American actress and fashion icon Chloë Sevigny is one of Hollywood's boldest and most gifted actors. Known for her many indie film roles, Sevigny has garnered much critical acclaim since her 1995 debut, most recently a Golden Globe for her performance on HBO's Big Love. Sevigny is also widely revered for her sense of style, and recently launched her fourth collection for the hip NY label Opening Ceremony.
Chloë Sevigny appears
this season as the sex-
obsessed Shelley on FX's American Horror Story. Wednesdays on FX!
“Am I gonna die?”
[Dr. Arden: "Not exactly. As a matter of fact, after this you'll probably live forever."]
- Shelley
As always, hope everyone was able to tune in to last night’s episode of American Horror Story: Asylum. Here are our HD screen caps of Chloë Sevigny as Shelley in the episode, 2.04 “I Am Anne Frank: Part 1″. Once again, the caps are very spoilery this week, so if you haven’t seen last night’s or last week’s episode yet, give these caps a miss until you do.
Anyone else spot Joel McKinnon Miller, i.e. Don Embry from Big Love on the show last night? :D
Chloe Sevigny explains her new willingness to take on comedy.
You play a transgender hit person in Hit & Miss. On paper that sounds pretty weird. Did it feel like a stretch to you?
I was afraid I wouldn’t be convincing and the [transgender] community might be upset about it because it’s a sensitive thing. That was the scariest part for me. Not the outcome or the controversy or what people are going to write about it, because I knew the tone they were going to set. It’s so based in reality and the truth of the emotions and relationships that it’s not quite as nuts as the synopsis sounds.
How important is it that we see your character, Mia, naked so early in the show?
I think it’s good to just get it out of the way. And the way they shot it, it’s not gratuitous — it’s just kind of there, it’s very natural. It’s just me getting dressed or taking a shower.
Did you find it strange wearing a prosthetic penis?
Yes, it was very uncomfortable and I think I had a similar relationship to it as Mia would have with hers. She felt like a freak.
What attracted you to the role?
First and foremost was the script. I wanted to work in England, I wanted to work with this director. I didn’t have anything else and I wanted to do something very different from the character I played on Big Love for so many years just to kind of shake that part. I loved doing long-form television and the fact it was a six-hour mini-series, I knew how much you get to explore with the character over time.
Collider has a terrific interview with Chloë Sevigny about her recent work on FX’s American Horror Story. The interview is really insightful, but also mildly spoilery as to her arc on the show, so if you wish to remain absolutely spoiler-free, we suggest you stop reading now. For everyone else, find the full article under the cut.
Chloe Sevigny Talks AMERICAN HORROR STORY: ASYLUM, What Attracted Her to the Role, Working with Jessica Lange and Possibly Returning for Season 3
by Christina Radish
Set in 1964, the FX drama series American Horror Story: Asylum takes viewers into Briarcliff, a haven for the criminally insane, ruled with an iron fist by Sister Jude (Jessica Lange), a nun with a troubled past. Inside this locked down facility, danger lurks around every corner, whether it’s a doctor who loves to torture, flesh eating creatures in the forest, alien experimentation or the serial killer Bloody Face, and no one is safe.
During this recent exclusive phone interview with Collider, actress Chloe Sevigny, who plays the resident nymphomaniac, talked about how exciting it is to be a part of event television, what a big fan she was of Season 1, what attracted her to the role, how she’s more frightened by realistic violence than straight out gore, how amazing it was to work with Jessica Lange, just how much crazier things will get this season, and how she’d love to return for Season 3. She also talked about her work on the TV series Hit & Miss, playing such unexpected roles, dabbling in comedy, and her desire to do a sweeping romantic period drama. Check out what she had to say after the jump.
Collider: Before the season premiered, it was already a trending topic on Twitter, proving that it’s more like event television than just a TV show now. Is it exciting to be a part of something like this, where people are so eager to talk about it?
CHLOE SEVIGNY: Yeah! When I heard the numbers, I was like, “Wow!” I’m flattered to be a part of it and excited, of course. I was on Big Love for five years and we had our fans, but it didn’t feel like it was a crazy event thing. There wasn’t a frenzy surrounding it. People weren’t having viewing parties, like I’m hearing they are for American Horror Story. So, yeah, it’s super exciting! I just hope people enjoy it and are frightened.
