able to take on.’
Her publicist is mouthing that we have to finish. ‘I love the architecture round here,’ Pompeo says, getting up. ‘It reminds me of my home town.’ I catch sight of her in the next room as I leave. She looks different now, 17 again, a sprite, a slip of a thing, in her teenage black wardrobe. ‘I took a sleeping pill last night, which I don’t usually do, because my body is too little to take it, and this morning I was all over the place,’ she exclaims, seeing me looking at her outfit. ‘I could hardly manage to dress!’# ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ is at 10pm on Thursdays on Living

M for Macabre - Marius Van Muller

There comes a time, every once in a while when I like nothing better than to brew some rich hot chocolate and curl up in bed with a truly spine-tingling read. The month of October happens to be one of those times, for glaringly obvious reasons. I have often heard it said that the written word cannot really capture the reader in the utter thraldom dictated by the dark kingdom of fear but I couldn’t disagree more. The proponents of the aforementioned view are those who are absolutely enamoured by the visual medium i.e. monster movies, to put it as politely as possible. But, let’s face it, monster movies tend to lose their charm with every passing visual. The trepidation that explicit visuals of guts and gore inspire at first eventually begins to fade into a dull disgust. But a book will never disappoint you in that respect, for those stocky, black letters are almost like spells that provoke your mind into manufacturing the most stunning and awesome of visuals and the result: an intoxicating brew of terror. Oh such is the power, the near malefic power of a book: a ghoul a page, a shiver a line…
The following is a list of my recommendations for this Hallow’s Eve:
→ The Quilt by Ismat Chughtai: Given that I am in India, I cannot escape the local influence. Another anomaly in this selection is that ‘The Quilt’ is not a book, rather it is a short-story. ‘The Quilt’ has absolutely nothing to do with the paranormal, the only skeletons that you shall find here are those that people stuff into closets that are already full to bursting. But the writing is so atmospheric, so corporeal that the narrator’s hesitation flies off the page and enters the reader. Of course, I will not be including a synopsis. Why should I spoil the fun? But I loved the way Chughtai uses shadows to their full advantage as a literary device. The fact that the story is in the first person only adds to the thrill. I urge you to lift the quilt, you might be in for a surprise… (The story can be found in a collection called ‘Lifting the Veil.’).
→The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: To be honest, I was going to throw in ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ but it was only at the last minute did good sense prevail. I do not mean to criticise the former but House of Usher is a bigger story in many, many ways. Poe is completely in his element as he fuses chilling poetry with rapturous, flowing prose. Add this to an electrifying story that entombs(!) within itself themes of vampirism, incest, interment while alive, guilt, doom and self-fulfilling prophecies. Also notice the wordplay in the title itself: ‘The House of Usher’ refers not only to the house but also to the family that dwells in it. Poe’s story is perhaps one of his most macabre creations and is so totally my pick this Hallow’s Eve. Quit it! You needn’t jump like that! It’s only the house settling…
→The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft: Albino women, strange alien deities, dark, forbidden, grimoires and vile monstrosities with foot-prints as big as ‘tree-trunks’. Such are the elements that one encounters in Lovecraft’s fiendishly clever story ‘The Dunwich Horror.’ Written with great panache, especially in terms of description, this Lovecraftian tale is not the kind that will have you gasping or screaming with fear. Oh no…it gets better than that! ‘The Dunwich Horror’ has an eerie quality about it that just disconcerts you and makes you think, may I add, not the most pleasant of thoughts. But somehow, you manage to calm yourself and go to sleep. And that, is when the screaming begins…

→ The Little Sisters of Eluria by Stephen King: How could a list like this be complete with King? The King, if you will! Yet another short story (hardly), Little Sisters is veritably bloodcurdling. King deftly portrays a decadent innocence by means of vampire motifs, blasphemous nuns and doctors who subscribe to a vile school of medicine. Lest I forget, the insect imagery is enough to make one cringe with abhorrence. You’ll probably check your sheets a few times to ensure that there’s nothing there… Little Sisters utilises characters and situations from King’s marvellously addictive ‘Dark Tower’ series but it is, in essence, a stand-alone story and one doesn’t need any prior knowledge of the ‘Dark Tower’ to be able to enjoy it. All said and done, Little Sisters is the kind of story that reaches out and grabs the reader by the throat and doesn’t let go until the last word has been read… (The story can be found in a collection called ‘Everything’s Eventual.’).

Top 3 fall trends - Phoebe D. Hewes

It's time to push those bulky ,shoulder killing bags to the back of the closet- I pods and cells get smaller and its high time the bags did too!
Invest in a good figure friendly "babby doll" dress there is nothing better to hide those heavy winter curves.
The new wedge - don't be afraid of color, but make sure you are seated most of the time!

Oriental Flavor (editorial) - Evelyn Carter

Dieux DV Stade - Ady St. Jon

The 2008 Dieux du Stade calendar is now on sale. Photographer Steven Klein has taken the theme of 'chained to the ball' and depicted the French rugby team in all their naked glory.Models: Christophe Dominici, David Skrela, Rémy Martin, Dimitri Szarzewski, Clément Poitrenaud, Vincent Clerc, Nicolas Jeanjean, Ignacio Corleto, Sergio Parisse, Mirco et Mauro Bergamasco, Geoffroy Messina, Julien Arias, Marcello Bosch & Loïc Jacquet.


The photographers have been Kris Gautier (for the 2001 and 2002 calendars), Mathias Vriens (2003), François Rousseau (2004), Carter Smith (2005), Fred Goudon (2006), Mariano Vivanco (2007), and Steven Klein (2008). A new photographer will shoot the 2009 edition.
Mark Simpson, the writer credited with coining the term 'metrosexual', has cited the Dieux Du Stade calendar as a prime example of what he calls 'sporno' - 'the place where sport and porn meet and produce a spectacular money shot'.

F! - September 2007 - issue#3

America Ferrera - cover story - Sean Carter

America Ferrera's first real showbiz experience was something of a letdown. At 16, after a decade of acting in school plays and drifting off each night to Hollywood dreams, she was cast in a Disney Channel movie about a junior high school dance team with the somewhat hilarious name of Gotta Kick It Up. At first, she was thrilled. "I love to dance, so I couldn't believe I was getting paid to just dance all day. And there were four other girls in the cast, so that was fun. And you know the way you think when you're a teenager: Disney Channel today, Oscars tomorrow!" she says with a laugh. But a few weeks into filming, she had what she describes as "a mini nervous breakdown." "I just felt really empty," she says. "I had achieved my dream, and it wasn't totally fulfilling. I still had school problems, and I still had boy problems. My life was still my life. I guess I had been waiting to be turned into a swan."Seven years later, chatting over a dinner of fish cakes, fried rice and chicken curry at a Thai restaurant in New York's SoHo, Ferrera is no longer waiting for her swan moment. That sort of magical transformation doesn't happen in real life, she's realized—not even in Hollywood. But about a year ago something far better occurred: She was cast as an ugly duckling, and that lovable four-eyed, brace-faced duckling has made Ferrera into a big, big star.Betty Suarez—the lead character in television's Ugly Betty—is a style-challenged young Latina from Queens who lands a job as assistant to the editor in chief of a fashion magazine. The show is based on a Colombian telenovela called Yo Soy Betty, la Fea, which was a cultural phenomenon in Latin America and was adapted for markets around the world—everywhere from Israel to India—before being imported to the U.S. for the fall 2006 season. American audiences fell for the series almost immediately. Drawing roughly 14 million viewers a week, the show dominates its competitive Thursday night time slot and ranks as the most watched newcomer of the season. In January Ugly Betty won the Golden Globe for best TV comedy or musical series, and Ferrera herself—who dons a wig, fake brows and snap-on faux braces for her role—walked away with the statuette for best actress, beating out such veterans as Felicity Huffman and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Two weeks later she took home a SAG award.According to critics and those who work with Ferrera on Ugly Betty, such accolades were well deserved. "She's one of the most charismatic people I've ever met," says Salma Hayek, an executive producer of the show. "She's also authentic. That's a rare characteristic nowadays, and that's why people are falling in love with her. I knew the minute that I saw her that she was a superstar."Ben Silverman, one of Hayek's fellow executive producers, agrees. "There's no bulls--- with her," he says. "It doesn't matter what makeup or hair or clothing she has on, she's so real that she grabs you. She's a very connected human being, and that really empowers her as an actor."What's most interesting about America-as-Betty is the breadth of her appeal. The character has struck a chord with a remarkably diverse collection of fans— 12-year-old girls, gay men, Latinas, the fashion crowd—all of whom seem to want to adopt her as their mascot. The day after the Globes, for example, California Congresswoman Hilda Solis took to the floor of the House to, in her words, "commend America and everyone involved in Ugly Betty for helping to break down stereotypes and provide a role model for young Latinas." A few months later, Out magazine put the cast on its cover under a headline that read, HOW UGLY BETTY BECAME THE GAYEST, BEST SHOW ON TV. In the accompanying story, Ferrera recounted the surreal experience of attending the West Hollywood Halloween parade—a big night for L.A.'s gay community—and seeing scores of guys dressed up as Betty. "Anyone who's ever felt like an outsider can see themselves in her and feel represented," she says. "And who hasn't, at some point in their life, felt like they didn't belong?"As the sixth and youngest child of Honduran immigrants, Ferrera says she had plenty of fish-out-of-water moments growing up in the predominantly Caucasian community of Woodland Hills, California. "As early as second grade I remember feeling really different and isolated," she says. "I had the hugest crush on a boy, and my best friend had a crush on him too. One day he said to me, 'I like your best friend more because she's paler and she has freckles.' And it was right then that I began to feel like, Oh wow, I'm different." At the same time, she says, she never felt like she fit in with the Latino community. "I mean, I grew up in the Valley," she says. "All my friends were white Jewish kids. So the Latino kids thought I was this white girl."Ferrera's parents divorced when she was seven, and her father returned to Honduras, leaving her mother, a director of housekeeping for a Hilton hotel, to raise their son and five daughters on her own. Ferrera, who was named for her mother, says that her parents never encouraged her showbiz dreams. "Acting was not something that they came to this country to have me do," she explains. Still, she fell in love with the spotlight early and, despite her best efforts, was never able to shake the acting bug. "For a time I thought I could be a lawyer," she says. "As a kid I even went to law camp at UCLA. They had us watch My Cousin Vinny, which was great. But then we went to the courthouse, and we had to do these mock trials, and once I saw what it really meant to be a lawyer, I realized that it wasn't for me. I thought it was like in the movies, like, 'You can't handle the truth!' That kind of thing."Luckily, a fallback career in the law was never necessary. At 17, after wrapping Gotta Kick It Up, Ferrera landed the role of Ana Garcia—a brainy Mexican-American teenager with a manipulative, weight-obsessed mother—in the 2002 film Real Women Have Curves. The movie won the Audience Award at Sundance, and Ferrera herself was awarded a Special Jury Prize for acting.At that point a less grounded 18-year-old would probably have played hard at the Hollywood fame game, doing her best to be seen on the scene and lining up a slew of projects before the buzz could fade. But Ferrera, who graduated from El Camino Real High School with a 4.3 GPA, instead enrolled at the University of Southern California, where she's a semester away from her degree in international relations. "Acting is something I knew I wanted to do long term," she says. "But not going to college was not an option. I think it probably helped me as an actress as well, because actresses need real-life experiences to draw from." Though she took a break this past year to focus on Ugly Betty, she plans to start up again soon. "Once doing the show becomes more routine, I hope to fit in a class at a time and just slowly work toward my degree. I've come too far to quit one semester before graduation."It was at USC that Ferrera met her now boyfriend, Ryan Piers Williams. A tall, handsome, Texas-born aspiring director who currently works for Steven Soderbergh, he cast her in his student film, and the two currently live together and share a golden retriever named