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Author/s: Ingrid Sischy Issue: Sept, 2000 SHE'S ONLY TWENTY-FIVE, BUT IT'S ALREADY HARD TO IMAGINE THE MOVIES WITHOUT HER [telephone rings) NIGRID SISCHY: Hi, Chloe. How are you? Where are you? CHLOE SEVIGNY: I'm okay. I'm at my mom's house in Connecticut. For some reason I can't sleep in New York City, so when I come home I have to catch up. I slept twelve hours last night. IS: Well, you're going to have to learn to sleep in New York. Didn't you just sign a lease for your own place in the city? That's a big step, madame. CS: Yes. Up until now I've either lived with Harmony Korine [scriptwriter for Kids (1995), director of Gummo (1997) and Julien Donkey-Boy (1999)] or with friends. I've actually been living with my mom in Connecticut for the past two years. I signed the lease during the photo shoot for your story. But I haven't been approved by the board yet. The apartment is in an artists' residence building, but now they've become sort of wary of artists-you know, "Do we really want some young actress in the building who's gonna be loud and rambunctious?" [laughs] IS: For many people I bet It's a shock to hear you've never had your own apartment. Here you are, basically synonymous with New York hipness--you've done all these movies, and are so worldly--yet you're just beginning to officially go out on your own. CS: [laughs) IS: So, now I take it you're going to become one of these "new, young Park Avenue socialites." CS: [really laughs] Actually, the apartment is downtown. It's just nineteen feet by twelve feet. IS: Sounds like one of my first apartments in New York. Has It been good for you to live with your mother? Like an anchor in a time of many changes? CS: I've been living here because I'm always traveling so much, either promoting a film or working on one, but it's nice to be with my mother and in the house that I grew up in. Still, the more I'm around the more annoyed I get. IS: I'm sure it's mutual [laughs]. CS: Sure. When you're twenty-five, it's pretty much time to go. But even when I move into Manhattan, I'll come back every weekend to Connecticut. I've lived in this town my whole life, so every time I go out I see people I know, mostly parents of people I grew up with. IS: And what do they have to say? CS: [High-pitched voice] "Oh, it's so exciting. I saw you in Vogue." And a lot of them see my films, which kind of freaks, me out, especially with Boys Don't Cry. IS: When I first met you, it was in the summer of '95, around the time Kids came out, when we did the cover story on you. Does It. feel like a long time ago to you? CS: It does, yes. A lifetime ago, almost. IS: Since then, your movies have been- CS: Kids [1995], Trees Lounge [1996], Gummo [1997], Palmetto [1998], The Last Days of Disco [1998], A Map of the World [1999] with Sigourney Weaver and Julianne Moore, Boys Don't Cry [1999], American Psycho [2000] ... IS: You did the costumes for Gummo too, right? CS: Yes. I wish I could do more. But right now I'm focusing on acting. IS: Tell me how you choose a part. CS: When I get sent a script, I see who's involved, and if there's someone--the writer, the director, another actor, the producer--that I know and who has done good work before, then I'm immediately intrigued. And if the film involves someone whose work I don't respect, I have a hard time reading it and I usually can't get past the fifth page. Of course I'm still not at a place where I can necessarily get the parts I want--but I don't know whether anybody ever is. IS: Tell me about a part you've gotten that you didn't think you were going to get. CS: I guess the one in Boys Don't Cry, because they offered it to two other actresses before me, and I thought for sure one of them would have done it. I've wanted to be a part of telling that story since the first time I heard it. IS: What was striking about your performance was that you never seemed to feel the need to signal to the audience, "Hey, I'm really an actress, not a girl in love with a boy who's really a girl." You just gave the part and the plot all the realness and authenticity it deserved. CS: Thank you. IS: And then when the film took off, and you were nominated for an Oscar, you really kept your perspective. [remember reading somewhere that you said, "I don't even think it would be a good thing If I got it; it feels too early." CS: I did say that. IS: Anyway, during the whole Oscar hoopla, did a lot of directors come up and tell you how much they love your work? CS: A lot of directors' wives did. IS: And were you doing the whole Hollywood thing while you were out there? CS: I spent a lot of time with my friends Tara Sub-koff and Matthew Damhave. IS: How did you become friends with them? CS: Tara and I worked on The Last Days of Disco together. It's really rare that you keep any friends from a film, and for some reason we really clicked. She's from Westport, Connecticut, and I'm from Darien, so there's just something there. We've maintained this relationship for years now. We met Matthew at a rock show, for a band called The Champs, in L.A. He's the guy I brought with me the other night when we all went out. Anyway, we started talking to him and hanging around with him. Eventually they decided to start a clothing business together. It's called Imitation of Christ. IS: They sent some great clothes over to the photo shoot we did with you. I'm glad we ended up shooting some of them. I understand they've only been in business for about twelve weeks. CS: Yeah. I'm on their board of directors. [laughs] IS: And right now you're a very helpful client. CS: Yes, [laughs] very helpful. IS: Do you find it pretty easy to find soul mates when you're working on a movie? CS: It's easier when you're on location, because in the city everyone goes home to their respective boyfriends and girlfriends. I love being on location--it's like being in a little bubble. I always find people I connect with. IS: Your brother also seems to be an important person in your life. CS: Yes, I often stay with him when I'm in New York and bring him with me to different film festivals. He's very handsome and charming, which is a good thing at industry-type events. He loves to talk to all those people, so I don't really have to say anything. IS: He's become a very popular DJ, right? CS: He's always been really into music, but he was working in finance for a long time. It was a high-stress job, especially when he was trading commodities. I could see it aging him--I thought he was going to have a heart attack. So even though I'm not into the whole celebrity DJ thing, if he can make money