Here are some semi-creepy photos of Giovanni Ribisi and Agyness Deyn taking their (adorable) dog for a walk in Santa Barbara over the weekend. To recap, Agyness and Giovanni eloped last June after dating for an ambiguous period of time during which no one even realized they were together. A few months later, word leaked out in a Star story that Agyness hadn’t quite realized how much of a hardcore Scientologist she had married until after the fact, and that Giovanni’s second-generation level of devotion was kind of weirding her out. But then in October, Laura Agyness officially retired from modelling so that she could (theoretically) try to make it big in acting, which I took as a sign that Agyness was going to use her new CO$ connections to try to make it big in Hollywood, and she was probably just going to ignore the Xenu stuff. After all, Agyness is nothing if not a chameleon.

In these photos, Agyness and Giovanni are clearly aware of the paparazzi’s presence as they stroll on the beach. They’re smiling and holding hands and then Giovanni leans in and lays a huge kiss on Agyness.

So at this point, I’m thinking that Agy is in pretty deep with the CO$. She’s probably been doing some introductory-to-intermediate level auditing sessions, and it’s all about positive thinking at this point. Because that’s how Scientology gets people started — with all the love bombing and sh-t. Now she and Giovanni are an ideal CO$ couple, and in a few decades, we’ll see them unconvincingly gross-smooching on the red carpet just like Kelly Preston and John Travolta. Agyness Deyn, this is your future.

Speaking of the CO$, Scientology took out a full banner ad on the front page of YouTube that appeared in the United States for the whole of Sunday. The ad includes the hilarious “think for yourself” Superbowl spot & an interactive video menu that would allow prospective victims to learn more about the “religion.” YouTube’s willingness to take CO$ advertising dollars makes me wonder if there’s more to the fact that, years ago, my two YouTube accounts were disabled after I posted some vids that were critical of the CO$. It’s probably just a coincidence because I can’t blame YouTube for preferring to take down accounts rather than continue to listen to a few persistent CO$ whiners. But you know, it just bugs.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet

Here are some photos of Agyness Deyn (in an ill-fitting white Comme des Garcons dress) at the London screening for Pusher, which is her latest film that I probably won’t end up watching. She’s had a handful of roles over the past few years, including the small role of Aphrodite in the Clash of the Titans remake. It seems that Agyness (a.k.a. Laura Hollins) has largely abandoned her native United Kingdom on the downswing of a rather lucrative modelling career (and she had a good run despite lying about her age the whole time — she’s 29 now). As such, she’s been situated in the States for awhile and was the rumored jumpoff for James Franco when he dumped his long-term girlfriend. Then in mid June, she surprised everyone by eloping with Giovanni Ribisi, and may have received a surprise of her own when it was reported that in early August, she suddenly realized she was married to a hardcore Scientologist. Oops.

For now though, Agyness isn’t budging from her marriage, and instead, has been preparing to amp up her acting career. Now she says she has “officially” quit modelling (and presumably singing, which she has tried as well) to go full force in Hollywood. Here are some excerpts from her Independent interview:

On playing a stripper with a heart of gold: “My new film, Pusher, has drugs in it, guns, girls. It could have gone a completely different way, but it’s actually a beautiful, vibrant movie, and my character, [the heroin-addicted stripper] Flo, is lovable, vulnerable — an angel. I had to immerse myself in the character. I worked with this amazing girl from the London strip scene as research. She taught me to be a dancer and gave me the reality that I needed for Flo to be empathetic.

What she really wants to do is act: “I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I was a girl but it was clear that something was stewing. I was very sporty — I swam competitively — and I loved music, the arts, having a creative outlet. And then I got spotted [by a modelling agency], and I’ve had this great chunk of time — 10 years — to find out what I really wanted to do, which is to act.”

