Martin Scorsese to Shoot a Spaniard in Atlantic City

OK, so that headline is just a tad bit misleading. Martin Scorsese isn’t actually going to shoot a Spaniard (this isn’t Mean Streets, The Departed or Gangs of New York, y’all). But the famed, Oscar-winning auteur will direct relatively unknown Spanish actress Paz de la Huerta in the pilot for a new HBO drama called Boardwalk Empire—a gritty and realistic snapshot of Atlantic City during the prohibition era, written by Terence Winter (The Sopranos).

Paz de la Huerta (4 word names are fun, aren’t they?), 25, has just been cast to play Lucy, a hot party girl who’s also Nucky’s (Steve Buscemi) girlfriend in the series, which is based on the Nelson Johnson book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City. Paz (whose name is pronounced “Path”), is best known for her very revealing roles in acclaimed indie director Jim Jarmusch’s 2009 thriller The Limits of Control, where she spends much of the film in full frontal nudity, a la Kate Winslet (in any film), and for her work in Clark Gregg’s Choke (2008), in which she played a sex addict.

She's also no stranger to the tabloids. Not only has she been linked to Hollywood leading men like Orlando Bloom (nice!) and, er, Jack Nicholson (ewwww!), but Paz also managed to catch the attention of The New York Post in 2007 when she alarmed party guests at the Beatrice Inn in NYC by “dancing wildly, careening all over the place, crashing into people and tables and doing a striptease during the song “I Touch Myself," pulling down her top, pulling up her dress, making a real grusesome spectacle.” (Yikes!) Anyhow, The Post added that Paz was escorted out, and on her way to the street, looked at an innocent bystander and screamed “F--- you!” (Now I'm confused. I don’t know who she resembles more: party girl Lindsay Lohan or potty mouth Susan Boyle). Maybe both?

Considering Paz’s reportedly turbulent and wild behavior, it’s ironic that her name means “Peace of the Orchard.” Still, despite the fact that she’s reportedly a hot mess, getting to work with good ol’ Marty Scorsese should work wonders for her career. Just look at some of the other chicas he’s worked with in the past:

Cameron Diaz (Gangs of New York)                                                                      
Jessica Lange and Juliette Lewis (Cape Fear)                                                           
Jodi Foster (Taxi Driver)
Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Rider (The Age of Innocence)

Outlook: Good! What say you, Vivo Por TV-ians? Is Paz a hot mess, or do we like her? Is Boardwalk Empire a good replacement for The Sopranos? Leave me a comment with your thoughts!