Buddy, whom they refer to as "our baby." At Ferrera's W photo shoot, Williams sits by her side while she's being coiffed and made up, telling her how pretty she looks and bravely revealing to the crew that he once allowed her to put mascara on his lashes. Says Ferrera, giggling, "He has the longest eyelashes, but they're blond at the tips, and I just wanted to see what it would look like."College, according to Ferrera, also served to help her focus on her career, ensuring that she signed on only for projects that she really wanted to do: movies that ranged from the well-received indie How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer to the feel-good teen chick flick Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. She was living in New York, acting in an Off Broadway play and getting a few electives out of the way by taking classes at New York University when Hayek—whom she'd met in 2002, backstage at the Oprah show while promoting Real Women Have Curves—called her about the role of Betty. "Honestly I never saw myself doing TV," says Ferrera, "but Salma was so convincing. Salma is the kind of person who could sell you, like, a used stereo. She promised me that it would be done in the right way, and I just trusted her."As it turned out, Betty's immense popularity has brought an avalanche of attention to Ferrera. Now paparazzi stalkings and demands for autographs are part of her daily life. What truly baffles her are the machinations of the tabloid press. In February one weekly gossip rag ran with a story that Ferrera and Williams were engaged, giving rise to BETTY TO WED headlines all over the Internet. "It's totally not true!" she insists of the rumor. "And his mom called me and my sisters were calling me, and I was like, 'Are you kidding? Did you not think I would tell you first?' And then I put out a statement that it wasn't true, and that became a whole news story. So now it's news when something doesn't happen? Like, news flash: California did not get hit by a hurricane today."There's also the near constant reporting on her weight. And in that department it seems she can't win. On the one hand, reporters seem to enjoy describing her with unflattering terms like "lumpy." On the other, several Internet gossip sites have criticized her for looking less zaftig in recent months, implying that the actress lauded for promoting realistic body images had officially gone Hollywood. "I mean, of course I want to be at a weight where I'm happy," says Ferrera, who in person is neither lumpy nor emaciated but a healthy-looking, average-size woman. "There are times when I go to the gym and really try, and there are times when I just don't. I gain a pound; I lose a pound. But I think I've developed a really good sense of when I'm doing something for myself as opposed to when I'm doing something because of other people's expectations of me. And honestly, even if I wanted to be anorexic, I just don't have what it takes. After four hours of being anorexic, I'd be like, 'It's been four whole hours! Feed me!' "Psychologically it helps that she hasn't had much time to monitor her press coverage. Her schedule at Ugly Betty is grueling, with workdays that are 12 hours long at the beginning of the week and stretch into the wee hours of the morning as Friday approaches. "Basically we're making a movie every eight days," says Ferrera, who insists that she adores every minute of it. "Last week it was only Tuesday and we were already there so late. I had to lead the crew in a cheer of 'I love my job! I love my job!' ""We have her working 24 hours a day," concurs Silverman, who points out that such a schedule can be good for a 23-year-old actress, considering the antics of today's young Hollywood types. "I mean, we have her working so damn hard, all she probably wants to do at the end of the day is collapse in a ball." But even if she had the time, one gets the feeling that hobnobbing with Paris and Lindsay would be very low on Ferrera's to-do list. "Let's just say you're not going to see me at the PlayStation launch party," she says with a smirk. (Indeed, after the interview she heads not for Bungalow 8 but the F train, which she rides to a friend's place in Brooklyn.) As gregarious as she is, she says she has never been hypersocial. "Growing up, I never had a ton of friends. I always had two or three, but when you have four sisters and a brother all a year apart, you don't really need anyone else to play with."Ferrera credits her five older siblings for the fact that she's always felt older than her years. "I learned the naughty words before anyone else in my class," she says, laughing. "And I think I avoided many of the pitfalls because I got to watch them live through it." Indeed, chatting with her, it's easy to forget that she's only 23. Her maturity is not just a matter of her intelligence—which becomes more and more apparent as she quotes New York Times articles over dinner and discusses genetics while having her hair done pre-photo shoot—but emotional precocity as well. "Happiness is something that you have to decide to have in your life," she says. "No amount of accolades can make you a happy person, and learning that as young as I did was a gift." Though she sounds like a poster child for the positive psychology movement that has lately dominated the self-help realm—the Oprah-endorsed best-seller The Secret being its latest missive—Ferrera says she figured out this truism on her own, as a result of her aforementioned Gotta Kick It Up experience.Still, despite her belief that achievement isn't a one-way ticket to bliss, Ferrera remains a doer, and an intensely ambitious one at that. Rather than spend her summer hiatus resting up, she hopes to use the time to shoot a movie, though she's hesitant to talk specifics since nothing is set in stone. "When there's a film I want to do, sleep doesn't matter," she says. "Part of me would love to be sitting in the sun in Italy, but I'd be crazy by day four." One would think that, considering her recent rise in profile, offers of leading-lady roles would be rolling in, but Ferrera says that isn't the case. "When it comes to envisioning an actor in a role that they haven't seen them in, people in this business can be a little uncreative," she says. "No one is willing to take a gamble." As a result, she says, she's had to take a more proactive approach to her career: "It's been more about developing my own material, finding roles that I would like to play and figuring out a way to get those things made."Her plans for the future are, in keeping with her just-make-it-happen attitude, huge: She wants a large family, and she wants to direct and produce and continue acting and maybe teach too. While keeping her natural drive in check can be a struggle—"The hardest part of this year has been learning to enjoy it," she says. "It's almost like a full-time job reminding myself to live in the moment and not look for more, more, more"—her recent success has only made her more likely to think big: "I see now that people who make movies, this world of creative geniuses that I grew up idolizing, are just normal people who wanted to do something and made it happen. Everything that's happened to me in the last year has only made me feel more like a normal person, more human, but in the most beautiful way."

