Chloe Sevigny got a headstart on being a rebel. Her first film was the controversial Kids by Larry Clark. Since then shes upped the controversial aspect of acting by being in films like Gummo, American Psycho, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Boys Dont Cry.
Now shes in the new Woody Allen movie, Melinda and Melinda. The film is split up into two parts the comedy and the tragedy. As usual Sevigny appears in the tragedy portion as a woman who is disenchanted with her marriage and starts an affair with someone elses boyfriend.
Check out the official website for Melinda and Melinda
Daniel Robert Epstein: Hilary Swank pulled it off again at the Oscars.
Chloe Sevigny: She did. It's a great to get awarded.
DRE: Are you next?
CS: Oh, I don't know. I hope one day I'll be back there. We all have our own path.
DRE: How did this part in Melinda and Melinda come to you?
CS: I'd met with Woody on two other films before this, I read for him one time and obviously didn't get the parts. Then I got a call from my agent saying, Woody's got a part for you but he wants to see you again. So you have to go up to his place and meet with him. So I went in and it was very brief. He sat me in this chair under this light and said, I just wanted to have a look at you. That was it and then he offered me the part.
DRE: Was the experience different from what you expected?
CS: I'd heard that he didn't say anything to you at all and that you're really left out on your own but he was actually a lot more vocal. He gave us a lot more direction than I expected. He would give you more direction if he wasn't happy with something or if he didn't believe in something you were saying. He definitely encouraged a bit of improvisation and making the words into your own.
DRE: Is doing a Woody Allen film something you can check off your list as a New York actor?
CS: Yeah I think every New York actor wants to and dreams about being in a Woody Allen film. When I first started acting I made a list of all the directors that I wanted to work with and he was at the top. So I'm very pleased about having this experience.
DRE: Who else was on that list?
CS: Oh, there were many, and I've gotten to work with some of them. I think that Lars Von Trier was on the list and I've worked with him and also Jim Jarmusch and I've worked with him. So there've been a few.
DRE: How would you compare the directing styles of Lars and Woody?
CS: Lars is very personal and he gets in your business and there's a lot of chit chatting and Woody is very much just like a working experience. You go to work, do your job and you leave. Lars is a lot more joking around and teasing you and stuff like that. Its two very different environments and plus working on the two films that I worked on with Lars, Dogville and Manderlay, we were on a soundstage. So we're all kind of stuck in there together which added to the sort of strangeness.
DRE: With the two parts to this movie it seems like the comedy has Jews in it and the tragedy part is WASPS.
CS: I didn't realize that. You're right. I definitely saw her more as a WASPY sort of woman. She came from a really good family, went to an all girl school, and then she doesn't really have to work. She has family money, but works as a teacher to keep herself busy. And I think that it also comes out in her relationships. She's in this really unhappy relationship yet she stays in it for fear of what other people will think of her, disappointing her family and that seems like kind of a waspish trait.
DRE: Is your real New York apartment as big as the one in the movie?
CS: Half as big.
DRE: Did you know much about the comic elements of the movie?
CS: Yes because I got to read the entire script.
DRE: Why did he do that?
CS: I guess he likes me. They said, You can come in and read the script and decide whether or not you want to make the movie.
DRE: Did you have a choice between the comedy and the drama?
CS: No he had me in mind for the drama unfortunately.
DRE: Why unfortunately?
CS: I think that it's more fun to do the comedy. I love his dramas but I think that his comedies are strong too.
DRE: Was there much difference between shooting Dogville and Manderlay?
CS: It felt like penance, like real torture because at least on Dogville, we had body doubles to do the real torture work such as when you're just walking around or when you were in the far background. When they're shooting a scene in the foreground, they'd have your body double which was a very strange experience going to lunch because we'd all be in our outfits with our hair and then you'd sit down and there would be a table next to you with everyone looking exactly like everyone else. It was very strange. But on Manderlay they didn't have body doubles. So I had to do a lot of the tedious work of lying in the background or pretending to work in the background for hours on end. It was really an exercise in discipline.
