TMS Muse of the Week: Chloë Sevigny
(Kevin Hatt)
One of the most interesting women to exist in pop culture and entertainment is Chloë Sevigny. With her big, almost sad eyes, light hair and moody voice, the influential lady isn’t a traditional beauty. But she was unique and intriguing enough to be noticed by artists and fans. Brought up in suburban Connecticut, Chloë felt much more at home in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and within no time was swept up into east coast city life as a socialite, model, designer and actress in the 1990s. What Sofia Coppola was doing on the west coast in Hollywood, Chloë was on the other end of the US. If you recognize Chloë, it’s probably because of her co-lead or supporting roles on popular TV dramas like HBO’s “Big Love” (2006-2011), FX’s “American Horror Story” (2012-16) and Netflix’s “Bloodline” (2015-17). But the eclectic blonde was initially a big part of the fashion world and the booming independent film movement in the mid-1990s, and got the Lana Turner story twice over. Supposedly Chloë got her first modeling gig in 1992 when she was discovered by Sassy Magazine editor Andrea Linett, who spotted the then 18-year-old hanging out in on East Village in NYC. Less than a year later, she would meet future controversial screenwriter-turned-filmmaker Harmony Korine by chance in Greenwich Village’s Washington Square Park, who would be her frequent collaborator and boyfriend in 1994-97.
What John Cassavetes & Gena Rowlands were to early independent film in the 1960s, Harmony & Chloë were in the ‘90s. The couple were instantly attached at the hip and worked together on Larry Clark’s groundbreaking indie drama Kids (1995), written by Harmony and co-starring Chloë, and Harmony’s own features Gummo (1997) and Julien Donkey-boy (1999). Since then, the model-actress has become an icon for indie and mid-budget filmmaking and is impressively one of the most famous actors to never appear in a big budget studio picture. Roles in indies like Steve Buscemi’s Trees Lounge (1996), Walt Whitman’s The Last Days of Disco (1998), Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry (1999) [which earned her a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Oscars], as well as Mary Harron’s satirical thriller American Psycho (2000), put Chloë on the map to tinsel town. Her rep continued into the 2000s with arthouse flicks such as Lars von Trier’s Dogville (2003) and Manderlay (2005), Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers (2005), biopics like Billy Ray’s Shattered Glass (2003) and David Fincher’s Zodiac (2007), and a Woody Allen romcom, Melinda & Melinda (2004). In between making a name for herself on screen, Chloë was also on the cover of magazines like Sassy and X-Girl, and posed for brands including Miu Miu, H&M, Chloé, Louis Vuitton and Vivienne Westwood. Later on in 2009, she ran her own fashion line after beginning as a seamstress when she first moved to Manhattan and even assorting the costumes for Gummo.
(via pbs.org)
As is usually the case with these kinds of cool chicks, Chloë was a presence in the alternative music scene; appearing on the covers of power pop band Gigolo Aunts’ 1993 EP ‘Full-on Bloom’ and 1994 single ‘Flippin’ Out,’ and in various music videos including Sonic Youth’s ‘Sugar Kane’ (1993) and the Lemonheads’ ‘Big Gay Heart’ (1993). Chloë’s days as a cinematic muse continued after her relationship with Harmony, with another risqué indie filmmaker: Vincent Gallo—but then rapidly declined following their one movie together, The Brown Bunny (2003). If the title sounds familiar, this might be for a couple of reasons. One is that legendary film critic Roger Ebert famously called The Brown Bunny, “the worst movie in the history of the Cannes Film Festival,” which resulted in a hotly reported media feud between him and Vincent. The other reason is a graphic scene in the film where Chloë performs unsimulated oral sex on her co-star and director. While The Brown Bunny isn’t any more offensive than the perverse content in Kids and Gummo, both the press and public made a big deal out of the sex in the former. Years later, during a 2011 interview with Playboy Magazine, Chloë revealed the infamous scene in The Brown Bunny made her decide not to shoot sex/love scenes anymore; although not because of how the scene was shot, but because of the outrage that rocketed afterwards.
Fortunately for Chloë, her relevancy and career weren’t too affected by the controversy in the long run. In fact, I would say she’s reached her prime with cable and streaming TV in her 40s. Chloë might have been one of the last celebrities people expected to settle down with a family, but she did exactly that when she married art gallery director Siniša Mačković in 2018, and gave birth to son Vanja in 2020. Probably the most surprising thing about Chloë is that after growing up in a Catholic family, she still identifies as a member of the religion and never stopped attending Mass; even with her racy reputation. I feel like it’s easy to pigeonhole Chloë as a proto-hipster, especially since Drew Doege’s drag impersonation of her persona went viral in 2011. But really, I think she has a lot of range. For someone so chic and sophisticated, she doesn’t feel out of place in the trashy and tacky cinematic universes she’s a part of. In an community surrounded by fakes, Chloë is a genuine star.