But she loved modelling: “Oh god, I loved it. Being 18 years old, from Manchester, and suddenly having this new world to explore — being able to travel, meet all these different people, and immerse myself in all these different cultures — was just so much fun. I suppose I have stopped modelling officially. I’ve not done any for a good long while now. I think it was about four years ago when my feelings were changing towards the industry. I didn’t hate it, but I was yearning to do something different. I was on a gradient. It was a gradual thing.”

She has heroes: “It is so inspiring when you come across a woman who is very strong and dedicated and is amazing at what they do. That’s how I feel about Meryl Streep. You watch her, and you can’t help but notice all of that about her. She’s so influential.”

On her new hubby: “I always keep my cards close to my chest I live in Los Angeles these days, and I’m a very private person. That’s just the way I roll. My husband [the actor Giovanni Ribisi, whom she married in June in a secret ceremony] is as well. We don’t socialise on that [celebrity] level, but in terms of recognition, it does feel really nice when a young girl tells me that I’ve inspired her in some way.”

[From Independent]

While I can appreciate that Agyness claims that she wants privacy, and she and Giovanni’s elopement does support that claim, I also think it’s a bit sketchy that she started hooking up with prominent American actors right at the point when her modelling career began drying up. If she really was freaked by Giovanni’s strong, second-generation Scientology ties, then she’s certainly not acting on that fear. Maybe she’s actually into the CO$ stuff too for the promised career connections. Or maybe she’s just pretending not to hate CO$ because she doesn’t want to ruin her existing acting connections. All I really know is that I’ve always caught an air of falsity about Agyness.

Photos courtesy of WENN

Here are some photos of English model Agyness Deyn walking around in Los Feliz on 7/30. As you can see, Agyness is suspiciously rubbing her belly, which led one of our photo agencies to conclude that she might be preggers, which might be a decent explanation for her sudden nuptuals to Giovanni Ribisi in late June. Honestly though? I doubt Laura Agyness is knocked up at all, and I think she and Giovanni just fell into sudden, mad love and decided to get hitched just for the hell of it.

Certainly, this remains an odd coupling, and it still kills me inside that Giovanni is a Scientologist since he’s such a bloody talented actor. In fact, I think he’s probably the best talent that the CO$ could ever hope to retain (sorry, Tom), and since Giovanni is 2nd-generation CO$, I will cut him a bit of slack and conclude that he’s probably stuck without a way to leave the cult without having to say goodbye to his family forever. On that note, there’s an interesting story in this week’s issue of Star that points towards “Scientology troubles” between the (formerly?) happy couple. Apparently, Agyness had no idea that her lovely new fellow was all hardcore CO$. And now she’s all like, “Oh hell noes!” Really:

British supermodel Agyness Deyn knew actor Giovanni Ribisi a mere two months before she dashed to the altar with him on June 15 — and her Catholic family isn’t happy that she married a serious Scientologist. “Agyness now realizes they don’t know much about each other,” a friend says. Her parents worry that Giovanni, 27, could turn Agyness, 29, against them if they speak out, says another insider, who adds: “Marrying a man she just met was completely out of character for her.”

[From Star, print edition, August 20, 2012]

See, this is why you’re not supposed to marry someone that you’ve only known for two months. Especially in Hollywood, where there exists a fairly decent likelihood that you might, you know, accidentally marry a Scientologist! Seriously though, all Agyness had to do was perform a simple internet search on Giovanni — even his Wikipedia page confirms that he’s very active in the CO$ hoopla. Damn that Xenu.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet, Twitter, and WENN

Well this is an unexpected hookup/romance/marriage if there ever was one. It seems that actor Giovanni Ribisi, 37, and model Agyness Deyn, 29, have been quietly dating for some undetermined period of time, and they just impulsively decided to get married last week at the L.A. County Registrar’s office. Most of us probably already know of Giovanni, who is a relatively acclaimed actor — I think of him mostly from as Scarlett Johansson’s dorky husband in Lost in Translation and as Phoebe Buffay’s brother (Frank Jr.) in “Friends.” As for Agyness, she’s not terribly famous on this side of the pond, but she’s a (still fairly) successful model in the U.K. and has been trying to make it as an actress stateside.

