FILM INTERVIEW: CHLOE SEVIGNY

Loving Her Obsessive Director and It's Pronounced Seven-Knee

By: Staci Layne Wilson

February 28, 2007

Staci Layne Wilson: What is the proper pronunciation of your last name?

Chloe Sevigny: Seven-Knee. Like the number seven, and knee.

SW: You don´t do many “Hollywood” pictures, but here you are working with David Fincher in Zodiac, a big-budget studio movie that´s going to have an ultra-wide release. Would you care to repeat the experience sometime soon?

CS: I think so, you know, if I thought the film was challenging and/or subversive in a way–and I think it would be important to me that it would be a director who would have final cut, or… Maybe I´d like to do like a fluff piece, romantic comedy one day if I found one that I thought was very clever or, you know, funny. I´m not opposed to studio–I mean, it´s not like, “I´m not doing studio. I´m so purist,” or whatever. Nothing had ever come to me that I thought was right, or I´d never gotten the part that I´d wanted to.

SW: “Zodiac” is broken down into two themes: the crime scene theme–the crime element theme, and there´s also the theme that you’re involved in, really kind of more like an art film–the obsession aspect, which does strike me as being more of the kind of film that you might work on, because those scenes are smaller and they are much more personal, much more emotional perhaps more than the other scenes. Did you see that?

CS: Yeah, and that is what was interesting to me about the story and my part in the movie as approaching crime or serial killer–something from that angle, and how it took over this poor guy´s life.

SW: Did you have any contact with [Robert] Graysmith´s ex-wife? [Whom she portrays in the film.]

CS: Melanie came to the set one day with one of her daughters, and we chatted. She was very spunky and she had a lot of sass. [laughing] So I tried to incorporate that a little bit into it, you know… I wanted us to have a little soft, nice moment–more nice moments; more than me just coming down on him for being so obsessed with the case. But David wanted it to steer more towards me always being frustrated with him. I thought that was a little one-note-ish.

SW: Are you more confidant in your abilities as an actress now that you´ve gone through something as trying as 90 takes per scene with a demanding director? [Fincher is known for doing multiple takes on even the smallest scenes.]

CS: Um… I guess so. I mean, I think having experienced that, I look forward to working more in that kind of arrangement or working with someone that´s that obsessive because I´m really obsessive with props, and when I feel like my director isn´t in control of the entire frame, then I kind of doubt him or her a little bit. And what I liked about David is that I felt he was entirely in control of everything and obsessive with the props, that the guy [would] take a ruler and measure how much was in the cup between every take, and I kind of got into his [frame of mind]. But he was very kind and a really sweet, kind face–he kind of looked like a boxer–little flat nose; and I thought he was very charming.

SW: But in a way, aren´t you, when you work with a director like that, giving away a lot of your autonomy because he´s got 90 takes to pick from and he could shape your performance, whereas if you´ve got two or three takes, it´s all you?

CS: I´d rather have more.

SW: With David Fincher, you´d rather have more?

CS: Yeah, and Harris Savides–the DP who’s the best in the business. I think that anybody that loves film is gonna love this movie. I mean, obviously any cinephile likes Fincher for whatever reason, but I think, from the production design to the costumes, every aspect of the movie is so well-realized that I think people will really enjoy it.

SW: Could you talk about Woody Allen, with whom you did “Melinda and Melinda”? Where does he fit in, in that group of directors?

CS: He didn´t really direct me at all. I remember reading a quote that Judy Davis said–how many pictures did she make with him–and he said three words to her in total over the three pictures! He didn´t really say that much to me either, but with some of the other actresses, he was really directing them. And I was like, “Give me some notes,” [laughing] even if he was just going through the motions or whatever, I really wanted to be, like, molded by him.

SW: What about Douglas Buck? I did an interview with him shortly after you guys wrapped the “Sisters” remake. Have you seen any of that film yet?

CS: I haven´t. They sent me a DVD. I haven´t watched it yet. Douglas Buck made shorts called “Family Portraits”, which are these three horror films that are mind-boggling. He made them on a shoe-string budget. He sent me a DVD because they are going to the South by Southwest Festival to show it, but I wanna wait and see it on a big screen. I´m not the “sisters”, though. I play the reporter–the more unflattering part. And Lou Doillon plays Margot Kidder. She´s the daughter of Jane Birkin. And Stephen Rea plays the “mad scientist” or whatever he is.

SW: Did you have the chance to see “This Film is Not Yet Rated”?

CS: I haven´t, but I heard that I´m all over it…[Laughing]…in more ways than one. [Laughing]

SW: That film obviously has now changed sort of the… I know you had a problem with…there was that one scene, I think it´s Hilary´s [Swank] and your first love scene, and what do you think of the changes that may come about or have come about as a result?

CS: I mean, I´m not aware of any changes. I still think that the M… what are they called?

SW: MPAA.

CS: MP double A, or whatever, are too lenient on violence and too tough on sex. I think it´s kind of… you know. I don´t know.

SW: And speaking of sex, how has the success of “Big Love” [HBO´s series on bigamy, on which Sevigny plays one of three wives to a fictional character played by Bill Pullman] impacted your movie career? Are you having to pass on things because of your schedule?