doing it for a little while, and have a break from finance, he might as well go for it. IS: Was he a rebel in high school, too? CS: Yes, and since he's older than me he made it easier for me. IS: How would you define who you were in high school? CS: Oh, God. I don't want to remember. IS: Well, you have to. CS: [laughs] I was really into getting the hell out of there. I was not into school at all, and I never participated in any extracurricular activities, which I now kind of regret I always had friends who went to different schools or lived in the city. I was into different sorts of scenes, whether it was the hippie scene or the punk scene or the New Wave scene. IS: Remind me, did you graduate? CS: Yes. IS: You started coming to New York with your dad while you were still in high school, right? And you were already well known as the kid who worked at the clothing store Liquid Sky. Have you had any contact with any of your old teachers? CS: Actually, I used to go to summer theater camp when I was in elementary school, and the theater director called me recently and asked me to come in and speak to the kids, so I might do that. IS: I bet it would mean a lot to them. Okay, let's get back to acting. Is there enough stuff out there you can respect that you can be in? CS: No, which is why I've had to turn to doing commercial work like the H&M campaign. I hate myself for doing things like that, but it's the only way I can survive financially. I know it will be up on the telephone booths for however long, and then it will disappear. A film is there forever. IS: I thought you did it because of your democratic attitude. I heard you can get a whole winter wardrobe at H&M for about ten dollars. CS: [laughs] Well, I'd rather go to a thrift shop myself. If I came from a wealthy family and didn't need the money, then maybe I would have been able to refuse the offer, but I don't. It's me surviving the movie industry. I'd still rather do an ad than some romantic comedy that I would later hate myself for. IS: It's interesting, though, because you have a real link to fashion. The designers who number among the most influential in the world right now have all shown a real interest in you. They respect your sense of style. Where do you think your interest in design and fashion comes from? CS: I've always had it. I was very into dress-up as a child, and I had trunks of old costumes my mother would get for me at thrift shops--gowns and heels and stuff. It's just instinctual for me. IS: I think I'm beginning to understand why you're one of the few young actresses around who doesn't seem overexposed. No one gets bored with you because you're such a ball of contradictions. Take the solidity of your relationships. You've been with the same publicist since the beginning, right? CS: It's been five or six years now, I guess. I'm surprised Amanda [Laurence, Chloe's publicist] hasn't fired me. [both laugh] I'm constantly turning down huge magazine cover stories. IS: Why? CS: I often decide which ones to do based on the people who have been on the cover before--and a lot of the time that means I say no. And she'll say, "You know, it would really help your career," and I'll say, "You know, Amanda, I just can't do it. I can't see myself on that cover." IS: You know all the photographers like photographing you because they think you are very glamorous in a very contemporary way. CS: And yet I've never played a glamorous role. [laughs] IS: Would you like to be in one? CS: Sure. I'd love to be cast in a sweeping period drama. I love tragic romances like The End of the Affair [1999], or things like McCabe and Mrs. Miller [1971] or Picnic at Hanging Rock [1975]. I've always been drawn to period dramas--as a child my favorite TV show was Little House on the Prairie. But for some reason people always think of me as a street-urchin girl. Anyway, right now I'm reading a lot of English plays--Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward--and working on an English accent because I might want to do a Joe Orton play with Scott Elliott, who directed Hazlewood Junior High, the play I did, and A Map of the World, which I was also in. IS: Do you watch movies a lot? CS: I see all the movies. It's my favorite thing to go sit in the movies, be it a bad film or a good film. When I moved in with Harmony we lived near Kim's Video, so we'd watch a couple of movies a day and go to all the revival houses. It was like going to film school. My favorite period of cinema is the late sixties through the seventies, because of all the amazing directors--and the roles for women in those days! Jane Fonda's part in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? [1969], and Faye Dunaway's in Bonnie and Clyde [1967]. And Robert Altman always created great parts for women, from 3 Women [1977] to Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean [1982] with Sandy Dennis. Someone's actually remaking Bonnie and Clyde, and they approached me about taking the role of Bonnie. IS: Why do you think there are so few movie mavericks right now? CS: I don't know. I think Lars von Trier and Thomas Ventura are two of the greatest filmmakers working today, and I love James Gray's work. But it would be a good question for Harmony [laughing]. He'd just blame John Cassavetes. IS: Why? Because he thinks people want to do work like Cassavetes's? CS: Yeah, and they all fail miserably. IS: Do you have any desire to direct? CS: Hopefully, I'm going to direct the second segment of a three-part movie Harmony has written called Jokes. It's three shorts based on three different Milton Berle jokes. Harmony wrote the first two and they're brilliant. "Slippers," the one I'm supposed to do, is my favorite thing he's ever written. It's about a blind girl and her sister and their relationship. IS: Speaking of relationships, how long have you and Harmony been apart? CS: I don't know. It's hard to keep track because we're always on-again, off-again. IS: I always think of you two as the Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton of our time. But you don't seem like someone who has a lot of difficulty being alone. CS: No. I prefer to be alone. That's why I spend so much time in Connecticut. I'm much more in the public eye than I used to be, and I'm recognized a lot more. IS: Well, you are a movie star, you know. CS: How come I don't feel like one? IS: You don't? CS: Not when I'm speaking to you from my mother's house. COPYRIGHT 2000 Brant Publications, Inc. COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group |
| interview by ingrid sischy |
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