Check out this very interesting and insightful interview from Inquirer.net with Big Love stars Chloë Sevigny, Ginnifer Goodwin, Bill Paxton and Jeanne Tripplehorn, as well as the show’s creator Will Scheffer. The five talk among other things about the future of the show and how e.g. Scheffer pictures the show’s ultimate conclusion, the Season 5 opener, the public reactions they’ve gotten regarding the show, the tabloids and their thoughts on what they sometimes find on the internet. Season 5 has just begun filming, so this is likely to be a relatively quiet summer and fall for us Chloë-fans, news-wise. Full article under the cut.

LOS ANGELES—When we recently interviewed the two wives of a senator, the resulting conversation was amusing and uninhibited. We also talked to the senator and his third wife together—our chat was just as interesting, but nothing can top the banter between two women married to the same guy while he was not around.

These polygamists are Bill Henrickson, Barb Henrickson, Nicki Grant and Margene Heffman, also known as the characters played respectively by Bill Paxton, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloë Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin on HBO’s Big Love.

Chloë and Ginnifer together were a hoot, as they dished on their polygamous TV family, their what-were-they-thinking paparazzi shots and what overzealous fans of the series tell them. Bill and Jeanne were more circumspect. In both interviews, Will Scheffer, the show’s cocreator, cowriter and coproducer, sat on the side and gave comments.

Below are excerpts of our laughter-punctuated interviews, held a day before they began filming the fifth season:

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Looks like that A.V. Club interview is causing quite an unexpected stir in the media!

Yesterday, we posted a link to the A.V.Club interview with Chloë Sevigny that’s been making big headlines in the press lately. The ruckus that followed the publication of the interview has to do with Chloë’s critical view on the colorful fourth season of HBO’s Big Love, the star of which she is alongside Bill Paxton, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Ginnifer Goodwin, which she expressed accordingly in the interview.

The relevant interview excerpts from AVClub.com:

The A.V. Club: This past season of Big Love has taken a lot of flak for being so over-the-top.
Chloë Sevigny: It was awful this season, as far as I’m concerned. I’m not allowed to say that! [Gasps.] It was very telenovela. I feel like it kind of got away from itself. The whole political campaign seemed to me very farfetched. I mean, I love the show, I love my character, I love the writing, but I felt like they were really pushing it this last season. And with nine episodes, I think they were just squishing too much in. HBO only gave us nine Sundays, because they have so much other original programming—especially with The Pacific—and they only have a certain amount of Sundays per year, so we only got nine Sundays. I think that they had more story than episodes. I think that’s what happened.

[...] Me and the girls [Jeanne Tripplehorn and Ginnifer Goodwin] definitely were not very happy with where it was going—or more kind of, “We really hope it’s going to work. It seems like they’re really pushing it.” I think next season, they’re going to go back to more just the family. I think that the stuff with Ben and Lois and that stuff was really great in Mexico, but… [Laughs.]

[...] AVC: Like how J.J.’s trying to inject her with an incest baby?
CS: Oh God, I know. Oh, God. It’s too much. It’s too much. But I hope the fans will stick with us and tune in next year. There’s a lot of people who really love this season, surprisingly. God, I’m going to get in so much trouble. [Laughs.]

Since the interview was published a few days ago, a ton(!) of press outlets have picked up and flagged the above comments, causing such an uproar in the media that it has prompted both the HBO and Chloë to react (and retract). First, the HBO issued this official statement via Entertainment Weekly:

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Here’s an interview that’s been making headlines lately!

Chloë Sevigny recently talked about her most recent work, including Barry Munday and Big Love, to The A.V. Club, the interview which is now available on their website. What many press and gossip outlets have found noteworthy about this interview, however, is the honest criticism Chloë directs towards the fourth season of Big Love, which wrapped up a couple of weeks ago. As most of you will know, Chloë recently won a Golden Globe for her role of Nicolette “Nicki” Grant on the show.

Although the full interview a AVClub.com is definitely worth a read as well, here’s the excerpt that’s been making the news these past few days:

AVC: This past season of Big Love has taken a lot of flak for being so over-the-top.
CS: It was awful this season, as far as I’m concerned. I’m not allowed to say that! [Gasps.] It was very telenovela. I feel like it kind of got away from itself. The whole political campaign seemed to me very farfetched. I mean, I love the show, I love my character, I love the writing, but I felt like they were really pushing it this last season. And with nine episodes, I think they were just squishing too much in. HBO only gave us nine Sundays, because they have so much other original programming—especially with The Pacific—and they only have a certain amount of Sundays per year, so we only got nine Sundays. I think that they had more story than episodes. I think that’s what happened.

