These memorable offscreen quotations by Chloë have been compiled from a number of publications and interviews.

On her inspiration for her Opening Ceremony line:
“I like to think I’m designing for the alternative girl everywhere. I was just in Shreveport, Louisiana, and I met a group of girls that dressed really cool, and they were just into an alternative sort of lifestyle, and music, and fashion and things, and I think you can find those kids everywhere. It’s the kids that are seeking something different from the norm.”

On her personal style as a teenager:
“I wasn’t so much a tomboy — I guess I was more into the androgenous look, I think that’s the early 90s and I think that was kind of popular, more in Vogue.”

On the androgynous style of the 90’s:
“Yeah, you know, I still had long hair in that [Sassy 1992] spread. In the rave scene I was into, in this sort of skate scene, there was this whole kind of, “Is she a girl, is she a boy,” being able to pass as either. Because everybody was sort of into… everybody.”

- He Magazine (US), January 2008

On how her style evolved in her childhood:
“Pretty much from kindergarten on I wouldn’t let my mother dress me. I had very specific tastes, and refused to put on anything she wanted me to wear. I was really into clothes, often kind of outrageous, not quite typical kid-wear, like hats and things.”

On her father David’s influence on her style:
“My father used to take me into the city, to Macy’s, or Saks, to go shopping — I was Daddy’s girl, so those were really important days. He’d been a military man, so all of his outfits were very crisp. And beyond that he had some serious style. Fedoras, trenchcoats — very classic. He even wore those straps [garters] that hold your socks up. There was just something about that generation. He used to tell me how much he liked women in hats, so I would wear hats more and more often, because I knew he liked me in them.”

On the name of her clothing line, “Chloë Sevigny for Opening Ceremony:
“Yeah, not all that clever, I know — but the logo, I like.”

On her inspiration for her Opening Ceremony line:
“The difference with it, for me, is that I really thought about it as a commercial product. I really thought about the consumer, which is something that, well, I just don’t normally do. I really want it to be successful. I want people to buy it, and to like it.”

On the limits imposed by endorsement contracts:
“A deal with one company meant I couldn’t go out and do anything to promote another, so it never worked out. Like now, for example, this deal I have with Coty [fragrances] has some unbelievable rules, like I can’t do nude shots, or any sex scenes. And in my personal life, basically, I’m not allowed to do anything… untoward.”

On her topless scenes on Big Love:
“You know, I did so many topless scenes during the first season, I got really tired of it. [Co-stars] Jeanne Tripplehorn and Ginnifer Goodwin don’t have to do any nude scenes. [Big Love producers] tried to put pressure on me at first, and they said, ‘Well, you know, Jeanne shows her behind,’ and I said, ‘What? Any girl would rather show her behind than her boobies.’ You know what I mean?”

On Big Love co-star, Harry Dean Stanton:
“The funny thing is, I’ll see Harry Dean at whatever Hollywood event, red carpet thing, and walk up to him wearing some crazy, sexy dress, and he’ll be shaking my hand and going, ‘Now, who are you again?’ And I say, I play your daughter! And sometimes I don’t think he knows what I’m talking about. He never recognizes me. But, whatever, he’s 86 years old. And he still likes to party — very hard. I think he comes to the set sometimes straight from the party, but you’d never know it.”

On Big Love co-stars, Harry Dean Stanton and Bruce Dern:
“I admire them both so much. Without sounding full of myself or anything, I hope, in some way, that I’m carrying on the torch for guys like that — that kind of actor.”

On life in West Hollywood:
“I lived in Los Angeles for a while, West Hollywood, ans it was just miserable. I had these loud, obnoxious lesbian neighbors, who were always playing Trivia Pursuit, yelling answers to eachother out the window, screaming.”

On finding a potato bug in her bathroom:
“One night I found this… thing. It was in the bathroom, which is downstairs [it's a two-story house], and it was… it was like something from a David Cronenberg movie, and huge — huge! Or, I thought, maybe an alien had stopped in, and then gone into my bathroom to have a miscarriage. It’s probably not something you say in an interview, or maybe ever, because it’s incredibly embarrassing — but it’s pretty funny, so I will. I was so, so scared, I mean utterly terrified, that even after it was gone, for so long I wouldn’t go in there, and in the middle of the night, rather than risk it, I would pee off my upstairs porch. Turned out it’s called a potato bug. It’s the size of my fucking… hand.”