A look in to Fall 2007's Couture lines - Phoebe D. Hewes

Armani Prive

Chanel

Christian Dior

Christian Lacriox

Elie Saab

Givenchy
Gaultier
Valentino

A look into Erotica - Marius Van Muller

Have you noticed how in regular novels whenever there is a love-making
sequence, the author invariably inserts a 'fade-to-black' on the lines of
'their bodies lay entwined fulfilling passion's promise.'? Such sweet
vagueities and telling inuendo is characteristic of writers like Danielle
Steel. Of course, those of the school of 'Harlequin Romances' go a step
further with almost shy references to 'her pink, feminine folds' or 'his
male hardness.'Notice the word 'romance' in the title...doesn't that tell
you that if the author(ess) goes all the way (!); it will be a contradiction
of the aforementioned term? For romance isn't about sex and titillation;
it's about love. Here's where erotica comes in. Erotica as a genre exists to
answer the following questions:
What happened after they drove off into the sunset?
How is 'passion's promise' actually fulfilled?
What does 'he' do with his 'male hardness'?
But then, erotica is seldom about romance...

To those who scoff at erotica as just plain 'smut'; I beg to differ. As a
literaratus, I think erotica is perhaps one of the hardest(!) genres to
write for and perhaps that is why a lot of erotica you find on sites like
nifty.com or literotica.com is trashy and yes, smut. We're all adults here
(consenting ones, I do believe!); so let us concede that we do watach porn
once in while. Now, porn has a visual advantage; you see perfect bodies
writhing and undulating for your pleasure and sure enough, you're turned on.
But good erotica can only be written by a master because there is no visual
advantage here, it's all in the words. It's the words that flirt, tease,
arouse and take your imagination to a new level of awareness such that you
have a porn movie playing in your head and in this one, you call the
shots...all types of shots!

The harbinger of erotica in my sphere of literature was A.N. Roquelare
which, I later found out, was the nome-de-plume for none other than the
venerable Anne Rice. I wasn't really surprised having read Rice's 'Belinda'-
a novel erotic on many levels but in a far more subtle way than any that she
wrote as Roquelare. Rice's genius lay in the fact that for an erotic story
she took a well-loved story, an innocent, bedtime story and added elements
of erotica to it. Hence, creating a sense of decadence and amorality- a
corruption of what is seemingly innocent. May I direct you to Roquealare's
'Beauty' trilogy which tells of the many tribulations of Sleeping Beauty in
three parts namely: 'Beauty's Awakening', 'Beauty's Punishment' and
'Beauty's Release.' My favourite is 'Beauty's Awakening' for the decadence
is most apparent and despite the gratuitiousness of the text, one does
empathise with Beauty's character while dealing with the horrifying fact
that one is really, really turned on! So, you feel really dirty and that's
hot! 'Beauty's Punishment' is the most distasteful of the lot because the
BDSM element is most apparent there but I think that the book will do a lot
for a palate different from mine. Roquelare's second stroke of brilliance
would be always maintaining the fact that despite everything that happens to
her, Beauty is still a princess. Nowhere is she reduced to a common slut.
This works because you can feel bad for her and in your minds eye, she
remains as gorgeous and pure as the time before she was awakened. I urge you
check this series out...it's just plain marvellous!

Of course, no discussion on erotica is complete without honouring the
Marquis de Sade. Donatien Alphonse-Francios de-Sade was a French aristocrat
of 16th Century France. His erotica was of a different calibre...it was
philosophical, extremely arousing and yet very, very violent. In fact, we
get the noun 'sadism' from his name. Sade --> Sadist. See!
At any rate, I choose to discuss not Sade's more popular works (like,
'Juliette' or 'Justine') but rather one that has impressed me most: 'La
Philosophie dans La Boudoir' (Philosophy in the Bedroom). The novel entails
the corruption of a beautiful yet naive fifteen-year-old virgin named
Eugenie. Her many ravishers include a bisexual aristocrat, who is in an
incestuous 'arrangement' with her brother. Need I mention that the brother
also joins the party? De Sade outlines at the very outset that the reader
pay attention to Dolmance- a wry, homosexual who explains to Eugenie that
most human virtues like 'love', 'compassion', 'kindness', are nothing in
front of the sole goal of human existense: pleasure. Dolmance is a proponent
of the view that one should always indulge in things that one enjoys and
those who disapprove can go to hell! Needless to say, this is an impetus to
provide sequences of bizarre, kinky sex. But then again, only The Marquis
could merge philosophy with the bedroom. The very existentialism that the
book promotes is hotter than the sex itself for this is what erotica is
about: the potency of sex and the intoxication of it. A word to the wise
though: no inhibitions exist in this world so reader discretion is advised.

Galliano's Glorious Reign (Fashion Feature ) - Evelyn Carter

Front row, with Anna Wintour ( editorial ) - Ady St. Jon

F! - August 2007 - issue#2

Cover Story - Eva Langoria ! - Sean Carter

When asked to describe herself in three words, Eva Longoria chooses silly, ambitious, and entertaining. She should have emphasized the ambitious part, given the tear she's been on. Her hit show, Desperate Housewives, finished its third season and millions of fans await the 4th. She's just opened a Tex-Mex restaurant in Los Angeles called De Nada. And she's branched out to the big screen -- last year, she costarred with Kiefer Sutherland and Michael Douglas in The Sentinel, and later this year, she lends her voice to the animated flick Foodfight
Her personal life has been equally action-packed lately. In November, her boyfriend of nearly two years, San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker, popped the question, and then the world saw the happy couple tie the not in Paris on 007/07/07,(It's the second marriage for Eva, who was briefly hitched to soap actor Tyler Christopher.)
With lots to chat about, the feisty, friendly star sits down for tea with FETCH! at DUBAI’S hip hotel Grosvenor House, where the conversation runs the gamut from her fabulous wedding to her great sex secret.

