For many actors, the decision to go nude for a role is a tough one to make. They grapple with the idea that millions of strangers will see their butt cleavage, that Great Aunt Barb might have a heart attack when she's sees a nip slip, and what will Mom think? Nothing but a flashback to her own youthful nude scenes, if your mother happens to be Susan Sarandon. Sarandon's daughter Eva Amurri will star in nine episodes of Californication, in which she plays a creative writing stripper -- a student of professor Hank Moody by day, pole dancer by night. I know a gaggle of girls who would rather streak down Park Avenue then dance and crawl around in the nude in front of their mother, but that's how Eva's clan does it. Sarandon herself has experience with nudity, playing a seductress in 1978's Pretty Baby, as a lesbian lover to Catherine Deneuve in 1983's The Hunger, and she has a nude sex scene with James Spader in 1990's White Palace. Amurri's role has the majority ruling 'like mother, like daughter,' and though the pictures prove the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, it's their fun and empowering position on nudity that makes the mother/daughter naked team more interesting.

Talk about being thrown under the bus -- and by your own flesh and blood. Susan Sarandon's daughter Eva Amurri said her mom has no style. Speaking to press at Tuesday night's Max Azria show, the 23-year-old actress said her mom has no interest in fashion whatsoever. "She doesn't care. She wears her gym clothes from when she comes back from the gym until night. Sometimes she puts a jacket over it if I really beg her to, but she doesn't really care very much." But Amurri, the spawn of Sarandon and Italian filmmaker Franco Amurri, has friends in fashion. "I don't know, maybe seeing what they do and kind of learning about how artistic it is. The whole process has given me an appreciation I think."

A devastating virus brought the whole moment to a tragic, unforgettable end. But the legacy that is Robert Mapplethorpe extends far beyond the censorship, headlines—and S&M. As a new generation views his subversive, formalistic Polaroid portraits in an ongoing exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Nick Haramis catches up with some of the late icon’s equally illustrious subjects, supporters, chroniclers and partners in crime in an oral history submitted to set the record (mostly) straight.

Taken at a glance, the anthurium looks fragile, as if its rawboned stem might collapse under the weight of the fleshy spike engulfed by heavy leaves which sits atop the entire thing like a crown. Robert Mapplethorpe’s camera, however, not only captures the delicacy of the flower, but also draws attention to its pulsing, yannic throb, which, along with its neoclassical beauty, elevates the near-wilting object into a work of art. It’s a still life, but there’s nothing still about it. And, despite initial appearances to the contrary, it isn’t all that far from his more recognizable photographs, the shocking ones, all of which strive for unparalleled aesthetic splendor.

Eva Amurri is Susan Sarandon's daughter. It's a big deal, to be sure. Even bigger, however, is her jaw-dropping performance as virginal Maureen in director Vadim Perelman's latest drama. Below, the second generation proves she's got what it takes to be a first-rate actress.

By the time I approach the 20th floor of Manhattan's Regency Hotel, I've downed about seven large coffees. My hands are shaking something terrible. My heart is racing, and all I can think is, I've just spent twenty minutes in the same room as Uma fucking Thurman. My day was, well, sort of complete. And then I met Eva Amurri. Angled comfortably on a couch in the suite's living area, she flips through the New York Post absentmindedly. She no longer has the plastic cup of gummi bears she'd been carrying with her earlier that day. "Great bow tie," she says, as I reach out to shake her hand. I flush red. She looks every bit her mother, but it seems obvious and condescending, so I pass on the opportunity to lob a compliment back her way. She's stunning in person, so far from the dowdy, born-again Christian named Maureen she plays in Vadim Perelman's The Life Before Her Eyes, starring, yes, Thurman. In it, Evan Rachel Wood is Diana, a rebellious, life-affirming presence who, together with Maureen, finds herself at the mercy of a high school shooter. Unlike other films of its kind, Before Her Eyes focuses on friendship and love. Violence, while intrinsic to the plot, is pushed aside in favor of blooming adolescence. It's something the 23 year old can relate to, as she steps out from her mother's shadow in one of the most challenging films of the year. Hyperbole? Maybe. But, read on, because maybe it's not.