On life and people in Los Feliz:
“But I love Los Feliz. It’s a great, great neighborhood. I go out sometimes — the Cha-Cha, Little Joy, Echo — in those places I can relate to people. It’s more like being in New York, East Village, or wherever. There aren’t so many movie people, fancy-pants morons who are climbing and clawing their way up the social ladder — basically, to nowhere.”

On aspiring to do more mainstream film work:
“Well, I’ve been playing that game, whatever it is, for a while, and it just hasn’t gotten me anywhere. I mean, I don’t get it. I take all kinds of ‘meetings’ with studio people, because everyone’s always saying, ‘Let’s get her for this,’ or, ‘Oh, we love your work,’ and, ‘We’re so excited about working with you.’ And then they don’t give me any parts. I want to make a big studio film, but maybe I’m trying too hard. Maybe if I don’t try so hard, it’s better — or it’s a better kind of trying. Maybe it’s because I’m not available enough. Who knows, really.”

- BlackBook (US), February 2008

On her interest in fashion:
“I’m interested, not really in high fashion per se, but in style.. There’s a difference.”

On her childhood interest in acting:
“I was really into it. When I lost my baby teeth, my mom was so supportive that she got me one of those bridges with fake teeth so I could still go on auditions.”

On losing interest in acting as a teen:
“I wasn’t into the drama scene. The kids were pretty geeky — they just weren’t my crowd. I hung out more with, like, the delinquents.”

Recalling the moment of being discovered by a Sassy fashion editor:
“I was at a kiosk buying cigarettes or something. I was wearing camel-colored corduroy overalls, steel-toe wingtip Doc Martens and a wacky hat.”

On initially auditioning for the role of Brandon Teena in Boys Don’t Cry:
“When I was at the audition [director Kimberly Peirce] asked, ‘Have you ever wanted to be a boy?’ and I was like, ‘No, I’ve always liked being a girl — I’m pretty girly.’”

On wanting to do a big studio film:
“I audition for them — I feel like I could be the ‘quirky friend.’ But the studios still aren’t into me. It hasn’t really clicked.”

On a tabloid-posted photo and rumor she was dating SNL comedian Seth Meyers:
“Matt was sitting [on the other side of me] and I was holding hands with him the whole time! Can you believe that? How do they just cut out the boyfriend?”

On being single in Los Angeles:
“I was dating while I was in Los Angeles — oh my god, it was a nightmare. I was like, ‘I never want to be single again.’ There’s not a lot [of good men] to pick from there.”

On her sleeping habits:
“I sleep in the nude… well, and an eyemask.”

On her Opening Ceremony line:
“When you’re young, you’re mixing things up. You’re a sponge. The Opening Ceremony stuff is like me going back to my youth. My last hurrah.”

On modeling and fashion and aspects to them:
“Oh, like the selling out, you mean? Yeah, that’s not so much fun. But fashion is a good way for me to make a living. I couldn’t survive just doing independent movies. And I’d rather do modelling than movies or TV I didn’t like.”

On her role in If These Walls Could Talk 2:
“I totally made it mine. It was me and Michelle Williams, and I got to kiss her – mmm-mmm, she’s a cute little thing.”

On a Morrissey fan site continuously mocking her:
“They always make fun of me. They hate me, they’re really nasty.”

On her Kids days:
“Kids was an exciting time. I wasn’t thinking about Hollywood. I didn’t care about the long haul, the big picture. It was so freeing.”

On not winning her Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 2000:
“I don’t even feel like it would be a good thing if I got it – it feels too early. My brother cried when I didn’t win. Isn’t that sweet?”

On the competition she was up against at the Oscars:
“Pretty stiff competish… although I still don’t think that Angelina’s was a supporting part.”

- The Guardian (UK), February 16 2008

On finding the perfect jeans:
“I’m still looking for the perfect pair — I’ve been searching since 9th grade!”