DRE: Lars cut the donkey slaughter scene; do you think he should have kept it?
CS: The donkey was very old and very ill and was going to be slaughtered anyhow. It wasn't like he got a young donkey. The donkey was on his last legs, but I think that it would cause a lot of unnecessary brouhaha. One of the actors actually left because he was very upset that he was going to sacrifice the donkey for film.
DRE: Nicole Kidman had some words to say about working with Lars. Would you work with him again?
CS: I would because I think that his focus is mainly on the leading ladies and she was a leading lady. In Manderlay I was supporting Bryce Dallas Howard and when you're a supporting character you don't get as much of the intensity of Lars. You get to just do your thing in the background. He still likes to get your goat now and again, but it's not as hard on you.
DRE: Was it by choice you avoided doing a lot of Hollywood movies?
CS: I think that in the beginning of my career that was something that I was striving for. I only wanted to do intense movies or do movies that I thought were changing the face of cinema or something. I was a real idealist especially because at that time my boyfriend was Harmony Korine. He can be very influential as he was on me and also I didn't go to the movies that often. I watched a lot of movies at home, a lot of old movies so I didn't really see a lot of commercials films and I think that I was just being young and idealistic.
Now I realize that there are movies for everyone obviously and there's room enough for everything. I love to go and watch Spider-Man or something and just be wildly entertained for two hours so I would love to be in a film like that. I just have to sort of find that crossover somehow. I've been offered parts in romantic comedies as the friend to the star and things like that. I just didn't think that was right for me at the time. I think that I'm kind of holding out and waiting for the right crossover project. I think that you're also afraid that you're not going to be forgiven. Although actors can do terrible movies, walk away and then win Oscars.
DRE: Thats happened.
CS: Yeah. Look at The Core.
DRE: What superpower would you like have?
CS: Superpower? Oh my God, I don't know. Superpower, there's so many. I guess I'd really like to be able to fly. Thats not very creative.
DRE: Theyre looking for someone to play Supergirl.
CS: Are they? I don't think that people really think of me as athletic, but in fact I'm very athletic actually. I'm quite fit.
DRE: How do you think The Brown Bunny will be perceived years from now?
CS: I've always been in films that were sort of controversial or pushing the limits of what you can and can't say or do on film. I hope that it will take some sort of place in history. I feel like were in such conservative times and it's just atrocious. It's funny too because Vincent Gallo and I are two of the most conservative people I know and for us to make this movie, is very odd.
DRE: Has Thom Fitzgerlads Three Needles been distributed yet?
CS: I don't think so. I've been waiting for that film to come out. It's my favorite role since the character of Lana in Boys Don't Cry. I'm really proud of the performance and really excited about it. I can't wait to see the film and I don't know what's going on.
DRE: Who do you play?
CS: I play a Novice working in South Africa at a mission. It deals with the AIDS epidemic which I think is an epidemic that people aren't focusing on much anymore. It would be good to kind of get it back into the spotlight. Our film is very interesting because my portion, at least, takes place in South Africa and I think that a lot of people aren't aware of things that are happening with the disease in South Africa .Some men think that you'll be cured of the disease by having sex with a virgin. I mean, that's something that they believe in. They don't rape virgins as you and I think of a virgin, like teen girls, they rape children. So it's very eye opening and disturbing. So we'll see.
DRE: The final Star Wars film is coming out this year, were you ever a big fan?
CS: Yeah. I was Princess Leia for Halloween probably when I was like six or seven. I remember the photographs. I don't remember the time. I had the buns and the white gown. My brother was a Storm Trooper.
DRE: He should have been Luke Skywalker.
CS: I know, but I don't think the outfit was as cool.
DRE: Whats the next thing you are working on?
CS: I'm actually about to do a TV show for HBO. I'm doing one of their Sunday night dramas. It's called Big Love and it's about Mormons. I play a polygamist in the modern day. It's a family drama, but there are three wives.
DRE: Who do you play?