Fetch! : How did you end up in Jessica Simpson's "A Public Affair" video?Eva Longoria: We're all followers of Ken Paves, the hairstylist. Jessica calls us the Ken-ites -- me, Jessica, Carmen Electra, and Brittany Murphy. We hang out whenever we can. We're tight girlfriends.
Is it tough to maintain male friendships when you're in a relationship?No. I get so much crap for having friends like Jamie Foxx and Mario Lopez, who are like brothers to me. It's difficult when you're in an insecure relationship or if your partner doesn't know where he stands with you. That's not how it is with us. I don't feel threatened by Tony's female friends, and he doesn't feel threatened by my male friends.Do you and Tony ever talk about trust?Trust is so organic for us. You'd think that because he's an athlete and I'm an actress and because we have a long-distance relationship, it would be an issue, but it really isn't at all. We are the priority in each other's lives, so we would never do anything to jeopardize that trust in any way.You're 32 and Tony's 24. What's the biggest plus to being involved with a younger man?What's not to love? His energy, for one! But I think the best part is his innocent outlook on love and relationships. He's just more open to all the possibilities. I think women, for the most part, tend to be a little more guarded when it comes to relationships.What kinds of things do you and Tony like to do as a couple in your free time?We love to lie around and watch movies. We are both into fine dining. He's European, so he likes to make it a four-hour experience with the cheeses and the wines. We love eating -- that's our escape together.With all that eating you do, how do you manage to stay in such amazing shape?I have a personal trainer who comes over at least four times a week and kicks my butt. I get so sore that I can't even walk. I do squats, lunges -- anything for my butt. My big concern is gravity taking its toll. As for food, I'm trying the vegan thing right now, but I fall off the wagon a lot. Yesterday, I had a steak. I try to do cleansings -- I'll go months just eating vegetables and then have turkey or a filet mignon.How do you and Tony deal with conflict?We never go to bed angry, which sometimes frustrates Tony because he'll be like "Please. I have a game tomorrow. I need sleep." Another rule we have is that nobody is ever right. I don't need to be right. I just want to be understood. The same goes for him.

Last September, you and Tony made a public statement about going through a difficult period as a couple. What happened?We were going through growing pains, and I was being honest about it. We had to figure out big relationship decisions, like where we would live and when wewould see each other. We never broke up though.Why was now the right time to get married?I never had a time line for my life. I didn't say I wanted to be married at 28 and have three kids by the time I was 32. I do want to have a family at some point. I also want toadopt. I don't feel pressure to have kids because I know that there are so many out there.How did Tony propose?It was more than I'd imagined. I was shocked too. It was like two in the morning. He got down on one knee. He was so nervous, which is what I find so surprising and sweet. I said, "Honey, you know how much I want to marry you!"What excited you most about getting married?My dress, my dress, my dress! I wish I could have worn 10 dresses to my wedding. It's so sad that you put it in storage and then never see it again. I am going to sleep in mine after I wear it.

You've been very vocal about sex in the past. How did you become so comfortable with your sexuality?No one taught me. I'm confident as a woman. There's no taboo about talking about your sexuality for a woman of my generation. I've always been an independent thinker.You've also talked about showing a man how to please you in bed. How do you do that?It shouldn't be a big deal. You just ask. If you feel like you're walking on eggshells about asking for what you want, then you're with the wrong guy. I've never been afraid to tell Tony, "This is what I like. This is what I want. This is where I want it." We have this thing called "Tell me now." Just tell me now if that’s not working. It applies to things other than sex too!

Eva Longoria's Wedding Features Bling and Bang.
Fireworks lit up the French sky as newlyweds Eva Longoria and Tony Parker partied into the early hours of Sunday at a 17th century castle. "It was so great – such a fun wedding," wedding guest Mario Lopez tells FETCH!. "It's been one event after another. I'm tired!" Sparkle of a different kind shimmered at the reception in the Chateau of Vaux le Vicomte on the outskirts of Paris. Scores of diamonds decorated Longoria's wedding band, the company which made them has revealed. Longoria, 32, and Parker, 25, wore Piaget Possession wedding rings. The Desperate Housewives star's band was made from 18K white gold with two rows of 80 brilliant-cut diamonds. These were separated by a row of 27 square-cut diamonds, for a total of 107 jewels. Parker's ring matched his wife's 18K white gold but was not decorated with stones. They each had a special inscription, in French, etched into the inside of the gold ring.
Meanwhile, all the women guests at the wedding were given bracelets from Van Cleef & Arpels' Sweet Alhambra range. The bracelets are 18K yellow gold on a delicate chain. They each had a miniature mother-of-pearl clover charm and the French jeweler said they are "sure to bring good luck."


the VIP guests, like Longoria's co-stars Felicity Huffman and Teri Hatcher, Sheryl Crow, Jessica Alba, Ryan Seacrest and soccer star Thierry Henry, were among around 200 people watching the couple exchange vows at the Church of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois. Longoria wore a couture Angel Sanchez mermaid gown made of silk wool, with silk gazar metallic embroidery, a scoop back and a long train. The day before, a smaller, more intimate gathering saw them wed in a civil service.
The honeymoon may be over, but the memories lovingly linger for Eva Longoria.