On feeling she’s off the fashion industry radar:
“A few years ago I started wearing these white Ray-Ban Wayfarers that my mother found at a flea market in Connecticut. I loved them and wore them every day. But I was constantly made fun of by all the tabloids, attacked over and over again. It got to the point where my publicist and my agent had this conference call with me — yes, a conference call — and said, ‘Chloë, we know you really like those sunglasses but people are taking the piss out of you so much that we have to advise you to stop wearing them.’ I was like, OK fine, I’m sick of them anyway. But then the next summer those white Ray-Bans were everywhere! You could not escape them. Mary-Kate Olsen wore them and it was, like, ‘Mary-Kate starts a new trend.’ I never got any credit! I’m so off the radar!”

On her distaste for tracksuits:
“I hate tracksuits. But I was going to the gym for a while and you have to wear a tracksuit there. I remember running into this girl once when I was on my way to the gym — girls often come up to me to talk. I was, like, ‘I don’t want you to see me like this, you have to go away!’

On wanting to do a big studio film:
“I’d like to do a blockbuster but it’s going to take me going out to LA and spending more time pounding the pavements and knocking on doors. I think next year I’m going to bite the bullet — all my films have been independent so far, so I will have to actively pursue more studio pictures.”

On her distaste for celebrities with stylists:
“These people are celebrated for their style and they don’t even dress themselves. It’s so unfair!”

- Elle (UK), March 2008

On the harsh critical response for 2003’s The Brown Bunny:
“Yeah… though some of the criticism was painful. And I felt like so many people were just judging without even watching it and that was hard.”

- Nylon (US), April 2008

On how her Opening Ceremony line came about:
“I was out at a party one night and Fashion Wire Daily was there, y’know, doing little areas and they said, ‘How come you never did a line. If you ever did one, who would you wanna do it with?’ and I said Opening Ceremony. Humberto [Leon], the owner of Opeing Ceremony, read it online and called me the next day and said, ‘Do you really wanna do something like this? Let’s sit down and talk about it.’ So, it’s kind of lucky, being who I am, that, y’know, they would take notice and be interested in doing it with me.”

On being referred to as having been a “creative director” for fashion label Imitation of Christ:
“Yeah, I’m not sure what that means really. The press kind of made that up I think. [laughs]“

- Doingbird (Au), issue #13 (2008)

On her experiences working on Lying (2006):
“The director, M. Blash, was great, very fluid, and filming was such an escape after playing in Big Love for six months. My character continually spins lies — so it’s a study of why we lie and what lies we tell to entertain ourselves or make people feel sorry. Seeing myself on the big screen, I was impressed with how confident I appeard. I think I usually appear so self-conscious.”

On the challenges the Hollywood industry presents her with:
“I love my craft and am still learning more, but the pressure of people judging on you all the time is hard on me and I don’t deal with it well. I guess I should quit and go into fashion — but hey, no quitters! I’m such a control freak I think I would be good at telling everyone what to do.”

On her personal fashion mistakes:
“I was wearin this sheepskin jacket out the other night with graphic leggins from my friend Sue Stemp and a pair of platform heels and realized what a fashion victim I was. I had taken the voluminous look — the jacket — and altered my wardrobe around it.”

On her style choices:
“That was Dolce & Gabbana at the Big Love premiere. I wanted to wear pink and look approachable, and my publicist said it would look good in US Weekly.”

On her style choices:
“I just can’t carry something that I don’t like.”

On growing more self-conscious with time:
“I wasn’t really interested in make-up. I’m just a lot more self-aware now of my flaws. I remember that when Kids was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award, it was one of my first times in Hollywood, and we were going to the awards ceremony. The producer of Kids had this assistant and she was kind of taking care of me and um, maybe I shouldn’t say it, it’s kind of gross! [...] She said, ‘I think you should, you know, wax, your, uh, moustache.’ I was like, ‘I don’t have a moustache, you’re crazy!’ I have this very thin layer of blond fuzz all over my body. And so, I think that was the turning point for me and it all went downhill from there.”

On her first runway experience:
“Kate [Moss] was first and I was second. I can’t remember who was in charge of casting, but they brought me out and taught me how to walk, keep my head up, and look bored and blah, blah, blah. All the girls backstage, I have to admit I was really nervous, but they were all really nice. They gave me some champagne to try and relax me! My mom and dad went there and it was at Bryant Park.”