CS: I'm the middle wife and I grew up in a community on a compound. My father, a prophet, is played by the great Harry Dean Stanton. So I think that I have a bit of an ego trip going on where I'm a princess and my father is a prophet and I'm kind of stuck in the middle of these two wives which I think is difficult, sort of like being the middle child. I overspend, am kind of bratty and a really bad mother because I'm used to all the other wives taking care of the kids. It's really the juiciest part.
Tom Hanks is producing it and there are two writers. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of them before, but I think that it's going to be like Six Feet Under. Jeanne Tripplehorn is the older wife and Ginnifer Goodwin is the younger wife and Bill Paxton is the husband.
DRE: Mainstream Mormons dont really like the fundamentalists. Are you expecting any backlash?
CS: The Latter Day Saints try and sweep that under the carpet as much as they can. It gives them such a bad name but still the production company said, Oh, we're going to go shoot in Salt Lake. I was like, Are you kidding me?' But we'll see.
DRE: When does that start shooting?
CS: At the end of the month. We already shot the pilot episode. The show will come out in September.
DRE: How did doing all that leave you feeling about marriage as an institution?
CS: I mean, I still believe in the institution of marriage, and I'd love to get married. I think doing it in a church and stuff is a little old fashioned. But I think that way that celebrities treat marriage is equally as disgusting. There's just divorce all the time and I don't know. I'm not going to talk about it.
I hope to get married sooner rather than later and have children and all the rest of that. But I don't know, I guess I'll take it as it comes.
DRE: Where you do you fall in the question of whether life is a comedy or a tragedy?
CS: I think that until the past few years I definitely thought of it as a tragedy and was a fairly depressed teenager. I was a disaffected youth but now I'm trying to sort of take things a little more light.
DRE: Would you like to do a broad comedy?
CS: I'd like to do sort of a Coen Brothers or Alexander Payne style comedy, something like that.
DRE: What are your favorite DVDs?
CS: I don't own many. I don't get any of them for free. I do own Masculine Feminine., Streetwise and Over the Edge.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Now shes in the new Woody Allen movie, Melinda and Melinda. The film is split up into two parts the comedy and the tragedy. As usual Sevigny appears in the tragedy portion as a woman who is disenchanted with her marriage and starts an affair with someone elses boyfriend.
Check out the official website for Melinda and Melinda
Daniel Robert Epstein: Hilary Swank pulled it off again at the Oscars.
Chloe Sevigny: She did. It's a great to get awarded.
DRE: Are you next?
CS: Oh, I don't know. I hope one day I'll be back there. We all have our own path.
DRE: How did this part in Melinda and Melinda come to you?
CS: I'd met with Woody on two other films before this, I read for him one time and obviously didn't get the parts. Then I got a call from my agent saying, Woody's got a part for you but he wants to see you again. So you have to go up to his place and meet with him. So I went in and it was very brief. He sat me in this chair under this light and said, I just wanted to have a look at you. That was it and then he offered me the part.
DRE: Was the experience different from what you expected?
CS: I'd heard that he didn't say anything to you at all and that you're really left out on your own but he was actually a lot more vocal. He gave us a lot more direction than I expected. He would give you more direction if he wasn't happy with something or if he didn't believe in something you were saying. He definitely encouraged a bit of improvisation and making the words into your own.
DRE: Is doing a Woody Allen film something you can check off your list as a New York actor?
CS: Yeah I think every New York actor wants to and dreams about being in a Woody Allen film. When I first started acting I made a list of all the directors that I wanted to work with and he was at the top. So I'm very pleased about having this experience.
DRE: Who else was on that list?
CS: Oh, there were many, and I've gotten to work with some of them. I think that Lars Von Trier was on the list and I've worked with him and also Jim Jarmusch and I've worked with him. So there've been a few.
DRE: How would you compare the directing styles of Lars and Woody?
CS: Lars is very personal and he gets in your business and there's a lot of chit chatting and Woody is very much just like a working experience. You go to work, do your job and you leave. Lars is a lot more joking around and teasing you and stuff like that. Its two very different environments and plus working on the two films that I worked on with Lars, Dogville and Manderlay, we were on a soundstage. So we're all kind of stuck in there together which added to the sort of strangeness.