AVC: It sort of became like Mormon Dynasty.
CS: [Laughs.] I know, I know. I’ve heard a lot of other things like that.

AVC: What was it like when they first laid out what they wanted to accomplish this season? What was your reaction?
CS: They don’t. We only get it episode to episode. We never know what’s going to happen in the next episode until we’re almost finished shooting the one we’re shooting at present. Me and the girls [Jeanne Tripplehorn and Ginnifer Goodwin] definitely were not very happy with where it was going—or more kind of, “We really hope it’s going to work. It seems like they’re really pushing it.” I think next season, they’re going to go back to more just the family. I think that the stuff with Ben and Lois and that stuff was really great in Mexico, but… [Laughs.]

AVC: A part of the show’s initial appeal was how it at least tried to stay grounded in some semblance of reality. Now that it’s gotten away from that, how do you keep things from turning into self-parody?
CS: I guess I just focus on it from scene to scene. Like, “Why is she behaving like this in this scene?” She’s a very particular, peculiar character, when you think of her circumstances. And this season, she was going through an adolescence that she never had, acting out, and vicariously living through her daughter, and realizing stuff she missed out on, and trying to find herself with the different looks. I think it was a very complicated season for her. And you know, the whole relationship with the daughter, and then J.J. [Laughs.] There’s always so much going on.

AVC: Like how J.J.’s trying to inject her with an incest baby?
CS: Oh God, I know. Oh, God. It’s too much. It’s too much. But I hope the fans will stick with us and tune in next year. There’s a lot of people who really love this season, surprisingly. God, I’m going to get in so much trouble. [Laughs.]

AVC: Even before this season, Nicki has seemed like a really difficult character to play, because her behavior is always being influenced by other men, and what she wants tends to fluctuate. How does that affect your motivation?
CS: I mean, there’s not much I can do. It is how it’s written, and I have to work it out and figure out why she’s doing the things she is. The creators are very articulate, and they help us a lot. If we have questions, like “Why? What’s the motivation?” they can like [Snaps her fingers.] in a second tell you, and it makes complete sense. I don’t know if you’ve watched any of their post-show interviews, but they’re really bright men, and they make it all make sense in your head. I just try to think how she would react in a particular circumstance. I think like, going to D.C., she brought the gun because she read about D.C., and she thought it was the most violent town in America—which it is, one of the most violent cities in America. [Laughs.] Her having the gun doesn’t seem that farfetched to me.

Well, I for one loved my weekly dose of Mormon Dynasty this season! So much fun. (Right up until the crazy finale anyway.)

Another interview from last weekend’s SXSW screenings!

Another movie blog that caught up with Chloë Sevigny at the SXSW 2010 Festival last weekend was CinemaBlend, from which the resulting article is now available for reading online. In the interview, Chloë talks in particularly great depth about working on Barry Munday and her character Jennifer Farley, but although some of it is stuff we’ve already read in previous SXSW interviews, there’s a lot of new insight here into the character and how Chloë portrayed her. She also relates working on a film to working on Big Love in an interesting way as well as talks about the downsides to working on a TV series.

Read the article in full at CinemaBlend.com; excerpts follow:

Chloe Sevigny has certainly made her mark on Hollywood, from controversial turns in Boys Don’t Cry and The Brown Bunny to her continuing role as polygamist wife Nicolette on HBO’s Big Love. One thing she hasn’t done much of is straight-up comedy, an oversight she is looking to correct with her role in Barry Munday. Sevigny appears as Jennifer Farley, the overly flirty, golden-child sister to Judy Greer’s Ginger. While she only spent a week or so shooting her part, Sevigny gives it her all, playing under-the-table footsie with Patrick Wilson’s Barry during an awkward family dinner, working a stripper pole as a dancer who may or may not be Jennifer, and selling the affection for Ginger that hides underneath their continuous sniping and name-calling. During the Barry Munday press junket at SXSW, Chloe sat down with us to talk about the challenges of making your mark with a little screen time, the differences between feature and series work, and why Judy Greer should star in every Hollywood movie.

[...] How did you approach the character once you’d decided to take the role?
I mean, she’s a supporting character, a small part in the film, but I just tried to figure out what her relationship with the other people was in the film, with her father and with Judy’s character. You just have fun with it and try to react how you think the character would react to the scenes.

How much freedom did you guys have as far as ad-libbing? Was it pretty straight off the script?
It was pretty straight. I think Patrick and Judy did a lot of that, but for most of us it was pretty straight off the script. Most of it was shot with pretty static wide shots, and it was pretty true.