The actress and fashion icon’s latest project has her judging screenplays for Four Stories, a screenwriting contest curated by Roman Coppola and The Directors Bureau in collaboration with Intel and W Hotels. Here, Sevigny talks to TIME about her motiviations for participating, Mormonism and where she’d like to travel next.
This is a somewhat unexpected project for you. Why did you want to get involved?
For selfish reasons, firstly. I’m trying to get out more and meet more people, so I thought this would be a good way to do that. I’ve met some of people involved before, but I think it’s good to be proactive. As my mother says, “You can’t just sit at home with your girlfriends every night.”
How does someone like you have trouble meeting people?
Because I don’t like to leave the house. I like to stay in and have people over to my house.
Part of the contest asks filmmakers to incorporate travel into their submissions. What’s on your list of must-see spots?
This is going to sound terrible, but I like going to all-inclusive resorts. High-end ones like GoldenEye in Jamaica, because I don’t like to have to think when I’m on holiday. I’m also like a coddled actress — I’m used to being told where to go and when to be there. I like to go to places where I have friends who can show me around. I have a friend in Stockholm and I’d like to go back; I’d also like to go back to Chicago.
You played a Mormon wife (Nicki Grant) on HBO’s Big Love. Do you think the series, Broadway’s Book of Mormon and other pop cultural references to the religion will influence voters’ perception of Republican candidate Mitt Romney at all?
No, I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t want to say anything political, but I think there’s a real mystique surrounding Mormonism. And it’s confusing to a lot of people who don’t do thorough research on it like I had to in order to play Nicki.
In the July issue of Out, you lamented about not being able to borrow a Valentino dress for the London premiere of your British television show, Hit & Miss. Have you been able to get one since?
No I haven’t. But I haven’t had a desire for one. I know Cannes was going on at that time, which was obviously a lot more exposure than my premiere; I was just disappointed because I really loved that collection.
Chloë Sevigny Transitions to the U.K. Miniseries Hit & Miss
by Bruce Fretts
From her Oscar-nominated performance in the transgender-themed true-crime story Boys Don’t Cry to her stint as a “sister-wife” on HBO’s Big Love, Chloë Sevigny has never shied away from provocative roles. Her work as an Irish contract killer who’s in transition from male to female in the six-part British series Hit & Miss (airing on DirecTV’s Audience Network) may be her most controversial turn yet. Not that she planned it that way. “This fell into my lap,” says the actress. “And it’s such a juicy part.” Here, she discusses Hit & Miss as well as gigs on Law & Order: SVU and American Horror Story.
TV Guide Magazine: When Hit & Miss producers asked you to play a transgender assassin, were you taken aback? Or did you take it as a compliment?
Sevigny: A little of both. I always thought I looked a bit masculine. But I think they picked me because of my range, without paying myself any compliments.
TV Guide Magazine: Which was harder — learning the Irish accent or wearing the prosthetic penis?
Sevigny: Learning the accent was harder, with more work, time-wise. Wearing the penis was harder emotionally.
TV Guide Magazine: It’s been reported that you cried every day on the set. Is that true?
Sevigny: Not every day, but every time I wore it. It was seven separate days of filming.
TV Guide Magazine: Why was it so upsetting?
Sevigny: Putting it on took two hours. I shaved myself and they had to glue it on, paint it and pull away the skin to make it seamless. It’s a tedious process, and it’s hard having someone so close to your private parts for an extended period of time who you’re not having sex with. And having it on and looking at yourself is oddly disturbing. I felt like a freak. A lot of transgender people feel like this shouldn’t be part of their body, and so I guess it was a good thing. I reacted the way my character would.
Chloe Sevigny Hits It with Her Best Shot
by Diane Anderson-Minshall
The actress subverts gender again in her newest role as a transgender woman who just happens to be an assassin.
Actress Chloë Sevigny may be best known to TV viewers for playing Nicolette “Nicki” Grant, the most interesting of three sister wives on HBO’s long-running polygamy drama, Big Love. But she’s equally iconic for her game-changing roles in the shocking Kids and the transgender Oscar-winner Boys Don’t Cry. Sevigny’s had a bevy of films that play with gender, including Candy Darling and If These Walls Could Talk 2, and last year she cross-dressed as distinctive fashion photographer Terry Richardson for the cover of the avant-garde trans fashion magazine Candy (shot by Richardson).