DRE: With the two parts to this movie it seems like the comedy has Jews in it and the tragedy part is WASPS.
CS: I didn't realize that. You're right. I definitely saw her more as a WASPY sort of woman. She came from a really good family, went to an all girl school, and then she doesn't really have to work. She has family money, but works as a teacher to keep herself busy. And I think that it also comes out in her relationships. She's in this really unhappy relationship yet she stays in it for fear of what other people will think of her, disappointing her family and that seems like kind of a waspish trait.
DRE: Is your real New York apartment as big as the one in the movie?
CS: Half as big.
DRE: Did you know much about the comic elements of the movie?
CS: Yes because I got to read the entire script.
DRE: Why did he do that?
CS: I guess he likes me. They said, You can come in and read the script and decide whether or not you want to make the movie.
DRE: Did you have a choice between the comedy and the drama?
CS: No he had me in mind for the drama unfortunately.
DRE: Why unfortunately?
CS: I think that it's more fun to do the comedy. I love his dramas but I think that his comedies are strong too.
DRE: Was there much difference between shooting Dogville and Manderlay?
CS: It felt like penance, like real torture because at least on Dogville, we had body doubles to do the real torture work such as when you're just walking around or when you were in the far background. When they're shooting a scene in the foreground, they'd have your body double which was a very strange experience going to lunch because we'd all be in our outfits with our hair and then you'd sit down and there would be a table next to you with everyone looking exactly like everyone else. It was very strange. But on Manderlay they didn't have body doubles. So I had to do a lot of the tedious work of lying in the background or pretending to work in the background for hours on end. It was really an exercise in discipline.
DRE: Lars cut the donkey slaughter scene; do you think he should have kept it?
CS: The donkey was very old and very ill and was going to be slaughtered anyhow. It wasn't like he got a young donkey. The donkey was on his last legs, but I think that it would cause a lot of unnecessary brouhaha. One of the actors actually left because he was very upset that he was going to sacrifice the donkey for film.
DRE: Nicole Kidman had some words to say about working with Lars. Would you work with him again?
CS: I would because I think that his focus is mainly on the leading ladies and she was a leading lady. In Manderlay I was supporting Bryce Dallas Howard and when you're a supporting character you don't get as much of the intensity of Lars. You get to just do your thing in the background. He still likes to get your goat now and again, but it's not as hard on you.
DRE: Was it by choice you avoided doing a lot of Hollywood movies?
CS: I think that in the beginning of my career that was something that I was striving for. I only wanted to do intense movies or do movies that I thought were changing the face of cinema or something. I was a real idealist especially because at that time my boyfriend was Harmony Korine. He can be very influential as he was on me and also I didn't go to the movies that often. I watched a lot of movies at home, a lot of old movies so I didn't really see a lot of commercials films and I think that I was just being young and idealistic.
Now I realize that there are movies for everyone obviously and there's room enough for everything. I love to go and watch Spider-Man or something and just be wildly entertained for two hours so I would love to be in a film like that. I just have to sort of find that crossover somehow. I've been offered parts in romantic comedies as the friend to the star and things like that. I just didn't think that was right for me at the time. I think that I'm kind of holding out and waiting for the right crossover project. I think that you're also afraid that you're not going to be forgiven. Although actors can do terrible movies, walk away and then win Oscars.
DRE: Thats happened.
CS: Yeah. Look at The Core.
DRE: What superpower would you like have?
CS: Superpower? Oh my God, I don't know. Superpower, there's so many. I guess I'd really like to be able to fly. Thats not very creative.
DRE: Theyre looking for someone to play Supergirl.
CS: Are they? I don't think that people really think of me as athletic, but in fact I'm very athletic actually. I'm quite fit.
DRE: How do you think The Brown Bunny will be perceived years from now?
