Beyond the Image: Eugenia Kuzmina Reveals Her Most Personal Work Yet with ILY

The actress, international model, comedian, and theatre director unveils an intimate collection of poetry, illustrated by artist CX, exploring love, childhood, memory, and the beautiful contradictions of being human.

For much of her life, Eugenia Kuzmina has been the woman in front of the camera. From her early modeling days in Moscow to international fashion campaigns, Hollywood films, and the theatrical stage, she has inhabited countless characters and identities.

Now, with her upcoming poetry book, ILY, Kuzmina is inviting audiences to discover the woman behind the image.

An intimate collection of 44 poems, illustrated by artist CX, ILY explores the fragile territory between innocence and experience, love and loss, beauty and pain. Moving between childhood memories, family relationships, romantic longing, and the search for identity, the book offers a deeply personal portrait of a woman learning to give language to experiences that once seemed impossible to express.

The title, ILY, an abbreviation for “I Love You,” is deceptively simple. Three letters that can express tenderness, longing, devotion, and sometimes the very thing we struggle most to say.

From Moscow to Hollywood, and Back to Herself

Born in Moscow, Kuzmina grew up in the final years of the Soviet Union, in a world far removed from the glamour that would later define her public image.

Her childhood was shaped by extraordinary contrasts: music, figure skating, the emotional complexity of family life, and the shadow of history. Her father, a nuclear scientist, was among the first responders to the Chornobyl disaster.

Discovered as a young teenager, she began modeling with legendary Russian fashion designer Slava Zaitsev before embarking on an international career that would take her to Paris, Tokyo, New York, and Los Angeles.

But behind the photographs and film credits was another story, one that could not be told through fashion or performance alone.

ILY draws from that inner world, revisiting childhood, motherhood, relationships, grief, and the complicated process of understanding oneself.

Rather than presenting a conventional autobiography, Kuzmina uses poetry to capture emotional moments that resist chronological storytelling.

An Alice in Wonderland for Grown-Ups

Visually, ILY inhabits a world somewhere between a forgotten childhood fairy tale and a surrealist dream.

Illustrated by artist CX, the collection brings poetry and visual storytelling together, creating a dialogue between Kuzmina’s deeply personal words and a delicate, dreamlike visual universe.

Pale blue tones, romantic imagery, and recurring symbols of innocence create a striking contrast with the emotional complexity of the writing.

There is something distinctly Alice-like about Kuzmina’s artistic universe: a young girl wandering through a world whose rules are constantly changing, searching for meaning in places where logic no longer applies.

The aesthetic is feminine but not fragile, whimsical but never entirely innocent.

It reflects the contradictions that have become central to Kuzmina’s creative identity: the model and the comedian, the romantic and the skeptic, the little girl and the woman who has survived enough to question everything.

Poetry as an Act of Reclamation

Throughout the collection, Kuzmina explores the relationships that shape us long before we understand their influence.

The book is dedicated to Kuzmina's children, and the intention is to open a conversation about generational trauma and awareness

Poems about her mother and father sit alongside reflections on childhood, identity, anxiety, romantic attachment, and the longing to be understood.

Other pieces examine the emotional residue of experiences that remain with us long after the events themselves have passed.

Rather than offering neat resolutions, ILY embraces contradiction.

Love can be both a refuge and a source of confusion. Beauty can conceal loneliness. Humor can coexist with grief. And the desire to be seen is not always the same as the desire to be known.

The book’s emotional honesty marks a new chapter for an artist whose career has frequently depended on transformation.

This time, the transformation is inward.

More Than a Book: A Creative Universe

For Kuzmina, ILY also represents the beginning of a broader artistic vision, connecting poetry, fashion, performance, and visual storytelling.

Her fascination with childhood symbolism, vintage femininity, and surrealist humor extends into her developing fashion and accessories projects, including her luxury handbag concept, Emotional Baggage.

Across these mediums, a common theme emerges: the idea that vulnerability and humor are not opposites, but different ways of confronting the absurdity of human experience.

In an industry obsessed with reinvention, Kuzmina’s latest creative chapter is less about becoming someone new than allowing previously unseen parts of herself to exist in public.

The Woman Behind the Photograph

In the accompanying editorial photographs, Kuzmina appears surrounded by objects that evoke memory and imagination: an antique typewriter, a childhood teddy bear, delicate pastel dresses, and a copy of ILY.

The images feel like stills from a film whose protagonist has stepped outside the story to become its author.

They capture the central tension of the book: a woman whose outward image has been carefully observed by others, now choosing the words through which she wishes to be understood.

With ILY, Eugenia Kuzmina is not abandoning the worlds of cinema, fashion, or theatre.

She is simply adding something they could never fully provide: her own voice.

And perhaps that is the most compelling transformation of all.

Discover More About Eugenia Kuzmina and ILY

Explore Eugenia Kuzmina’s creative work on her official website and follow her on Instagram for updates. Readers can also discover ILY and purchase a copy through Bookshop.org, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble.