Chloe Sevigny's Big Love for Downtown

An Academy Award-nominated actress with deep New York City roots, Chloë Sevigny has been at the heart of the city's most inspired downtown scenes for well over a decade. Despite her fame, she hasn't forgotten where she came from. We invited art gallerist Jeffrey Deitch to trace her beginnings, and to discuss her downtown connections to film, fashion, art and music. They got along -- famously.

Mention the name Chlo� in downtown New York City circles and everyone will know exactly who you are talking about. Chlo� Sevigny is one of those singular individuals for whom a surname has never been necessary. Unlike other first-name-basis celebrities who gradually grew into single-name status, Chlo� began making an impact as a downtown personality while she was still a high-school student. She would take the bus in from Darien, Connecticut, telling her parents that she was going to Greenwich, and would hang out watching the skaters in Washington Square Park. In a different era, ingenues were supposedly discovered sitting at the soda fountain at Schwab's drugstore in Hollywood. Sitting under the arch in Washington Square, Chlo� connected with Harold Hunter, Harmony Korine, and a circle of transgressive talents that eventually took her to the center of the downtown art, music, film and fashion communities.

Every generation holds images from artworks, films, musical performances and from world events that define the experience of their time. For young people who lived through the horror of the AIDS epidemic in the early and mid '90s, the unforgettably poignant sequence of Jennie, Chlo�'s character in Kids, hearing the news that she is HIV positive is one of those defining images. Jennie was a fictional character, but Chlo�'s performance was so real that people who viewed the film assumed that the misfortune had happened to Chlo� herself. When the film role is the right match for Chlo�, the viewer forgets that she is acting, assuming that Chlo� actually is the character. Her characters seem to be real people. Rather than just perfecting the surface of a character, she draws on her profound psychological intelligence.

Chlo� would be remarkable enough just as an astonishing actress. What is especially interesting about her from a downtown gallerist's point of view is her involvement with the most creative communities of New York artists, musicians and fashion designers -- as well as filmmakers -- since the early '90s. One may have to go back to the example of Dennis Hopper to find another extraordinary actor or actress who not only represents the spirit of their generation, but who is also an active participant in the creative dialogue at the cutting edge of culture. Chlo� has been at the center of almost every interesting downtown scene -- from the skaters in Washington Square Park and the cast of Kids to the new Lower East Side artists' community around Dash Snow, Dan Colen and Ryan McGinley. In between, there is a remarkable network of connections and collaborations with artists, designers and bands like Rita Ackermann, Sonic Youth, Bernadette Corporation, Imitation of Christ and A.R.E. Weapons, just to name a few of her friends.

An inherent contradiction, the tension between two opposing forces that are unexpectedly tied together, is often the source of the power of great works of art and great dramatic roles. The role for which Chlo� was nominated for an Academy Award, Lana Tisdel in Boys Don't Cry, was an example of the dramatic tension that can spring from an internal contradiction. Lana juggled her relationship with a bigoted ex-con loser with her deepening involvement with transsexual Brandon Teena. In her current role as Nicolette in the HBO series Big Love, Chlo� plays a character who balances a conservative religious upbringing with a polygamous lifestyle that is as transgressive as anything that can be seen on television. Nicolette is devoted to the Mormon heritage of her patriarchal father but is also a self-centered shopaholic who schemes to manipulate her dysfunctional family to her benefit. There is also a hint of an unnaturally close attraction to her powerful father, who happens to be her husband's business rival. One would not expect the downtown icon Chlo� Sevigny to be so convincing playing one of the three wives of a Mormon polygamist, but this complex role is a remarkable match for Chlo�'s ability to inhabit a contradictory character. Big Love opens fresh horizons for Chlo� as an actress, introducing her unique sensibility to a broad new audience.

Chlo� wears a dress by Costume National, T-shirt by Calvin Klein.

Jeffrey Deitch: I've noticed that many of your best roles involve characters in impossible situations. In Big Love, you play a woman who is a shopaholic but is the product of a frugal, conservative upbringing.

Chlo� Sevigny: I think that's part of what makes Big Love so appealing to people. The other wives and I have conservative values, and yet we are living alternative lifestyles.

JD: That sort of conflict is one of the fundamental structures involved in modern art. Now, when I'm reading stories about artists, one of the things I'm most fascinated with is their biographies. Your upbringing in Darien probably wasn't conventional.

CS: My father was very unconventional. He was quite an intellectual and really into art and music. I remember listening to Parallel Lines by Blondie when I was four or five years old, and the Flying Lizards and Elvis Costello, too. He's passed away now, but he was a painter. His parents really repressed that. That's why I think he was very supportive of my brother and me. I was lucky to have an older brother who was into skateboarding and punk rock. He's had a big influence on my life. There was this big hardcore scene in Connecticut. He was really into that. All his friends and girlfriends had blue hair. They were different than the field hockey girls.

JD: When was this?

CS: I was in junior high. My parents didn't have a lot of friends in town. We never had as much money as everybody else, so we were never members of any of the clubs or anything like that. I didn't have many girlfriends, either. In elementary school the girls were really nasty. They would say, "Your mom shops at Stop & Shop because you're poor," or "Your dad drives a Volkswagen, you're poor." I remember from day one not buying that and not being part of the clique.

JD: So the story of your hanging out in Washington Square and being discovered, that's all true?

CS: That is true. That's where I met Harmony [Korine] and Harold Hunter. Harold was the first person to ever come up to me. I was very thin, hadn't really developed yet and wore these geeky outfits. Harold brought a lot of people together because he was the least pretentious person you'd ever meet in your life. Harmony really struck me. He was so driven and so confident. He would tell stories about how he was going to be a moviemaker. I remember him showing me Ken Park. He got this horrible grade in school. They basically failed him for writing that screenplay. But I knew that he was driven and I was very attracted to that.

JD: You also worked at X-Girl around then. What's the chronology?

CS: I interned for Sassy in their fashion department. The woman I was working for was friends with this stylist named Daisy Von Furth, who went on to do X-Girl. She was also Sonic Youth's stylist. They were trying to find a girl to be in one of their videos, so she suggested me, and I was in the video for "Sugar Kane." Then, after I graduated from high school, I moved into an apartment in Brooklyn with five other kids who all worked for Peter Gatien, who ran nightclubs like Club USA, the Tunnel and Limelight. I was also very heavy on the rave scene, so I knew all the rave kids and I worked at this store Liquid Sky that was kind of like the rave headquarters downtown. That's why I did Party Monster, actually, because I knew everybody. I knew Michael Alig, but he never really liked me because young boys on the rave scene really liked me. He was very envious of that -- I was androgynous and I dressed kind of boyish and that threatened him. I thought the book James St. James wrote was fantastic. Unfortunately the movie didn't turn out as well as it could have, but I just wanted to be a part of its telling since I had been there.

JD: It's remarkable how you have this instinct to be inside these very dynamic networks. I've seen you at art events. Is art a big part of your life?

CS: Rita Ackermann and I were best friends. We were inseparable. I have lots of photos of me wearing these things that she made, T-shirts and stuff. My mother worked at this stationery store in Connecticut and Rita used to always draw dolphins, so my mother made these stamps of her dolphins and we used to stamp them on everything.

JD: Who else is part of your circle?

CS: Now it's Dan Colen, Ryan McGinley and Dash Snow, that whole new Lower East Side school.

JD: So you obviously tend to get involved with a group where a scene is a part of it.

CS: Yeah. We all hung out at this bar on Ludlow called Standard Notions or, you know, Sweet & Vicious. We all knew each other. When I first saw Dan's work, I was like, "You're painting?" It was shocking. I mean, we were just out drinking and hanging out. I had no idea.

JD: You've also started to be a big influence in fashion. Have you some interest in designing a label?

CS: I would never want to do a whole line. I worked very closely with Tara [Subkoff] on Imitation of Christ from the beginning. I've lots of other friends who are in the fashion industry, stylists and designers. It's just so consuming. You really don't have much of a life outside of it. I would like to do maybe one item a year, one item a season, maybe a luxury item.

JD: I understand you do the costumes for some of the characters you play.

CS: I try. I think most fashion designers really hate me because I'm really controlling and just always disappointed by what they do. I always expect more or better. I've recently let go a little bit, but actually early on in my career Bernadette [of Bernadette Corporation] helped me on Trees Lounge a lot. I did the costume design for Gummo, and Bernadette came around and actually helped out with that as well.

JD: And what about in Big Love?

CS: It's difficult because I always want to wear my own things, girly things. But my character has this catalog-shopping obsession. And coming from where she's from, she's always buttoned up in these long skirts -- kind of a Western thing. But I definitely wanted her to be more conservative than the other wives. I wanted to maintain a bit of the compound in her.

JD: There's so much great material there.

CS: I feel like the next season will pick up even more. The last season, the show Grey's Anatomy was on at the same time as our show, and it was the most popular show on television, so we didn't have as many viewers as we could have. Next season, Grey's Anatomy is going to be on Wednesday. I never thought about television numbers or time-slots, but I'm starting to.

JD: So it could be a really big thing. Do you have a good dialogue with Harry Dean Stanton? He seems like he also has avant-garde . . .

CS: Yeah, an amazing career. The same with Grace Zabriskie. She was in a lot of the David Lynch stuff as well. But Harry Dean, yeah. Harry Dean is very profound, actually. I'm very intimidated by him.

JD: He's one of those rare actors who seems real. That's one of the reasons you are effective -- there's this profound person inside. You're real. You've had all these experiences, while a lot of the typical actors today, they're pretty hollow. But a sophisticated part brings out the difference. Your character is, despite the conservative situation, a transgressive character.

CS: I don't know. My character, she's a lot of things. She's very complicated.

JD: It seems, just because she's so real, that you added a lot to the part.

CS: I felt very safe in the environment and we got to do a lot of takes, and with each take I try something totally different. One take I'd do very soft, and then I'd be really loud, and so I got to play around with it -- felt safe to try things where I hadn't in the past. A lot of it's in the editors' hands, I'm afraid. That's the bummer about acting. You don't have much control over what happens. That's why I've worked with so many writer/directors or auteurs, because I feel like there are fewer people, just somebody with a clear vision.

JD: I always get the impression that you're a collaborator, rather than just an actress who fills out the role.

CS: I think so. I don't want to toot my own horn or anything, but I've worked on lots of films where I'm doing my own part and the director won't really respond. And then he'll really be helping another actor, and I'll be like, "I want that, too! What, you think I'm fine, so you just let me say whatever?" But maybe they trust me.

JD: What are some of your ambitions? What would you like to accomplish as an actress or as a filmmaker?

CS: I've never really been that ambitious. I've kind of just taken things as they come. Actually, almost every film I've ever done I've just been offered. I haven't really had to audition. So I've been very lucky in that respect.

JD: So let me ask you about the craft of acting. Are you essentially self-taught?

CS: I guess so. Before I did Kids, I dated this boy who was a theater student. He gave me some pointers, but none of them stayed with me. They were just very basic acting things like, "Remember where you're coming from." Then I read Uta Hagen's Respect for Acting and then I did a play Off-Broadway with Scott Elliott. He's a big theater director. He taught me a lot. I try not to act. I try to react. That's what they say, you know. Just react to what the other person is saying to you, and be there with the other person.

Photographed at Boylan Studios * Styling by Ben Sturgill at Thomas Treuhaft Hair by Erin Anderson for Woodley and Bunny Salon at the Wall Group * Makeup by Yuka Washizu at Thomas Treuhaft Thanks to Willa Gross, Claire Wolff & Alexandra Horton