Elizabeth Hurley Is Maxim’s September/October Cover Star
The legendary model/actress covers Maxim’s “Hot 100” issue featuring the world’s sexiest women.
“I’m covered in scratches,” Elizabeth Hurley laughs. The revelation seems in contrast with her bona fide movie star guise, which manages to radiate even through Zoom despite the sometimes-spotty WiFi in her Herefordshire, England, manor. “The minute we hang up, I’m about to go outside and attack something! I feel much more creative when I can go outside. If I’m stuck on something, I’ll go hack down a weed and then feel better.” As the owner of one of the most deliciously posh British accents in the entertainment industry, she makes even the mere idea of weeding sound positively glamorous.
It’s one of her golden rules these days: For 15 minutes out of every hour, she’ll leave the desk and go breathe in the air of the “deep countryside”—her sanity saver for the past two decades—and peek over at her alpacas and grain fields. From the get-go, the “mummy, actress, model, farmer, bikini designer” (as her Instagram bio proclaims) was adamant that she didn’t want to raise her son, Damian, in London.
Now 22, Damian is, to use British parlance, a chip off the old block. A model and actor with a mane of enviable hair and bone structure that echo his mum’s, he made his feature writing and directorial debut with the 2024 film Strictly Confidential. Much to the Internet’s delight, albeit with some raised eyebrows, the picture features steamy scenes between Elizabeth and her female co-star. At present, both Hurleys are finalizing financing for Damian’s next project, which Elizabeth will produce via her latest labor of love, a production company she formed earlier this year with a friend.
Being by her son’s side as he finds his feet in show business brings back memories for Hurley. She enrolled in dance and drama school straight after her A-level exams and credits initial industry attention to a role in Christabel, a 1988 BBC mini-series. “It’s a character-building time when you’re young, in any job, but especially in showbiz. You get rejected all the time…even now. I totally get that it’s not for everyone. You have to have a very good attitude toward it. You can bet that if you meet anyone my age and they’re still in the business, they’re tough, because they’ve had to be.”
When she tried her hand at finding fame in the United States, Hurley chalks it up to that elusive combination of luck, timing and resilience. “After rounds of auditions, visa problems and crying every night, eventually you get a break and then you just work on that,” she says. Those fateful breaks saw Hurley front and center on two of the most beloved movies of the 1990s and 2000s: as sultry secret agent Vanessa Kensington in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and as the temperature-raising leather-clad Devil in Bedazzled.
In another oft-referenced moment of the era, when Hurley joined her then-boyfriend Hugh Grant on the red carpet for the London premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994, little did she know that she would guarantee her place in the annals of 1990s pop culture forever. Stepping out in the dress, a figure-hugging cut-out Versace scene stealer held together by oversize gold safety pins, Hurley became synonymous with the decade’s style forevermore. She thought nothing of it on the night and is still unsure what all the fuss is about.
“Obviously there were no cell phones or Internet at the time,” she recalls. “The next day Hugh and I were going to the Cannes Film Festival. In those days, they used to hand out newspapers on the plane and we realized we were on the front page of every single one. We thought it was insane! When we got to Cannes, people were going demented. And people have been obsessed with that dress ever since! I don’t understand it; I’ve never understood it. People still ring me up and tell me when it’s the ‘birthday’ of the dress.”
The burning question: Did she get to keep the dress? “It was the first thing I ever borrowed in my life,” she says. “I wasn’t famous. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to keep it; it just went straight back the next morning before we got on the plane, in the same white plastic bag I was given it in. That was that. I should have kept it, shouldn’t I? It would actually be nice if it was here—but because it has to have its birthdays, it’s probably better it’s wherever it is instead of being in my attic being eaten by moths!”
Despite being a prevailing sex symbol who oozes confidence and class—younger millennials may remember her as Nate Archibald’s seductive and experienced lover Diana Payne in Season 5 of Gossip Girl—Hurley is glad that being a model is only one string to her bow. “Shooting has always been a big part of my life, and I did end up loving it as much as being on a movie set. But a couple of days of modeling is enough. It wouldn’t have suited me for it to be my full-time job, but as part of my job, it’s a pleasure.”
Still, she’s her own best advertisement in campaigns and promotional materials for her swimwear and resortwear brand, Elizabeth Hurley Beach, which she launched 19 years ago. (Like her relocation to the English countryside, it was born from a desire to have a total lifestyle change when baby Damian entered the picture.) Lovingly referring to it as her “small, niche boutique brand,” she stuck to her guns and decided to run the business her own way despite what many told her.
T-shirts: THE KIT; Elizabeth’s necklace: VANESSA BARONI; Damian’s necklace: his own (Gilles Bensimon)
“Along the way, I had a lot of opportunities to make it a bigger company,” Hurley says. “In the end, I decided not to. I wanted to keep it small so that I could control it and didn’t have anyone breathing down my neck. I’m glad I did that.” During the pandemic, she made the decision to focus only on selling direct to consumers. “Now it’s tiny again,” she says, joyfully. “There’s only a handful of us working together and we love it. We make what we want to make and don’t have anyone giving us a hard time.”
Though she teases that she “may not be modeling the swimwear for much longer,” one gets the impression that Hurley, 59, has never felt better in her skin. Representation of women having a great time and looking “fabulous” (her favorite word) at every age is of the utmost importance to her. Since 1997, she has served as the global ambassador for The Estée Lauder Companies’ Breast Cancer Campaign. “Their loyalty is amazing and absolutely commendable,” Hurley praises. “They understand that it’s not only young people who buy makeup and skincare. In fact, it’s the complete opposite. A lot of people who had ads, campaigns or contracts back in the day, it would be over for them by age 30 and they’d be replaced by a younger person. I’m glad that that’s not happening so much these days.” Having now met tens of thousands of people affected by the disease and been a prolific spokesperson and campaigner for the cause, she refers to the ambassadorship as one of the most meaningful and enriching things in her life.
“I think the best way to have self-belief and confidence is to try your hardest to ensure you’ve got something to bring to the table,” she says of the key to longevity in your chosen career. “Sometimes we find ourselves out of our depth in something we don’t feel confident about. If I had to stand up tomorrow and make a speech about investment banking, I’d be very nervous. I’d have to learn my lines and I wouldn’t feel like I could go off script. Whereas when I talk about what I know about, I feel completely confident—and I think that’s the trick to feeling good. Find your comfort zone in whatever you’re doing and work out what you can offer that your competitor can’t. It’s the same for how you present yourself: Eliminate what you don’t like, accentuate what you do and then just have a good time.”
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