On toning down her style with increased publicity:
“I think that I was also really just discovering that kind of 70s Saint Laurent look, wanting to be a little more grown up and a little less grunge and that was my kind of way of doing it. I think I just wanted to present myself more… plus I suddenly realized that pictures are going to last forever and ever. So, when I knew I was going to be photographed, I wanted to have a more timeless and classic look, which would be more to my benefit than wearing one of my wacky outfits!”

On her grungy outfit during the interview:
“I’ve assumed my true persona! There’s my work life and my real life.”

On being a “fuckable actress”:
“You know, I had an agent who told me that. [...] He said, ‘You’re going into this audition and you have to make the girls want to be you and the men want to fuck you.’”

On tabloids and their effect on her:
“I think it’s those tabloids that are feeding my insecurity and they make me feel embarrassed even to admit but, like, the fear of getting, ‘What was she thinking?’ Even though I get it all the time, I don’t want to get that stigma of being… [wacky.]“

On actors doing ad campaigns:
“I think it can add and raise your profile. People think you’re a hot commodity or marketable. I know how Sean Penn has been very outspoken about how he doesn’t think that actors should do advertising. I think some actor’s actors might frown upon it.”

On her career choices:
“I think fashion has allowed me to make the choices that I’ve made because I have extra income coming in from that direction.”

On having wanted to be in the movie Aeon Flux:
“I really wanted to be in that Aeon Flux! I loved that show when I was a kid because I used to watch it on MTV. It’s like this cartoon with this powerful girl.”

On not wanting to come off as overly sexual in public:
“I guess I don’t want to be overtly sexual and I think that I’m self-conscious that I have… full breasts. I think of a woman with smaller breasts being more refined or whatever and maybe I don’t want to show them off. I remember a couple years ago at a Vanity Fair party I wore this white Holly Harp dress and it was very kind of revealing and Tom Ford was like, ‘[gasp] Did you just get those??’ I was like, ‘No, I’ve always had them!’”

On being introduced to the skater scene:
“When I was still living in Connecticut I was working at Sassy magazine, and that’s when I met Harold Hunter [skateboarder, star of Kids]. Harold was the first kid I met from that scene. He was the first one who came up to me because I had a girlfriend with me who was a really pretty blonde. So I was hanging out with all of them and going to the rave clubs and whatnot and I was basically skipping school and going there every weekend. I wasn’t ready to go to college, I wasn’t a very good student. I guess I wanted to experience things more than being taught things.”

On why she chose acting as her primary career:
“Well, I had always wanted to be an actress and I had done my thing in music videos, but how do you get into the business? It just seemed impossible. So I thought maybe I would go into fashion, and then working at Sassy, I realized that I didn’t really want to work at a magazine.”

On Harmony Korine and how she met him:
“I met Harmony during the summer between sophomore and junior year of high school. I would rack up the hugest phone bills calling him out at his grandmother’s house in Queens. We were really just best friends. There was nothing romantic until after we filmed Kids. He came to my high school graduation. You know, we were pals. Obviously, you know him, you know how captivating he is. Just to meet someone that had so much inspiration and he knew about so many things and was interested in so many things. It was exhilirating! He was like my college education. He was lucky enough to have a father who turned him on to so much film and literature and he taught me and shared with me all the things that he knew.”

On the role of Jennie in Kids:
“I was so disappointed when he offered me a smaller role. They had cast another girl for Jennie, the character I ended up playing, and they day before shooting Larry Clark decided she wasn’t working and he asked Harmony who he had written it for. Harmony said, ‘While I was writing, I was talking to Chloë every night on the phone so I guess it’s her.’ I gave the script to my father to read and he said, ‘Yeah.’”

On turning down a role in I Shot Andy Warhol:
“I got offered a part in I Shot Andy Warhol, playing a smaller part, but I’ve always been wary of being ‘bio-pic’ girl, especially with people I find so iconic.”

On choosing indie roles over commercial ones:
“I think a lot of that rubbed off from Harmony [Korine]. He always believed that film could be something more. But eventually it turned into me having to make a living from it; you know, further down the road, having to support my family and support myself.”

