you (mail on sunday) - 7 may 2006

NEXT OF KINSKI

With 80s Screen Legend Nastassja Kinski for a Mother and Eccentric Actor Klaus for a Grandfather, Teenage Beauty Sonja is Keen to Add Her Name to a Family Acting Dynasty

Pinpointing exactly why the young girl looks so familiar might take a while, but the huge brown eyes, flawless olive skin and the coltish kind of sexiness she exudes bring to mind an actress renowned for playing seductive young women in the early 80s.

Nastassja Kinski, the star of films such as Tess, Cat People and Paris, Texas was noted for her earthy beauty, and her daughter Sonja has clearly inherited her good looks. She has inherited, too, the easy confidence of one who knows how to charm herself out of any situation. She arrives late for our photo shoot, after her flight from South America where she has just been to a Rolling Stones concert has been delayed. But she is so gushingly apologetic, and, let's face it, has such a great excuse for her tardiness, that she is forgiven almost immediately.

Her mother exuded European cool, but 19-year-old Sonja, wafting in, bangles jangling, is the epitome of laid-back Californian youth. The shoot is in aid of her role as a model for the new Tommy Hilfiger line, a range of clothes about which she instantly raves. 'Oh, the clothes are so beautiful and young and fresh,' she says, 'and I just get so excited about anything to do with Tommy because his style is so diverse. He can go from ballgowns to rock'n'roll chic and everyone can wear it. I'm normally opposed to modelling because I don't agree with the fact that you have to depend on your physical features alone, but I model for Tommy because I love his clothes and I admire him and how he started the business from nothing.' Sonja met Hilfiger five years ago at one of his store openings in Beverly Hills. 'I was with my mum at the time and she went up to him and said: "I've always wanted to meet you." I was only 14 and I had braces, but Tommy looked at me and said: "You should be a Tommy girl."

Since then, we've just kept in touch and I've opened stores for him in Paris and Milan. He's always been very rock'n'roll,' says Sonja. 'I think Ronnie Wood [of the Rolling Stones] exhibited some of his artwork in Tommy's store in London.' Sonja giggles, her mind clearly still on the Stones concert. 'It was just so great I was hanging out with Mick Jagger afterwards and all of the guys were really cool. Normally, I think everyone's the same, but Mick Jagger and Jimmy Page are the only two people I get starstruck about. Mick was so cool and down-to-earth and very humble and he was telling me how he took my mum out on a date years ago. He started reminiscing about it!' Despite modelling for Tommy Hilfiger, Sonja insists: 'I'm not a model. I'm a photographer, a painter and an actress', and although she admits that she harboured doubts about making the move into acting, it is probably no surprise considering her weighty acting heritage. Her mother, Nastassja, has been in the business for more than 30 years, while her grandfather, the late Klaus Kinski, was noted for his brilliant and unconventional performances in films such as Nosferatu the Vampyre and Fitzcarraldo, both directed by Werner Herzog.

Indeed, it was Sonja's meeting with the famous German director which finally prompted her to join the family business.

'My mum was always just my mum to me, but when I got interested in the idea of acting, I also watched her films, such as Tess and Paris, Texas, and I could see how talented she was, too. But now, I'm just so excited about acting. I was talking to Al Pacino recently,' she says, matter-of-factly dropping the star's name, 'and he told me the same thing that acting is in my genes.' She shrugs. 'I know that as soon as I start doing anything, people will start comparing me to my mum and grandfather and they're going to say I'm only getting on because of them, but I just don't care.' Sonja is currently studying her new craft (there appears to be 'a lot on the horizon', but she's not divulging too much at the moment) and she is now totally enamoured with acting.

'It doesn't even seem like work to me. I practise some scenes with my mum and I ask her for advice which she is always willing to give. She tells me to be wary and cautious of what I say and do and to take care of myself and go with my gut instinct. I've always been very independent, but I listen to her carefully as she knows the business so well.' Certainly, if anyone could warn Sonja about the pitfalls of the acting world, it is her mother.

Nastassja's father Klaus left the family when Nastassja was just eight years old, leaving his daughter to follow him into movies when she was 13. By her own admission, Nastassja grew up quickly, embarking on relationships with older men because, as she once said, she was 'always a child longing for that father figure'. The most notable of those was with the director of Tess, Roman Polanski, when she was just 15; all Sonja will say of that now is, 'I think a lot of the stuff that was in the press about them was overembellished, because I know that they are still good friends.' A string of films ensued for Nastassja, including The Hotel New Hampshire and Revolution with Al Pacino, and then, in 1984, she married film producer Ibrahim Moussa, with whom she had two children Sonja and her brother Aljosha, now 21. The marriage ended acrimoniously eight years later, and in 1993 Nastassja had a daughter, Kenia, with legendary record producer Quincy Jones. She is now single and, according to Sonja, has just completed work on a new David Lynch film.

'I used to go on set with Mum all the time,' recalls Sonja, 'although when I was young, I thought it was boring. She always tells me to work with the best people and gets extremely protective of me. She's very, very worried about men and how they are going to treat me.

Whenever I have a boyfriend, she always wants to have their numbers and know where they live.' Born on 2 March 1986 in Geneva, Sonja's family moved to Rome, where she was brought up until the age of seven, when they moved to California. 'I loved Europe so much because the culture was so amplified,' she says, 'and I was educated by all the travelling we did. Mum was very popular in Europe and so the paparazzi were constantly following her. I grew up with quite a hectic lifestyle, although Mum tried to make our upbringing as humble and private as possible. When we eventually moved to Los Angeles, it was very difficult at first because I could only speak Italian, not English. But eventually it got easier and I made friends.' The move to the States in 1992 was precipitated by Nastassja Kinski falling in love with Quincy Jones, although the subsequent custody battle she faced with Moussa was brutal. 'I had always been very close to my mum,' says Sonja, 'and so all the publicity surrounding the divorce well, it affected me.

He told me that I was in charge of myself and my life and really helped me to see things clearly. He has been like a second father to me at a time when I didn't really see that much of my dad, and I'm still very close to him.' In 1993, Nastassja gave birth to Quincy's daughter, Kenia, and although the couple split after four years, the Kinskis bought a place next door to Jones so that he could remain close to his daughter. 'We're all very close and I'm even becoming very close to my dad, too,' says Sonja. 'There were issues with him, like there always are among families. My father did the best he could at the time and I've been lucky in that I've always had father figures to look up to.' After an hour in her company, you are soon aware of the contradictions within Sonja her charming, youthful scattiness combined with a very definite sense of her being older than her years and you can't help but draw comparisons with her mother.

Five years ago, on the 20th anniversary of a famous Richard Avedon photo which showed Nastassja Kinski lying on the floor with a snake coiling itself around her naked body, Sonja recreated that iconic shot with photographer Michel Comte. 'I was about 14 at the time and I was extremely self-conscious and very, very uncomfortable. Michel is one of my favourite photographers, but to be honest I don't know why I did it, as you can't recreate stuff from the past. My mum was there the whole time and it was beautiful in the end, but I don't know' she trails off. 'I don't think I'd do that again.' She is keen to be taken seriously as a photographer, painter and now actress and although on friendly terms with both Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie of The Simple Life, is eager to shy away from, 'the whole TV thing', and the 'daughters of thing. People always tell me it must be hard living up to expectations others must have of me, but I just try to be my own person.' She smiles. 'I really just want to be known as me.'