I’ve always thought of Agyness as a little bit sketchy though. Allegedly, she might have been James Franco’s jumpoff after he dumped his long-term girlfriend last year, and she’s not only got a fake name (her real name is Laura Hollins), but she also lied about her real age for most of her modelling career. Giovanni isn’t exactly the picture of perfection either though — he’s a second-generation Scientologist, which makes me believe that perhaps Agyness has gone there too. Here’s the details from Fashionologie with a confirmation from Giovanni’s rep:

File this under unions no one saw coming: Agyness Deyn eloped with actor Giovanni Ribisi last Friday. According to Crown City News, the couple was spotted “passionately kissing” in line at the eastern branch of the Los Angeles County Registrar’s office. When asked if they were there to get married, they shyly said yes. Ribisi also added that he and Deyn had been dating for “a while.”

A spokesperson for Ribisi confirmed the happy news on Thursday afternoon, saying, “Agyness Deyn and Giovanni Ribisi quietly married in Los Angeles over the weekend.” Deyn previously dated Josh Hubbard of The Paddingtons for four years but ended the relationship in 2008. She told The Daily Mail in March that she hadn’t dated anyone for several months, partially due to her hectic acting schedule.

“The fact is I’m choosy, but mainly about a man’s character,” she said. “He has to be interesting, funny, and clever. I don’t even mind if he’s not very good-looking.”

[From Fashionologie]

Congrats to the happy (yet random) couple. This is Giovanni’s second marriage, and as far as I know, it’s Agyness’ first trip down the aisle. Hopefully, it will be a long and happy union and very unlike the strange romance between Frank Jr. and his lady love. Sorry to go there — I just can’t stop thinking about it.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and WENN

I never really paid much attention to Agyness Deyn, beyond the basic understanding that she was a “A Thing” for several years. She got a lot of press, a lot of heat, and circa 2006-07, a lot of the style tastemakers were declaring Agyness the Next Big Thing, the next Kate Moss, the next Linda Evangelista, the next Stella Tennant. Agyness got magazine covers. She got ad campaigns – for Burberry, Vivienne Westwood and Armani, amongst others. She walked all of the big runways. She boned James Franco. And then… everything kind of died down. The hype passed. Everybody kind of figured out that Agyness – real name Laura Hollins – wasn’t all that. So now she’s trying to become an actress. And in a new interview, Agyness finally admitted something that pretty much everyone assumed: she’d been lying about her age for YEARS. When she came on the scene, she was 18 years old and she thought that was “too old” to start modeling. So she shaved some years away. And then she shaved even more away. People thought she was currently 23 years old – she’s admitting that she’s 29. You can read the whole Guardian interview here, and here are some highlights:

Agyness is an actress now: After modelling for 11 years, Deyn has decided to swap the catwalk for the stage, and this week will appear in her first play, a four-handed comedy called The Leisure Society. It is, she readily admits, quite a change. “For modelling, you have to be such a strong person in a way – or seen to be a strong person, do you know what I mean? But in acting you have to get in touch with all the vulnerability that you carry.” She’s been rehearsing for eight hours every day, and talks about it with a sort of awestruck reverence. “When I started doing little bits of acting I was like, this is what I’m supposed to be doing, you know? Going to this place where there’s this fulfillment in kind of like letting go, and also that part of really getting in touch with yourself, to be able to understand a different character, and then portray that to whoever’s watching it, and to be able to penetrate them in a way that touches them. And there’s this unsaid kind of bond with us all [in the cast] which is so powerful, you know? It’s like this family, there for each other; I feel held by the other people who are doing it, which is so great, cos like with modelling for so long it’s a very solo project, and quite lonely. Being part of – well, it makes me feel emotional just talking about it – being part of this with these great people – it’s just like so cool.”

