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Penélope Cruz Talks Directing New L'Agent Short Film Featuring Women Dancing in the Desert in Lingerie

Actress dishes on her latest work, favorite item from the collection

By Cinya Burton, Ruth O'Neill Aug 04, 2014 4:51 PMTags
L'Agent, Penelope CruzPascal Le Segretain/Getty Images; YouTube

Everything about Penélope Cruz's latest short film for L'Agent by Agent Provocateur is H-O-T. You've got a group of models dancing around in super sexy lingerie. Hot. It takes place in a desert. Literally hot.  Oh, and the Oscar winner even makes an appearance, which raises the temperature to scorching.

But Cruz did more than just cameo, she also wrote and directed the film. That's in addition to co-designing the collection with her sister Monica Cruz and Sarah Shotton, creative director of Agent Provocateur.

So what's her favorite piece from the line? We chatted with the 40-year-old and she dished on that (hint: it's green and satin) and anything else you'd want to know about her stylish collaboration. Check it out!

It's the third season you and your sister Monica are collaborating with Agent Provocateur, how did the partnership start?

I have always been a fan of Agent Provocateur, I've always loved the brand—you could say I was a bit of a collector. My sister modeled for an Agent Provocateur campaign a couple of years ago and they had a great connection, so then when the opportunity to work with them on a diffusion line came up we jumped at it. I feel like every season the collection gets stronger as we build up our identity as a brand and we are learning more about designing. We are growing the collection season on season so this time round you can see it is a bit broader. I also loved directing my second campaign film!
 


 Your brother Eduardo Cruz is involved in the project, quite the family affair! What is the best part about working with your family? 
We have such a close family. The first idea for the video actually came to me while listening to Eduardo's track "Single Dutch." He was finishing it for his project of electronic dance music called Optimist and I had agreed to do the second film and I was looking for ideas. I heard the track and I got all these images in my head so I asked him to let me use it. The same thing happened with my first film and his track "Sexy Toy." I wanted to create something really high energy to compliment the vibrancy of the collection, so Eduardo's music was really inspiring.
 

YouTube

What do you enjoy about directing? Will we see you directing more in the future?

I love directing, I have always wanted to but didn't feel ready. And I'm learning. I've done almost 50 films but there's so much to learn. I'm looking forward to working on more projects in the future. I was really fortunate to have Jon Kortajarena in the film and all these incredibly beautiful women. 


What's your favorite lingerie set in the new collection?

Monica and I design lingerie that we would wear ourselves, so every piece is something that we really do like and would have in our own lingerie drawer. But if I had to pick out a favorite style I think it would be the Danita. It comes in a peacock green satin for the autumn-winter collection, the color is amazing and works with any skin tone.
 


Where did you and Monica get the inspiration for the new designs?
 

Both my sister Monica and I have dance backgrounds, so we again looked at ballet training pieces and shapes of ballet costumes. You can see there are more bodies in this collection, and these were really inspired by ballet training clothes. This collection is also very color driven. L'Agent is a young fun brand, and we try and have bright bold colors in every collection. It's part of our identity. We looked at some Peter Saville album covers for color references and we also looked again at the film "True Romance," which features a lot of amazing, brightly colored costumes.