She subverts gender again in her next role, where she plays a transgender woman who just happens to be an assassin. It may be her best part yet. Hit & Miss, a six-part miniseries that premieres in July on DirectTV, centers around Mia, a contract killer whose trans identity is unknown to those around her. Her life, already precarious, is sent into a tailspin when she receives a letter from her ex. The woman is dying and wants to confess that before she transitioned, Mia fathered an 11-year-old son.
For the role, Sevigny wanted to play Mia as a glamorous woman who easily passes as female — more April Ashley (a gorgeous famous British fashion model outed as transgender in 1961) than Felicity Huffman’s Transamerica character, who she says “hadn’t quite flourished all the way yet.”
The performance dates for Abigail/1702 from the Powerhouse website: June 27, 28, 29, 30, July 3 (post-show discussion), 5, 6, 7, at 8PM; June 30, July 1, 7 (post-show discussion), 8 at 2PM.Tickets are $35 and available at Tix.com.
Ten years after the events of The Crucible, Abigail Williams (Chloë Sevigny) is living under a new identity in Boston and haunted by her past. When a mysterious figure appears, she confronts Salem’s dark history head on and must atone for her role in it. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (The Mystery Plays, Good Boys and True, Glee and Big Love) makes his Powerhouse debut with this suspenseful tale of a young woman’s quest for redemption.
Finally, we have a couple of photos of Chloë rehearsing the play with co-star Patrick Heusinger. See them in our gallery.
Fretts on Film recently caught up with Chloë Sevigny to talk about some of her most recent films. Here’s some more information on Chloë’s involvement in the upcoming Linda Lovelace biopic Lovelace, M. Blash’s The Wait, which has been “in post-production” since August 2011, and James Franco’s NYU student film Black Dog, Red Dog, straight from the source. Kicking things off with…
… Lovelace, in which Chloë appears opposite her Big Love co-star Amanda Seyfried, who plays the title role:
“I’m probably in a minute and a half of the movie,” Sevigny told me. “It’s a cameo. It’s at the very beginning of the movie, and I play a feminist journalist interviewing her about the provocative nature of her work. I love Amanda, and they have a lot of great people doing cameos.”
The Wait:
“The Wait is still pending distribution,” Sevigny says. “It’s a great movie. I love it. I hope somebody picks it up. But I loved his last movie [Lying from 2006, in which Chloë also appears], too. They’re not for everyone.”
And finally, Black Dog, Red Dog:
“It’s not a film. It’s a student film. I do student films now,” she says, with a laugh. “I live in New York, and I want to give back to the community a little bit.”
Will it get a theatrical release, like Franco’s master’s thesis, the Hart Crane biopic The Broken Tower? “God, I have no idea. I doubt it. Maybe. I have no idea what they do with these films,” says Sevigny, who plays one of the main characters’ girlfriends. “If [Broken Tower] got released with barely a blip, then I don’t have much hope for Red Dog, Black Dog or Black Dog, Red Dog.”
Deadline.com reports Chloë Sevigny will be starring as Abigail Williams in Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s new play Abigail/1702 in New York this summer. More from Deadline:
EXCLUSIVE: I’m hearing that Chloe Sevigny will play Abigail Williams in Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa‘s new play Abigail/1702, which will premiere at New York Stage and Film this summer. The David Esbjornson-directed production will run June 27-July 8. The play is a supernatural suspense thriller set 10 years after the infamous Salem witch trials. Believing herself responsible for the deaths of 20 innocent people, Abigail is now living in Boston under an assumed name, caring for the sick, and struggling to atone for her sins — both the ones history remembers her for and the darker ones in her heart. When she starts to fall in love with a young sailor in her care, a chilling, diabolical figure from Abigail’s past comes calling… and demands her soul as recompense for her crimes, sending the woman on one final, terror-filled quest for redemption back into the dark, haunted woods of Salem.
The playwright met Sevigny and they became friends when they worked on Big Love, discovering they shared a mutual love of horror and the supernatural. Aguirre-Sacasa, you’ll recall, was one of the architects who helped repair Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, which became a Broadway hit after the roughest start a musical has had. WME reps both.
The wording in the article seems to indicate that Chloë’s involvement has yet to be confirmed, but if true, what a great opportunity to see her onstage! Can’t wait!
Chloë Sevigny talked to Richard Bacon on BBC Radio 5 Live about her work in the upcoming Hit & Miss miniseries earlier today. Listen to the interview below (it’s great!):
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