CS: I've always been in films that were sort of controversial or pushing the limits of what you can and can't say or do on film. I hope that it will take some sort of place in history. I feel like were in such conservative times and it's just atrocious. It's funny too because Vincent Gallo and I are two of the most conservative people I know and for us to make this movie, is very odd.
DRE: Has Thom Fitzgerlads Three Needles been distributed yet?
CS: I don't think so. I've been waiting for that film to come out. It's my favorite role since the character of Lana in Boys Don't Cry. I'm really proud of the performance and really excited about it. I can't wait to see the film and I don't know what's going on.
DRE: Who do you play?
CS: I play a Novice working in South Africa at a mission. It deals with the AIDS epidemic which I think is an epidemic that people aren't focusing on much anymore. It would be good to kind of get it back into the spotlight. Our film is very interesting because my portion, at least, takes place in South Africa and I think that a lot of people aren't aware of things that are happening with the disease in South Africa .Some men think that you'll be cured of the disease by having sex with a virgin. I mean, that's something that they believe in. They don't rape virgins as you and I think of a virgin, like teen girls, they rape children. So it's very eye opening and disturbing. So we'll see.
DRE: The final Star Wars film is coming out this year, were you ever a big fan?
CS: Yeah. I was Princess Leia for Halloween probably when I was like six or seven. I remember the photographs. I don't remember the time. I had the buns and the white gown. My brother was a Storm Trooper.
DRE: He should have been Luke Skywalker.
CS: I know, but I don't think the outfit was as cool.
DRE: Whats the next thing you are working on?
CS: I'm actually about to do a TV show for HBO. I'm doing one of their Sunday night dramas. It's called Big Love and it's about Mormons. I play a polygamist in the modern day. It's a family drama, but there are three wives.
DRE: Who do you play?
CS: I'm the middle wife and I grew up in a community on a compound. My father, a prophet, is played by the great Harry Dean Stanton. So I think that I have a bit of an ego trip going on where I'm a princess and my father is a prophet and I'm kind of stuck in the middle of these two wives which I think is difficult, sort of like being the middle child. I overspend, am kind of bratty and a really bad mother because I'm used to all the other wives taking care of the kids. It's really the juiciest part.
Tom Hanks is producing it and there are two writers. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of them before, but I think that it's going to be like Six Feet Under. Jeanne Tripplehorn is the older wife and Ginnifer Goodwin is the younger wife and Bill Paxton is the husband.
DRE: Mainstream Mormons dont really like the fundamentalists. Are you expecting any backlash?
CS: The Latter Day Saints try and sweep that under the carpet as much as they can. It gives them such a bad name but still the production company said, Oh, we're going to go shoot in Salt Lake. I was like, Are you kidding me?' But we'll see.
DRE: When does that start shooting?
CS: At the end of the month. We already shot the pilot episode. The show will come out in September.
DRE: How did doing all that leave you feeling about marriage as an institution?
CS: I mean, I still believe in the institution of marriage, and I'd love to get married. I think doing it in a church and stuff is a little old fashioned. But I think that way that celebrities treat marriage is equally as disgusting. There's just divorce all the time and I don't know. I'm not going to talk about it.
I hope to get married sooner rather than later and have children and all the rest of that. But I don't know, I guess I'll take it as it comes.
DRE: Where you do you fall in the question of whether life is a comedy or a tragedy?
CS: I think that until the past few years I definitely thought of it as a tragedy and was a fairly depressed teenager. I was a disaffected youth but now I'm trying to sort of take things a little more light.
DRE: Would you like to do a broad comedy?
CS: I'd like to do sort of a Coen Brothers or Alexander Payne style comedy, something like that.
DRE: What are your favorite DVDs?
CS: I don't own many. I don't get any of them for free. I do own Masculine Feminine., Streetwise and Over the Edge.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 24 of 24 COMMENTS
walkswithbears:
she's a great interviewee. i love reading about how she interacts with the different directors, especially lars von trier. good to see she's becoming more pragmatic about film as she matures. 
mythicus:
i adore chloe sevigny soooo much.