Asked to describe her post-wedding celebratory trip with new husband Tony Parker, the Desperate Housewives star, 32, tells FETCH!: "It was so romantic, it was just the two of us. We were completely alone together. We didn't see people for days with the exception of room service bringing us food." Longoria, who returned to work on her series Monday, added, "It was great to be completely, 100-percent alone." She and NBA star Parker, 25, were married in a civil ceremony in Paris July 6, followed the next day by a lavish church wedding. Then it was off for a low-key honeymoon on the Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos. Longoria said she and Parker are now making an effort to spend lots of time together. On Monday and Tuesday, the new groom was with her on the Housewives set. "Tony's been great," says Longoria. "He's been coming to the set with me since we returned to Los Angeles – just like during the season when I was going to the Spurs games. With [his] season over, he's hanging out on the set with me. It's a lot of fun. " As for Parker, he has discovered there's at least one element to married life that requires some getting used to: his wedding band. "It's weird, it's weird," he told the Associated Press Tuesday night. "I don't wear rings. ... The only ring that I was wearing is our championship rings, but you only wear that maybe two times, three times maybe. So I have to get used to it." He also noted, "A lot of my teammates told me they lost it like five or six times. So I'm going to try to lose it only one or two times." And yes, he's learning to adjust to having a wife who stars on one of the most popular shows on TV. "It's not like Brad Pitt, or Britney Spears. It's not that bad," Parker says of the paparazzi attention he and Longoria are receiving. "It's more for Eva, it's not me. I'm just there holding hands, they take pictures. It's her world."

Advertisement - Fragrance Covet by SJP

Editorial : Dark Purple - Evelyn Carter

Fashion Feature - Get the David Beckham Look! - Ady St. Jon

Ever since David moved to LA, he has embraced the American, Cargo shorts movement; its been happening for a long time and lets face it, we are talking about LA . So in honour of the Brit, footie, hunk's move we give you a few ideas on how to get the "Beckham look". Now since we live in the U.A.E these pieces can also be found in: Giordano, Splash, Lee Cooper, Pull & Bear, Samuel & Kevin, Springfield and many others more. Since the climate here, is LA x 10; this look clearly is practical, is easy to carry off and it looks good. Go short, simple and sandy this summer!

GAP

V-neck and regular, jersy T's

under $20

Abercrombie & Fitch
Nye Mountain
Khaki
$49.50
100% sueded cotton, rugged body design, reinforced seam taping, sturdy drawcord waist, subtle nicking, button closure cargo pockets, lined interior waistband, zipper fly, Vintage Abercrombie Wash, Classic Fit, Imported


Abercrombie & Fitch
Classic Rubber Flip Flops
White
$19.50
100% rubber, moose logo, Classic Fit, Imported
Leather Treads
Brown
$49.50


Ray Ban
RB3214-Rimless Aviator
under $100

Summer reading list - Marius Van Muller

My friends are worried. I've been cancelling engagements with drivel about other engagements, I'm hardly ever online and I don't take or return my calls. Rumours are afloat that I have kicked the bucket, or that I am having an adulterous affair. Those who know me better know that the chances of the former being true are infinitely greater. But those who know me best know that neither of the two presented options have even a shred of truth in them. The truth? Sounds so disgustingly dramatic, doesn't it? Well, it isn't. I'm just racing down my Summer Reading List and as the proximity between me and the final item approaches, I feel as though I am nearing the end of an era, a Golden Age. Yet, I read at a feverish pace and manage to ignore that sinking feeling that comes with the closing of every novel. In a manner of speaking, every Summer Reading List of mine has always had a theme. This year's theme is 'The Best of the Summer Reading Lists.' The concept is simple, I look over the themes from the past 5 years or so and pick out related books. Now, I did not repeat any...no wait, scratch that...many books. I believe that a Summer Reading List (or any reading list) should not comprise of what is hot, or new or (dare I say it) topping the bestseller lists but simply of what you have not read and want to read or something that you've read and enjoyed so much that you'd like to savour it again. Without further ado:


1) 'Other Voices, Other Rooms' -Truman Capote (Theme: The Good Ol' Days!):I've always loved Capote's breezy, bitchy writing style. I know the two B's don't go well together but let's face it, Capote did work at the New Yorker! Yet, (and I think this is a good time to say this) 'OVOT' is not bitchy. Or breezy, for that matter. The novel is a delicately built masterpiece comprising of the most haunting, rarefied prose I have ever come across. It does indeed capture the coming-of-age phase very well, you know, the phase in which we hear 'other voices' while seated in 'other rooms'?

2) 'Gone With The Wind'- Margaret Mitchell (Theme: Fields of Gold... A Reminiscence of The Old South):To celebrate this theme, I'd originally picked out Alexandra Ripley's 'Charleston'. What happened later was very 'six degrees of seperation.' As I read the name Alexandra Ripley, I thought, 'Hey wait! Didn't she write 'Scarlett'-the really crappy sequel to 'Gone With The Wind'?' My mind was suddenly flooded with memories from Mitchell's multi-layered magnum opus. The final confrontation sequence between Rhett and Scarlett is, perhaps, one of my favourite sequences in literature...so rife with dramatic and even sexual tension. So there I was reading into the night, following the trail of a firebrand woman whose desire to survive burned even more intensely than Atlanta did that fateful night...
3) 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'- Joanne Kathleen Rowling (Theme: Songs of Childhood).Harry Potter has become a force of habit. God knows, I gave up waiting for my Letter of Acceptance to Hogwarts a long time ago...and no we shall not speak of that particularly fun 'incident' at Kings' Cross, summer of 2004! But there is something so absolutely aperitive about Harry and his friends (Marry me, Hermione) that one can't help but bring out the nachos, dig in and begin Harry's final journey.


4) 'Twilight'- Stephenie Meyer (Theme: Teen Trash).Slotting this book into the aforesaid category is perhaps the biggest blunder I made this summer. That and buying a certain A&F muscle shirt and hoping to pull it off but managing to pull it off anyway...but that's another story. A rare blend of romance and witticisms...'Twilight' is just beautiful.