Was there anything in the film or your performance that you thought worked better than you had anticipated?
Oh, I thought everything was terrible. I thought I was terrible. [laughs] I feel like I could have been bigger, I could have been broader. I tend to, in film, kind of play things smaller.

I thought that worked, though. Even when you were playing the broader moments, you still had the more subtle stuff going on as well.
I was really nervous, and I wish I had been more confident. When I watch my performance I can see I’m holding back. I wish I had been more at ease. I’ve been shooting Big Love for so long, this is the first film I’ve done in a while, so I was getting out of that comfort zone and I feel like I was a little shook up.

[...] Do you think you’ll want to do more series work after Big Love wraps up?
No, it’s too grueling. If we shot in New York I wouldn’t be opposed to it, but we shoot in Los Angeles, and I live in New York. It’s really hard to be uprooted for six months, and I miss home a lot. I’d prefer to go back to film.

How is it different preparing for a series role that’s day in, day out, as opposed to something like this where you have so little time involved?
I think it’s just a lot more pressure to make the scenes work when you’re doing a film, because when you’re doing a series you feel like, I have so many scenes, so many episodes, so if I don’t get it exactly right this time, I have another scene later. You feel less pressure. And of course I’ve been playing the character for so long, I feel very comfortable. There’s so much to feed on and so much backstory and so much true-life experience to draw upon from other people’s eyes. There’s just so much information about the character and the people who live these lifestyles, so much to draw on. I find it much more difficult to play a supporting part like in this film. It’s much more of a challenge to portray and to feel like you’re bringing something.

More press material from the SXSW 2010 festival!

The people at Cinematical, who also recently posted a positive review on Barry Munday, caught up with the film’s star Chloë Sevigny the day after its SXSW world premiere to discuss the production of the film as well as that of Chloë’s second SXSW movie, Mr. Nice. The interview offers a lot of new insight into the respective productions from Chloë’s perspective, and she also talks about her career overall, who she’d like to work with in the future and how she chooses her roles.

Read the article in full at Cinematical.com; excerpts follow:

Cinematical: How did you find yourself involved with Barry Munday to begin with?
Chloe Sevigny: My agent was a supporter of the film from the beginning. She read the script and was very enthusiastic about it and sent it to me; I actually read for the part of Ginger first, and then it went to Judy [Greer]. We had a really great meeting, I really loved Chris, and we got along really well. He came back to me saying Judy’s going to play Ginger, but would you be interested in playing Jennifer? And I thought, why not? I think I’ve been playing a character you love to hate on Big Love, and on the big screen I’d like to try something along those lines but a bit different. In the movie, I think Jennifer’s character is funny because she’s kind of a seductress. It was kind of interesting to play that kind of bitchy role.

[...] Cinematical: Patrick Wilson’s performance was surprising in that he’s funnier than anyone might expect, and pulls off the feat of being the world’s biggest douche bag and being likable at the same time.
Chloe Sevigny: Obviously, he’s a dramatic actor. I had no idea how he was going to play the role until I showed up and saw him improvising, walking around pulling these faces. Oh my god, it was too funny. He’s more than funny. I was really impressed with him. I guess he’s honed that on the stage but I’ve never seen him on the stage doing comedy before, so I was really surprised and impressed. I said, you’d better get ready to make a lot of money, because a lot of people are going to be calling you to do big comedies.

Cinematical: You’ve got not one, but two films at SXSW. What was your experience like shooting Mr. Nice, and how much more crazy is your SXSW schedule with two films in the festival?
Chloe Sevigny: Having two films has happened to me a lot in the past over the years at different festivals; it just means more work. Mr. Nice is a biopic about a drug smuggler named Howard Marks. Rhys Ifans stars. It was very improvisational, the shooting, and the director is kind of a wild man; he didn’t want to rehearse or block any scenes. Sometimes he wouldn’t even let us see the room we were going to do the scene in until we walked in to shoot. It was very challenging, because I was also doing a British accent. I rehearsed on my own over and over again, but then Rhys of course improvised and I would have to try and respond in a British accent, with improvisation! It was very hard for me, I’d never done that before. But I really love Bernard, I think he’s a great filmmaker and it was really fun to shoot that way.

[...]Cinematical: Have you consciously avoided taking mainstream roles?
Chloe Sevigny: Not necessarily. People like to project that on me, but it’s not necessarily true. If it was right, with the right director and the right material. I usually choose my projects depending on the director and who else is involved, and I’ve worked for the most part with writer-directors throughout my career.