CS: We have to shoot six months a year in Hollywood or Los Angeles, which is hard for me because I´m a New Yorker. But I haven´t… I mean, I´ve read things that, “Oh God that´s really great. Oh, they´re really interested in you,” but of course, my commitment is to the show and it could go for six seasons. We´re at the end of season two and I´m starting to look for things to do while on hiatus. Last hiatus, I made three pictures. I made “Zodiac”, I made a film called “Lying” that went to Cannes this year, and I made “Sisters”, and I felt like it was too much. By the time I got to “Sisters”, I was so drained, I felt like I had nothing left to give. And “Sisters” was [a] really low-budget movie and I had to act to practically nothing for half the movie. It was so difficult. It´s difficult to do horror. To be [feigning shock], you know, really scared all the time. I was like, “Wow, these girls are amazing.” I kept feeling like I was Naomi Watts in “The Ring”. [Laughing] Did you like the film? Did you see it?

SW: I haven´t seen it, but as a big Brian de Palma fan, I´m very familiar with the original. I talked to Doug for almost two hours so I feel like I´ve seen it.

CS: He´s… yeah. He´s an encyclopedia of knowledge of film. He could really walk the walk and talk the talk, so now I´m just nervous about how it´s turned out.

SW: I know, I can´t wait to see it.

CS: Yeah, he referenced a lot of great things.

SW: What´s the gist of “Lying”; what is that about?

CS: “Lying” is about a bunch of girls that go away for the weekend to upstate New York. It was in the Director´s Fort Night at Cannes and it´s directed by a friend of mine [M. Blash]. We made it for like a hundred thousand dollars, and it´s me, Jena Malone, Leelee Sobiesky, and Meryl Streep´s son, Henry. It was a great experience. My character is a compulsive liar and I bring these girls up to this weekend getaway and I claim it´s my house, and I just spew all these lies and it kind of meanders and doesn´t really go that much of anywhere. He was kind of more inspired by “Picnic at Hanging Rock”, like some of these girls lying around in the fields and, you know, making pretty images, but it was more a study on lying. You see her telling little white lies or big lies, or lies to entertain herself or lies to protect other people, and all the different kind of lies that you can say and why you do them. It´s a kind of interesting movie, if you like slow movies with pretty girls in the sunshine. [Laughing]

SW: How about “What the Butler Saw”? Any plans for more theatre?

CS: I´d like to, I´d like to. It´s always a big commitment and now, with the show, and because HBO still hasn´t decided if we are going to do a third season and we never know how long they´re gonna give us as hiatus or not. So it might be tricky with timing, but I´d love to do something else. Actually, Scott Elliot has offered me numerous other parts, and the timing has always been off, so… but I think he´s great and I´d love to do theatre. I´d love to do Broadway…get a car to bring you to theatre. I saw Mark Ruffalo last year in “Awake and Sing”. He was brilliant. It was a great production.

SW: How is it working with HBO in general?

CS: I was really surprised because you think, “Oh, they do all this great work and it´s challenging.” The executives control everything. I was shocked. I thought the creators would, you know, they´d give somebody notes and…you know.

SW: Really?

CS: Yeah, they do give you a lot of money compared to other studios. You have more time, you know? We get ten days per episode, which, each episode´s an hour, I think. “The Sopranos” gets, I think, 20 days. As each season passes, you get more days or whatever, but… the execs are really involved–that was the most surprising thing for me. But it´s been really challenging playing that part, and really rewarding because I´ve been doing things that I hadn´t thought I could do or had done before.

SW: Do you have any personal feeling about polygamy?

CS: I have strong personal feelings that I think I´d like the show to address more as far as these compounds and how repressed the young girls are. And I feel like we have an obligation to, I think, show more of the injustice. I think next season they´re thinking of showing an aspect of my character or one of her, I don´t know… something that she has wrong with her. I can´t really explain it any further, but that will really bring a lot of light to the situation. So I hope that we do more of that.

SW: Has the show generated a lot of opposition from the Mormon Church?

CS: No, they are mum. They are mum because they felt like the more they talked about it, the more press it would generate, and they are completely right. So I heard, though I have friends whose parents are LDS, and I heard that they were [doing] like an Internet e-mail campaign saying don´t watch it, don´t say anything. But according to HBO, our ratings went [up].

SW: In your first movie, “Kids”, you were the one trained actress in that, or… ?

CS: No, actually… I mean, I´d gone to, like, summer theatre camp every year growing up and I had always aspired to be an actress. I was actually in some commercials when I was a kid. And then my mother pulled me because she thought the world was a little too twisted and she wanted me to be a kid more. And so they hired a professional actress, Mia Kirshner, and then two days before shooting they fired her and hired me, so… that´s someone else´s misfortune.

SW: Did you, like Rosario [Dawson] and other people in that movie, just all of a sudden have an acting career?

CS: Yeah, basically, thanks to Harvey Weinstein.

SW: Were you skateboarding in a park and that´s where they found you?

CS: No, I was watching the [cute] skateboarders. [laughs]

Paramount Pictures' 'Zodiac' is playing everywhere March 2, 2007.