Playing a 21 year old in the play: “I kind of feel like I have to put me as I am now to one side, cos you know, I’m 29, I feel like that’s the age when you start to think about life. What is this all about? Who am I?”

She doesn’t pretend to have an “ugly” past: Deyn seems to become less comfortable when she talks about her old career as a model. She’s the first professional beauty I’ve met who doesn’t pretend to have been an ugly duckling – “No, I suppose as a little girl I was really pretty. I was cute” – which makes a lovely change.

Why she lied about her age: “No, when I decided I would really do modeling I was like 18, and I think at the time that was quite old for a new face, so we knocked off a few years.” The deception has long since been corrected.

Why she changed her name: “Yeah, I started modelling, and they said there are loads of Lauras – you can change your name. I was like, OK, and then I thought about it and said OK, I’ll be called Agnes; my grandmother was called Agnes.” It was as simple as that? “Yeah.” But didn’t her mother, a Reiki master, also change her name – and Deyn’s sister too? Yes, she acknowledges warily. And she changed the spelling because of numerology? “Laurence helped me change my name,” she says matter of factly. “Erm … yeah, that’s it.”

She’s single: “Yeah, single for three years now. I think I’ve forgotten how to function in a relationship. I hope I meet someone, cos it would be nice to have someone to share your joys and accomplishments and hard times with. To have a comrade in life. I’d like a relationship that was like two tree trunks side by side, strong but independent.”

[From The Guardian]

Ugh, I can’t believe I read the full piece. She’s not evil or bitter or full of herself, nothing like that. She’s just… deep as a puddle. Oh, well. They’re not paying her to be smart, I guess.

As for the name-change and the outright lies about her age – I tend to think Agyness was being packaged to the fashion world, much like Lana del Rey has been packaged to the music industry. Agyness wasn’t anything when she was Laura, a 20-something model in London. Then she signed to a New York modeling agency, changed her name, lied about her age in interview after interview, and suddenly she an It Girl. Do you feel betrayed by the lies? Are you pissed off that a rather average, normal girl was repackaged and “created” out of thin air, built solely on hype and vapidity-sold-as-mystique?

By the way, she looks like Tea Leoni, right?

Photos courtesy of WENN.

During the douche explosion that was James Franco’s Playboy interview, he mentioned in passing that he and his girlfriend of five years, Ahna O’Reilly, had broken up. He claimed it was because he was concentrating on his studies at Yale and she just couldn’t handle his brilliance anymore (I’m paraphrasing). But Star Magazine claims the breakup went down because of another woman: model Agyness Deyn. James and Agyness were spotted together, and photographed looking friendly in June, at Six Flags Magic Mountain.

Busted! In the August issue of Playboy magazine, Oscars cohost and 127 Hours star James Franco suggests that he and actress Ahna O’Reilly recently ended their five-year relationship because of his hectic schedule.

“I signed up for more school at Yale,” he says. “I think that was it for her.”

Another likely factor? Star’s report that James and model Agyness Deyn, 28, were “thisclose” while at Six Flags Magic Mountain in LA on June 22.

“They were whispering in each other’s ear,” said an observor. “It definitely looked pretty intimate.”

[From Star Magazine, print edition]

There’s actually a lot more to the story – apparently, Agyness and James met each other in January and “hit it off” and throughout this year, they’ve been associated with each other frequently. Then, Franco posted videos of himself and Agyness hanging out, acting couple-y back in March of this year. Also, Franco photographed Agyness for the July issue of Elle Magazine (you can see some photos from the shoot below, go here for the full pictorial). I’m sure the explanation for all of this is “ART” because Franco, like Lady Gaga, lives, breathes, kills, poops and dies for ART. But it’s also perfectly possible that James Franco was screwing around on his girlfriend with a hipster model and really, isn’t that just a typical douchey Hollywood move? That’s so not ART. That’s gauche and common and not worthy of such a brilliant artist like FRANCO.

Photos courtesy of WENN and Elle/ONTD.