Cinematical: Which directors out there would you like to work with that you haven’t had a chance to?
Chloe Sevigny: Jane Campion, or the Coen brothers.

We’ve found another interesting article today from last Saturday’s Barry Munday World Premiere from the ongoing SXSW 2010 festival in Austin, Texas.

HollywoodNews.com has an interesting piece on the film up on their website, with some new comments from the festival screening of the film from Chloë Sevigny and director Chris D’Arienzo regarding Chloë’s supporting role in the comedy as Jennifer Farley. According to the website, the film is currently seeking distribution.

Read the article in full at HollywoodNews.com; extract follows:

“I still don’t think I’m that comedic in this film,” Chloe Sevigny said with a laugh.

That’s not exactly what you want to hear from the star of a comedy. But Sevigny, in all honesty, might be the sixth or seventh funniest person in the all-star Barry Munday ensemble, which includes Judy Greer, Cybill Shepherd, Patrick Wilson, Malcolm McDowell, Missi Pyle, Colin Hanks, Christopher MacDonald, Kyle Gass, Jean Smart and Lando Calrissian himself, Mr. Billy Dee Williams.

And she’d be the first to admit that. “It was very challenging and very intimidating, especially because (co-stars Wilson and Greer) were so funny,” said Sevigny, an Oscar nominee and recent Golden Globe winner for her role on HBO’s Big Love. “I’ve been playing this character, Nicolette, (on Big Love) for so long that I’m so comfortable there. I hadn’t been doing a lot of films because of the schedule with HBO that then when I work on a film like Barry Munday, I am just terrified to be out of my comfort zone. I’m just, like, so scared!”

She overcame her fear to play Jennifer, the beautiful and flirtatious sister of Greer’s homely character, Ginger, in Chris D’Arienzo’s comedy. “For me, Ginger’s sister, Jennifer, needed to be the coolest person. And I was like, ‘Well, who is the coolest person?’ It’s Chloe,” said D’Arienzo.

But Sevigny was hesitant, even though she adored D’Arienzo’s screenplay about a woefully injured man (Wilson) who can’t remember impregnating a geeky woman (Greer). “I have never been in a kind of straight up comedy before,” Sevigny said. “But it’s something that I have been attracted to and have wanted to do for a long time, but haven’t had that many opportunities presented to me. When this one came around, I just jumped at the opportunity.”

I love the way Chloë always talks about her role on Big Love in this sort of introductory way, as if thinking no one’s ever heard of it… So cute and unassuming!

Check out this new, fascinating interview with Chloë Sevigny from The Advocate (US), a monthly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender magazine. Chloë was last interviewed for the publication for a Boys Don’t Cry cover story in March 2000, scans from which are available at our gallery.

The interview covers a lot of Chloë’s sexual orientation-related film and television work (such as her roles e.g. on Will & Grace, and in the films Broken Flowers and If These Walls Could Talk 2) as well as her own sexual orientation and her thoughts on the subject in general. She also talks about what happened onstage at this year’s Golden Globes in January, when the usher escorting her to accept the award for Best Supporting Actress (Television) accidentally stepped on and ripped her Valentino gown. It’s a really fun, honest and interesting article, so be sure to have a look!

Excerpts from the interview below; read it in full at Advocate.com:

Whenever I read about you turning down big-budget films like Legally Blonde to maintain your indie cred, I think, Why does Chloë hate money?
[Laughs] Well, it wasn’t the Reese Witherspoon part — let’s set the record straight — it was the Selma Blair part. But I was offered a Joe Orton play off-Broadway, What the Butler Saw, which I thought would be more challenging. I guess I didn’t realize the full potential of Legally Blonde at the time, but now I love those films — they’re hilarious.

Selma Blair interviewed you some years later for Interview magazine. Was the fact that you turned down her role an elephant in the room?
Aw, no, that stuff happens all the time. And so many girls have been offered parts that I’ve ended up doing, and I see them all the time — like the girl [Mia Kirshner] that got fired from Kids, which was the reason I got the role. Those are the breaks.

What attracted you to Monet, the apartment-flipping lesbian, on Will & Grace — Edie Falco as your sugar mama?
I was a huge Will & Grace fan! I loved Sean Hayes, and I just wanted to try a sitcom and see what that was all about. But what’s funny is that after I appeared on the show I could never watch it again. It lost the magic. We shot for two days, and the first day I was doing my quiet-whatever kind of acting that I do, but then I was like, If I don’t turn it up 10 notches, I’m just going to blend into the walls. So the next day I went in rip-roarin’ and ready to go, trying to ham it up, but it’s really hard to ham it up next to that cast.

