About Me
Extracts from an interview by Paquita Paquin, from WestEast Magazine - Summer 2003WHERE DID YOU GROW UP ?Eva Herzigova : I come from Litvinov, a village in ex-Czechoslovakia located almost on the border with Germany. It's also a mining region. Everybody works in the mines, my parents wer miners. Despite the industrialization, nature and mountains are very present. We are a very athletic family, my father was a champion swimmer (...) My father's influence led me to practise a variety of sports at high levels : swimming, gymnastics, cross-country skiing... Today, without doing any sports, I still have the same body I did at sixteen.YOUR EARLY CAREER ?Eva Herzigova : At 17, I did quite a bit of editorial with Marie-Claire, Cosmopolitan, catwalks with Azzedine Alaïa, photos for Complice with Peter Lindberg, then for L'Oréal. I replaced Claudia Schiffer for the Guess Jeans campaign with Naomi Campbell. After working for three years, I was chosen by Wonderbra. Although that only lasted from 94 to 96, it affected my whole career. The two years were so important but it is still what everybody talks about to me. With Wonderbra, I became known to the public the world over.AND YET, WITH SO MUCH SUCCESS, YOU WERE COURAGEOUS ENOUGH TO BREAK WITH YOUR 'PIN-UP' IMAGE ?Eva Herzigova : I loved the Marilyn look with red lips and 60's hair-style. Pin-ups were at the top of the trends. And I was having a hormonal explosion. I was becoming a woman and I felt good in that role. In the modeling profession, we are chosen to bring in money and when something works, it's hard to let go of it. But, I had long-term plans. (...) I felt that one should be much more flexible, less stereotyped. (...) I took a different approch to my work and refused certain magazine cover (...) Between 18 and 30 years of age, the body changes and you can't hang onto the same image. I took control of my career and learned how to say "no" to my agency.WHO DO YOU LOOK UP TO IN THIS PROFESSION ?Eva Herzigova : Helmut Newton, a sweet guy and a genius ! He [invented] a style, a spirit, in his photos ; they remain eternal. Guy Bourdin with whom I worked twice a few month before his death in some pretty wacky shoots. For me photographers are the leaders of the game, they are the producers. I respect Carine Roitfeld who is now currently Chief Editor at French Vogue and she followed me in my desire to change. She had enough imagination to see my differently. She understood my vision.YOU HAVE ALSO WON AN AWARDS AS AN ACTRESS ?Eva Herzigova : (...) In 98, I did a film by Jil Brenton JUST FOR THE TIME BEING. This film was in the competition at the Festival of Independent Films in New York and I won Best Actress. I like the relationships that develop within a film team : they are much less ephemeral than those of a photo shoot. (...) I basically think that I don't really want to expose myself as an actress. My desires are directed to more stable things. I'd like to get into a routine, to sleep more than three days in the same bed, in the same city.
