MONDAY
I’m in Venice, for the film festival. I’m languidly stretched out across a chaise longue in only my T-shirt and my underpants, and I’m eating a low-fat yoghurt.
“Ah, Venice,” says my agent, looking out of the window across St Mark’s Square. “The bridges, the gondolas, the singing, the masks. What a city! Is there anything more sexy in the world?” I pull my spoon slowly from my mouth.
“I can think of something,” I say, and look at her through my eyelashes.
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“Marrakesh?” says my agent. “Florence? Not the Maldives?” I flick my eyes desperately towards the dressing- room mirror, wondering if I’m doing something wrong. Perhaps I’m not wearing enough gloss. I lick my lips.
“You are barking,” I say, a little archly, “up entirely the wrong tree.”
“Antarctica?” says my agent. “The Sahara Desert?”
TUESDAY
“Looks pretty good to me,” says my new agent, studying me from a variety of angles as I eat another low-fat yoghurt. He’s clicking away with a digital camera. “You think?” I ask. Whatever he says, I’ll survey the pictures later.
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“Yep.”
He nods. “The woman must have been blind. Sexiest thing I ever saw, at least since I watched you eat that banana half an hour ago.”
I freeze. “The banana is more sexy than the yoghurt?” “They’re both good,” says my agent, in a hurry.
WEDNESDAY
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My boyfriend, Josh Hartnett, is in town, because we’re launching our new film, The Black Dahlia, at the festival tonight. Critics have been asking us whether us both being so very, very sexy might distract audiences from the important business of the plot. It’s a fair point. It might indeed.
My agent is fussing with some gowns for me for this evening. Josh is on the chaise longue, watching basketball on the TV and fiddling with his balls.
“Look at this,” I say to him, and I show him a new way I have learnt to eat a crisp.
“Very sexy,” says Josh, and turns back to the TV.
I appreciate the support. You see, I have a dilemma. When I first hit the big time, after Lost in Translation, I wowed the world by turning up to the Oscars in a gown from the Fifties. Everybody thought it was very sexy. Then I wore some Twenties and Thirties-style dresses for a while. Sexy, too. I’ve done the Eighties, and I even flirted briefly with the Sixties, which was also very sexy but not really me. The new film is set in the Forties, which is very sexy, but also, frankly, a little tired. So now I’m out of decades.
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“There’s always the 19th century,” suggests my agent.
I frown, thinking of hats and whalebone.
“Not very sexy,” I say.
“Is that a problem?” asks my agent.
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THURSDAY
My new, new agent brings us breakfast in bed.
“You know who eats a sexy crisp?” asks Josh, eventually, after a long burp.
I feel myself grow cold. “No,” I say. “Who?” “Keira Knightley,” says Josh. “Keira Knightley eats one damn sexy crisp.”
Then he burps again.
I can’t believe this is happening. I’m eating breakfast in bed with my boyfriend. I’ve just sat there, eating a yoghurt and a banana, and he is thinking about Keira Knightley eating a crisp.
This is awful.
FRIDAY
I’m in a terrible state. I leave a message on Keira’s voicemail. “So apparently,” I say, “my boyfriend thinks you eat a really sexy crisp. So I just wanted to . . . I just wanted to . . .” Then I hang up. I’m nearly crying.
In the end, we opted for a Forties gown, in keeping with the film. I wasn’t best pleased, to be honest. The film is set in 1947, but 1947 is a bit late 2005.
In the evening, Keira calls back and cheers me up immensely. Apparently she has never eaten a crisp.
“You look very sexy,” says my boyfriend as I skip back into the living room.
“I know,” I say.