[...] Another gay Big Love writer, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, did an impressive job of fleshing out the Alby and Dale relationship in the “Strange Bedfellows” episode earlier this season.
He did. He invited me to some bowling benefit for Second Stage Theatre the other night, so I went out to support them and hang out with him. He’s actually writing a musical version of American Psycho right now, which is really odd.

You don’t want any part of that?
No. [Laughs] But I would love to do Broadway. I guess I’m waiting for the right thing and the time. It’s hard to commit to anything like that when you’re on television.

[...] A few days after the Golden Globes ceremony, when I discovered on Greginhollywood.com that the escort who stepped on your dress, Joe Everett Michaels, was gay, I thought, Great, another reason for people to hate us: As if our pesky demands for equal rights weren’t enough, now we’ve gone and ripped Chloë Sevigny’s Valentino!
Oh, geesh, I know. He actually found me in the ballroom afterward, came up to me, and was going on and on, like, “I’m so, so, so, so sorry!” The poor guy. Accidents happen, so of course I accepted his apology. You know, I had a feeling something was going to happen. I thought I was just going to stain the dress or that I was going to trip, but leave it to the gays! [Laughs]

News at last, and some fantastic news at that! Chloë Sevigny is currently featured on the cover of the August-September 2009 issue of Tokion (US). The shoot is brand new and nothing short of amazing, and personally the cover shot is one of Chloë’s best yet — simply amazing. The inside features doesn’t disappoint, either. The gallery has been updated with five hi-res scans of Chloë’s feature, courtesy of classicalbang @ The Fashion Spot. Isn’t the feature just stunning all around? Oh my gosh… I’m in love.

New Photo Albums:

• Magazines in 2009 > ‘Tokion’ (US) August-September 2009 Scans

Not a lot to report on Chloë of late, I’m afraid. However, the Interview magazine website has a really cool (and dead funny) interview with Depeche Mode frontman David Gahan, as conducted by Chloë Sevigny, “a die-hard Depeche Mode fan.” Except from the interview, courtesy of InterviewMagazine.com:

SEVIGNY: You’re preparing for the tour . . . You know, I tried to go see Depeche Mode 101 when I was a kid. I was in, like, junior high.

GAHAN: You must have been about 5 or something. [laughs]

SEVIGNY: I was not! I was about 14 or 15. I listened to a lot of music growing up. My father kept very current, and then I had my older brother. But Depeche Mode was the first band that was my own. It was my discovery.

GAHAN: Oh, cool.

SEVIGNY: But I couldn’t raise enough money to buy the concert tickets. My babysitting pay wasn’t really doing the trick. So there was this kid that hung out at the park where I grew up. He was kind of like Damone from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Do you remember that character? He would sell concert tickets and pot and whatever else. This guy drove a Honda CRX with a WDRE bumper sticker. I went over to his car and was like, “Do you have any tickets for Depeche Mode?” He said, “Yeah, they’re some-odd dollars.” I didn’t have enough so he said, “If you give me a hand job, I’ll give you the tickets.”

GAHAN: Oh! No way.

SEVIGNY: I didn’t know what that was then, believe it or not. So I went back to my friends who were in another car and was like, “He said he’d give them to me if I gave him a hand job.” My friends said, “No! Don’t do it!”

GAHAN: Oh, my god.

Chloë Sevigny recently talked shoes and label collaboration to Women’s Wear Daily:

Trendsetter Chloë Sevigny, star of HBO’s Big Love, knows shoes — she fêted her second collab with boutique Opening Ceremony earlier this year and will debut a capsule collection with Bass this fall. Here, she dished to Insider about what she designed and what she loves.

Q: What challenges did you face with the new Opening Ceremony collection?
A: I wanted to do a chunky heel, but we couldn’t get the shapes right, so we ended up doing wedges. The wedges this season are much thinner and sexier. We made this amazing pair with strappy buckles that go all the way up. They are already on back order, so I’m very enthusiastic about that shoe.

Q: You have a reputation as a huge shoe collector. What’s your organizational method?
A: Oh my God, I have hundreds of pairs. I keep them in a stairwell in clear plastic boxes, labeled. But the pairs in heavy rotation are in my everyday closet. Right now, my favorites are these cowboy boots by NaNa that I found at a flea market in Austin, Texas. I also have a pair of combat boots by NaNa — I am very into that brand right now.

Q: What would be your dream collab?
A: Hermès, maybe? [Laughs.] That might be reaching a little high. Actually, NaNa would be a great collaboration!