5) 'Prep' -Curtis Sittenfeld (Theme: Confessional Literature).Now this book may have been a New York Times best seller for quite some time but in all honesty, it deserves to be there even longer. When I thought of this theme I didn't feel the need to pick up something new but rather to make a difficult decision between Salinger and Plath. Instead, the book found me! There it was, a second-hand copy, looking seemingly innocent but containing a narrative so engaging, so magnetic and mesmeric that I couldn't tear myself away from it. When I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about reading it and when I was done reading it, I started thinking about re-reading it. I'm not going to say more...I intend to review this one soon!
6) 'Snow Falling on Cedars'- 'David Guterson (Theme: Rapturous Love...Love Divine).Centred around a murder trial involving a Japanese-American, Guterson's novel is packed with a multitudinous range of visual, sound and olfactory imagery. The multi-layered novel is a haunting, moving read that truly rouses the reader on so many, many levels. Be it the inter-racial romance of epic proportions between two teenagers- an American male and a Japanese-American female or the bitterness and grief caused by racial hatred. 'Snow Falling on Cedars' is a remarkable achievement...zealously romantic and scintillatingly subtle...keep a tissue box at hand.

7) 'The Diamond as Big as The Ritz and Other Stories'- Francis Scott Fitzgerald (Theme: Musings from an Age of Excess).Each and every story is a veritable gem. Fitzgerald, by means of his dexterous skill, is successful in transporting one to an opulent fantasy world of riotous luxury. So what if you had a bad experience with 'Gatsby' in high school? Lose yourself in Fitzgerald's dazzling prose and revel in the sybaritic, timeless experience held securely within the pages of this book. Perhaps, it may inspire you to read 'The Great Gatsby' again...and this time with a trained eye.

8) 'Villette' - Charlotte Bronte (Theme: Victorian Vestiges).I love the Bronte sisters' work. None of the other Victorians wrote as openly or as passionately. In this respect, 'Villette' does not disappoint. Told in the first person, from the prospective of Lucy Snowe, a young woman who travels to the fictional town of Villette to teach at a girls' school only to be pulled into a web of intrigue, adventure and romance. Bronte, in her own inimitable style, explores gender stereotypes and the asymettrical gender roles of the time.

9) 'Perfume' - Patrick Suskind (Theme: Avant-garde).Producing stunning visual and sound imagery in a piece of writing is an art mastered and exploited to its fullest advantage by many but it is only a Grand-master who can produce olfactory imagery and that too with as much acuity as seen in Suskind's novel. Oh, 'Perfume' is a literary orgasm, convoked and bottled for your pleasure! This breathtakingly, aromatic tour-de-force has been translated from it's original German by John. E. Woods and the result is mesmerising. The smells of 18th Century Paris are unleashed across the pages with hints of other subtle seductions like jasmines, tuberoses and musk which mask the putrefying stench of a horrifying crime, leading up to a chilling, conclusion. 'Perfume' is by far, one of my most treasured books...I think, a book as captivating as this may not come out for another 10,000 years or at all.
10) 'A Clockwork Orange'- Anthony Burgess (Theme: Cult Classics).Quentin Tarantino is to film-buffs what Anthony Burgess is to book-worms. This is the second book on this list that is not new but who gives a fuck? I certainly don't... Burgess' finesse with the language is such that he authentically amasses the wind of violence that surges through a madly, dystopian future. His witty, piquant narrator Alex speaks in a heady mix of English and Russian (a fad-language called Nadsat-invented by the author himself) and enjoys ultra-violence, rape and Beethoven's Ninth. A bizarre sequence of events quickly launches mayhem into Alex's world such that 'fun' is no longer the order of the day...Deeper into the novel, one finds that Burgess actually makes several heart-wrenching comments on morality and hypocrisy in our society. This and the gratitious violence make 'A Clockwork Orange' a little difficult to go down but oh what fun it is!

To a lot of people, reading a book is boring business. What does the adjective 'boring' connote? Loneliness? Silence? But then, the connotations of the noun 'serenity' are pretty much the same. In actual fact, the main difference between boredom and serenity is that in case of boredom everything seems like a waste of time, every moment bears upon one like the most onerous of weights but in case of serenity...the silence of every passing is savoured and enjoyed. And that feeling is most tangible when you're seated, immersed in a book, travelling the world without moving even an inch.

F! - July 2007 - issue#1

Cover Story - Emma watson interview

The greatest shock in seeing Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix is to notice how much the young actors have grown up. In fact, the fifth instalment is no longer a kids' movie, but a teen drama about characters who are rapidly coming of age.
In real life the three principals are maturing faster than their characters, with Daniel Radcliffe even appearing nude on the London stage. Rupert Grint's chest seems to be getting broader and his voice deeper and deeper, while Emma Watson is broadening her mind and her fashion sense and looking more womanly every day. She's now on the covers of magazines, appearing very grown up indeed and, as with most things, she is asserting a level of control.
"In interviews like this and when I'm working on Harry Potter I can dress myself, but the stylists on those shoots have a strong view of what they want you to look like," she says in London. "So sometimes it's a bit of a battle between what they want you to be and what I really am, so I'm like, 'Please take off the eyeliner', or 'Please don't put me in those awful shoes', or whatever it is."
Does she think of herself as glamorous?
"I can be if I want to be. I love dressing up, but it doesn't rule or dictate my life."

Growing up in front of the cameras is never easy and being a part of one of the most successful franchises in film history has meant Watson's life is not entirely her own. Take her hair, which is blonde; she tried to get it back to its natural colour and today it's streaked.
"I don't know how much of it is natural any more but this is sort of naturally my colour," she says tugging at her long golden locks.
But nothing prepared her for watching herself in the new film, which includes flashbacks to the previous movies.
"It's just like having your baby pictures blown up on a 20-foot (six-metre) screen and placed in 37 countries. It's sort of your worst nightmare. It's scary to see how we've all changed. You see yourself and you say, 'God, who is that girl?'."
The girl in question, whose adoring fans even have a website counting down to her 18th birthday in April, today looks older than in the movie, which was filmed last year. She appears relaxed in baggy Diesel jeans, her own lacy black top, a simple soft cardigan - which turns out to be Chanel - and Dolce & Gabbana pumps, which she is wearing so she can easily slip into the v-necked Alberta Ferretti dress for a photo call. She dons a double-stringed gold and beaded Chanel necklace for the cameras.

To her credit, Watson arrives at our interview unattended. While this might not seem out of the ordinary, for a young female star to arrive without a phalanx of publicists and image creators, make-up artists and general dogsbodies these days, is highly unusual.
"I prefer to feel like I'm handling the questions myself," she says in her clipped British tones. And then announces: "Let's spice it up a bit! Let's get a couple of difficult ones. I'm quite happy to answer them." She pauses for a moment, realising what she has just said. "You're going to ask me some bitch of a question, you really are! Bad idea. I should never have said that."
Not old enough to attend nightclubs and with little time for letting loose, the charmingly natural actor hardly has any dirt on her as yet, and will surely never be a Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears.
"You either choose to have your first cigarette and your first glass of wine in a safe environment with your close friends or you can choose to do it in a nightclub in the middle of London. You can actually live a low-key, normal life where the press don't get a chance to know about it."
Clearly today, though, Watson hankers to be a little provocative so I ask her about the prospect of kissing Grint, her suitor in the sixth film, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, which starts filming in September. Director David Yates describes it as being about sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.
"Kissing Rupert's going to be sooo awkward," Watson says, screwing up her cute rosy-cheeked face. "I'm trying not to think about it ... it's all part of the job I guess. Don't tell him I said that. Rupert's lovely. Girls would probably give their left arm to be in my position, so I'm certainly not complaining."
But he's a grunge-loving dude and simply not the kind of boy she's into.
"No, he's not my type," she says.
What is she looking for in a guy? "I love someone who can make me laugh ... who makes me feel I can be myself around them. Confidence is good; arrogance is not. Someone I can really talk to, who doesn't bore me, is genuine, just interesting. Someone I can relax with."
Her list is long. "It's bad isn't it? You have such high expectations. The other way you can look at it is that if I list a lot of attributes, then I'm sort of widening my scope. You don't have to have all the attributes - just one or two will suffice."
The offspring of British lawyer parents, Watson spent her first five years growing up in Paris, and has made regular trips there since. "I went over to Paris to sort out the clothes for this junket and I have a great nostalgia for it. I really love it. It feels a bit like home."

The main reason for her regular Parisian jaunts has been to visit her French grandmother. So it was fun to go for herself this time, to visit the house of Chanel.
"Chanel have been very kind and have lent me a lot of stuff for this particular junket. I've always loved how classic and how beautiful their clothing is and how original. My mum always wore Chanel, but I love other designers too. I think Chloe is great. Alberta Ferretti is really lovely, AgnesB has some younger funky stuff which I really like. Converse shoes are great."
Watson had never acted before Harry Potter came along. "I was extremely naive and in a way it was good to be really nervous. I came to realise that Maggie Smith was a pretty good actress, she was just really nice to me. I wouldn't have been able to come to the set if I didn't feel completely safe."
As with all the young actors, she brought a lot of herself to Hermione. "We're both feminists, we're both very stubborn, both very determined and quite loyal. If I have a friend then I stay through to the end." (She maintains a tight group of friends from school and considers her two co-stars like brothers.) "Obviously I'm a bit geeky, a bit nerdy like she is, underneath it all - we both love school. I love to learn."
Recently rumours were flying that Watson would not return for the last two films, as she was concerned for her studies. (At school she studies English literature and she would like to pursue a combined degree in English literature and philosophy at university.) She now says she was taking her time to work out her contract so she can do both. When Harry Potter is over she's keen to continue acting, too.
"I think Emma could have a great career," says Yates. "If she's smart enough to choose the right material she could be fantastic. We haven't seen a fraction of what she's capable of yet."
Watson says she wants to find something she really believes in. "What I will do next will be really anticipated and will be taken as the direction I'm going to go in. So I feel that pressure," she says.
Radcliffe has been quite clear about going against his Harry Potter image by making his West End debut in the critically lauded Equus, which made headlines because of his full-frontal nudity. The pressure for actresses to disrobe is of course far greater.
"If I feel that nudity is essential to the story I'll do it," says Watson. "But I'm not going to get my kit off for something that I don't really believe in."
Was she surprised by Radcliffe's disrobing? "Yes of course! I just sort of went, 'You're mad, absolutely mad'. But when I went to see it I was blown away."
As for the future, Watson is learning to drive. Eventually she says she would like to buy a house - and hang a lot of artwork on the walls.
"It's quite hard to imagine my life without Harry Potter; it's sort of hard to remember my life before. It's sort of completely taken over my life. I say that, but I've worked hard to make sure that hasn't happened. While obviously it's a huge part of me, it doesn't define me. I know who I am aside from this. But it feels strange that one day it will be over. In a way though I feel it will never be over ... the books will always be loved and the films will come on every Christmas and it'll keep living on in kids' imaginations and adults' imaginations for many years to come."
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix is in cinemas on July 11.

Picture perfect moment





Editorial - Josh and Jensen rock summer classics

Dior - top 3 pieces from the 2007 season

Man of the Month - David Boreanaz

In 2005, Boreanaz began starring opposite Emily Deschanel on the current prime time television series, Bones. He most recently appeared in These Girls, a Canadian film in which he played a biker; the film received a limited theatrical release in Canada in March of 2006, after premiering at the Toronto Film Festival and the Vancouver International Film Festival. His upcoming roles include parts in the independent films Mr. Fix it and Suffering Man's Charity. It is also rumored that Boreanaz will star in the upcoming film Jurassic Park 4 which will be released some time in 2008. Boreanaz is also scheduled to voice Hal Jordan in the upcoming DC Comics animated feature Justice League: The New Frontier.

Ad Campaign - DKNY fall 2007

3 mouth sizzling recipes for this summer

Must have list for this summer