Spanning thirty years of works by celebrity photographer Lorenzo Agius, the show includes pictures of Kate Winslett and Ewan MacGregor that show the way they have changed through the decades. Other familiar faces include Jude Law, Jared Leto, Tilda Swinton and Will Smith. There’s also an audiovisual element in which you can see Agius on screen surrounded by some of the iconic covers on which his imagery appears.
Presented in an innovative and explorative way, the exhibition includes not only dozens of stunning photographs: it also offers insights into the photographer’s process and career progression with a ’90s room which presents the springboard of Agius’ meteoric rise in the world of portrait photography. Expect to see the Spice Girls, iconic imagery from the film Trainspotting and covers from Vanity Fair across the pond. One of these shows Liam Gallager with Patsy Kensit in her underwear an alongside the blown-up version of the shot, there is also a small print that shows magazine art director’s retouching. “Visitors can see how he added two arrows pointing to Patsy’s nipples, asking for them to be removed,” explains Agius. “Of course, all retouching was done by hand back in the ’90s.”
The show also boasts a Legends room where you’ll find Denzel Washington, Jack Nicholson, Cate Blanchett and Madonna amongst others. There are big names as big prints, and lots of little prints too!
To offer a more immersive experience than a simple display of past works, the exhibition includes giant contact sheets, as big as five feet by six, which are giant showcases of all the images Agius took on a particular film, the ‘negatives’ of those of us who remember the days prior to digital photography. Many of which have never been seen before. It was from these that Agius and magazine editors would choose which picture to use for a film’s poster or on the cover of a particular edition. It’s fascinating to see the variations on the iconic images and to muse on whether you would have made the same choice.
These also give an insight into the story behind the photos themselves and how the image was built.
“I had a half hour shoot with Jack Nicholson for an American magazine that turned into five hours,” Agius grins. “We had a blast. One of the shots from that afternoon shows him jumping in the air, clicking his heels. It was a fraction of a second moment.”
“It’s a single frame. I only had a split second to take the picture,” he continues. “Jack was dancing and clowning around, and then I hit him with a ‘how about you jump in the air?’ It wasn’t a premeditated idea – he was 72 after all – but he leapt up and I captured it perfectly. You can’t do something like that again. If you don’t get it first time you’ve missed your moment.”
There are also shots of Brad Pitt at a surfer’s cabin in Malibu dating back to the first time Agius worked with Brad. “He was as cool as anything,” Agius recalls. “A very chilled, very laid back guy from mid-America hanging out in his worn T-shirt. He wasn’t ostentatious or the big icon in any way.”
The show also includes Angelina Jolie unexpectedly in a blindfold.
“I’ve worked with Angelina from the very beginning,” explains Lorenzo. “I said to her “You’re so famous and you’re so recognisable. I could put a blindfold on you and people would still know you.” She replied ‘Let’s do it!’ and so we did!”
“My first shoot with Angelina had been at the very beginning of her career in her early 20s when she made Girl Interrupted with Winona Ryder, a film about a young woman in a psychiatric hospital which was her launchpad to fame and success. Back then, Angelina was conflicted herself, a girl with issues, and maybe even a drug problem. On the photoshoot, I nearly sent her home because she was so troubled: she was crying and she disappeared to the bathroom for an hour. I felt so sorry for her. It was a difficult place to be.”
“It was about ten years later when I photographed her with the blindfold, and she was completely transformed. She was on a better path in life, working for UNICEF and, amazingly, even more beautiful.”
Another one of the shots in the exhibition is the British actor Bill Nighy whom Lorenzo wanted to shoot like photographer and designer Cecil Beaton. “Like a camp lovey,” Agius smiles. “I said, ‘I want to put champagne bottles, glasses and cigarettes everywhere and a feather boa around your neck. I want it to look like we’ve just had this party in your hotel room and I want to shoot you without trousers on!’ And Bill said. ‘I’m not doing it.’ But then I showed him a picture of Frank Sinatra in a shirt with a bow tie, his boxer shorts and braces for his socks in his dressing room in the early days of the Rat Pack. It was the ultimate in cool and so Bill was convinced and did the shot. Now, whenever I see Bill, he laughs that I’m the only photographer that’s managed to get his trousers off.”
“Actors love playing the part because they’re chameleons: all the world’s a stage and they are very rarely truly themselves, so it’s hard to get to know the real person,” Agius continues. “They’re also very good at only showing you what they want you to see so it’s a measure of their trust if they let you capture what’s below the surface, and when I do, it’s like magic.”
“Someone else I adore working with, who has been filming in Malta this year, is Helena Bonham Carter,” adds Agius. “I’ve known for over 30 years and I have a massive archive of photos: from the very beginning you can see she’s beautifully eccentric in a loveable way or what Americans call ‘kookie’. She’s 100% genuine, that’s her real personality. She’s the Vivienne Westwood of the acting world! In one of my early pictures of her she’s so young, wearing a lace bodysuit, and much more recently, she had the idea that she would be Freida Kahlo and so that shot’s going to be in the exhibition. No one’s ever seen that before ever.”
Look at Me: Framing the Iconic by Lorenzo Agius is cuated by Charlene Vella. It runs at Spazju Kreattiv from 12 September 2025 – 2 November 2025.