On how she chooses her films:
“For the most part it’s been the director. Like in the case of Woody Allen, I can’t say I was in love with the script, but at least I knew the director. In most cases it’s been about that. I mean, I’ve worked with Lans Von Trier twice, and I can’t say I was in love with the roles, but i just wanted to be around him to be in one of his pictures. As an actor you want to be in good hands.”

On the thought of one day working as a director herself:
“I have [thought about it], but I still don’t have any confidence in myself as a writer. There are a few short stories that I would like to adapt, and make some shorts to kind of test the ground. But the stories that I’m in love with involve some special effects, so that’s tricky.”

On not having made a lot of friends in Hollywood:
“I haven’t made that many friends in the industry. [...] I guess it stems from not really having anything in common, really, with most of the actors I meet or people that I come in contact with. Or if I do, just being really bad at maintaining those relationships. I met Natasha Lyonne and we were like two peas in the pod. You know, we have a lot in common.”

On feeling increasing pressure to be more commercial:
“I do [feel the pressure]. More so in the way that I present myself, you know, going to the awards ceremony and looking more conventional. Not trying to push the envelope fashion-wise.”

On her indie label hindering her from getting commercial work:
“I’m like the ‘indie’ girl and I’ll always be labeled as that, you know? So I think that’s definitely made it harder for me to get more commercial work.”

On her difficulties finding appealing roles:
“But the stuff’s not out there! The things that I want to be in aren’t out there, you know? I mean, think about last year; of all the movies I’ve seen, would I have wanted to have been in any of them? I mean, a girl my age who played a part — I can’t think of one.”

On being always called the “It” girl:
“I was always confused by that. I always thought of myself as being kind of under the radar and I thought of that label meaning more mass appeal. Like a party girl or society girl and I’ve never done that. I only go to those functions if I’m affiliated with it in some way.”

- Self Service (US), issue #26 (2007)

On her father David and brother Paul:
“My father was very unconventional. He was quite an intellectual and really into art and music. I remember listening to Parallel Lines bu 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.”

On her demanding criteria for fashion:
“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.”

On her need to interact with the director during filming:
“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.”

On not having great ambitions in acting:
“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.

- Paper (US), September 2006

On Boys Don’t Cry not garnering her a lot of new roles:
“That was a very independent movie, and we were all shocked at its success. But nothing really came of it, career-wise, for me. Not much really.”

On growing up:
“You get older and stop being such an idealist snob.”

On her difficulties finding appealing mainstream roles:
“Only thing is, I say all this about wanting to work in more mainstream stuff, then I look around and there’s hardly anything out now that I would have wanted to be in. Except maybe Bad Education… and there wasn’t even a role in that for me! And I’m not even sure I can do it. I have to feel strongly about a project that I’m gonna work on. I might not even bring enough to a part to be part of some big Hollywood film thing.”

On resisting her “It” girl status:
“It’s a back and forth thing. I was accepting of it, then resisted it, then went back again. First I liked it because it was just attention and it sorta helped catapult me and give me a name. Then it felt like people only talked about that and not my acting. Then I got over that and realized that there is a long line of actresses who have been celebrated for their style and if I’m one of them, so be it.”

- America (US), January 2005

On resisting her fashion icon status:
“I love acting and I love cinema more than anything. For some reason the public has embraced me as a fashion icon, and I feel like it has diminished me as an actress. Or I don’t get as much recognition as an actress — and that upsets me.”

On not having an educational interest in fashion:
“I think I’m pretty schooled as far as the designers go, but I don’t study fashion. I don’t think it’s worth studying… Fashion is just there.”

- Harper’s Bazaar (US), May 2001

On her early drug (ab)use:
“I was never a really big drug taker. I was always too paranoid, always afraid the high would never stop. I did valium, stuff like that. I’ve never liked people on uppers, coke and speed. It scares me, they’re… exploding. I haven’t smoked pot in years now; I just didn’t like the high any more. My heart would beat really fast and I’d feel like I was moving in slow-motion frames. I don’t like those altered states.”

On her rape scene in Kids (1995):
“Rape is one of the most horrible things that can happen to any woman, but really it was my easiest scene to do.”

On sounding increasingly British:
“I know. I keep finding myself doing that: ‘Fancy a fag?’ ‘Fancy a shag?’ I need to get out of England.”

- The Face (UK), February 1997