Young Star exclusive: Chloe Sevigny’s impossible cool

At 39, the actress and eternal icon of downtown cool finds herself back in the spotlight in the unlikeliest of roles—as a detective on the crime series ‘Those Who Kill.’

MANILA, Philippines - Chloe Sevigny is a legend in her own time.

As a teenager, she found her way out of small town Darien, Connecticut when, at 17, she was plucked from obscurity by a fashion editor and made to model. Andrea Linett, the fashion editor of cult favorite Sassy (an analog Rookie, if you will) spotted the teenager walking down the street and was so impressed by the teenager’s style and charisma that she later made her an intern. “The woman at Sassy just liked the hat I was wearing,” Chloe would later say, but some things are undeniable. She was fresh and charismatic, brave and impossibly cool. When she was  18, Jay McInerney, the early-‘90s writer du jour and the man behind Bright Lights, Big City (“a voice of a generation,” you might say), spotted her on the town and decided to dedicate seven pages in The New Yorker to “one of the coolest girls in the world.”

That was before her role in the decade-defining Kids (1995) or her Oscar-nominated turn in Boys Don’t Cry (1999). Some people, it seems, just have it. And in the early ‘90s, without any roles under her belt, any credentials to her name, or the conventional looks that have ignited many an It Girl, Chloe Sevigny became a legend on the willowy backs of charisma and indelible personal style.

Twenty years later and she’s more than past proving herself. While the other ‘90s girls mostly imploded in a cloud of self-destruction (Courtney Love) tabloid scandal (Winona Ryder), she’s managed to gain membership in the hallowed halls of eternal cool, among the likes of Patti Smith and Keith Richards—the kind of icon that never tried too hard and perhaps should never have to. At 39, Chloe Sevigny is still as relevant and “of the moment” as she’s always been—by now proving herself a canny marketing head and a compelling actress.

Between collaborations with the likes of Supreme and Opening Ceremony, surprising turns on popular shows like The Mindy Project, and a still exciting acting career, she took a cross-continental phone call from Young STAR and talked about women in Hollywood, Mindy Kaling, Spike Jonze’s Her, and the crime series she’s currently starring in (A&E’s Those Who Kill). True to form, she was dry and witty, light but honest.

YOUNG STAR: Hi, Chloe! Thanks so much for taking my call. We’re big fans here…. You’ve done everything from Oscar-winning dramas like Boys Don’t Cry to cult favorites like Party Monster and Kids. Is there something you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t really had the chance to play yet? Is Those Who Kill one of them?

CHLOE SEVIGNY: It’s one of them. I mean, I think there’s so many different things that I haven’t done yet. I would love to do a sweeping period romance. That’s something that I’ve always wanted to do and I’ve never had the chance to do. But playing a detective, for a woman, doesn’t come along that often.

It’s a genre that we’ve seen explored a lot in TV recently—everything from The Killing to Top of the Lake. Why do you think the genre appeals to viewers so much?

I’m not really sure. I haven’t watched The Killing or Top of the Lake but I like that these are all shows driven by female characters, I think that’s really great. I feel like the genre has been dominated by males since the beginning of entertainment, from Philip Marlowe on. So it’s cool to infuse it from a female perspective, maybe a more emotional perspective. I think that’s really great.

I’m glad you mentioned Philip Marlowe. Fifty years ago, you’d be playing the femme fatale. But now you’re playing the detective. That’s great! You started out in movies and got a lot of great early roles in movies. Now after Big Love, you’ve done everything from guest spots on Law and Order to American Horror Story to Portlandia to The Mindy Project. Why do you find yourself gravitating to the TV medium more now?

Those are just the things that I’ve been offered. I feel like the film industry is very different from before I started Big Love, just the way films are distributed and the way films are made. I feel like the independent film world is a lot more competitive. They’re using a lot bigger names to finance those movies now. I just feel like the landscape changed a lot.

I’m really happy with my career and all the parts that I’ve been able to play. I’m a huge fan of Mindy and a huge fan of Portlandia. Those were great opportunities for me to try to do comedy that wasn’t a movie. It feels less of a heap of pressure to be able to exercise or play in a TV environment than in a movie. For me, it’s a bit more freeing and more fun. It feels less precious.

But I’d rather be working on movies, honestly. [Laughs] I don’t know if it’s my age or the landscape but there haven’t been a lot of opportunities and I feel like if there is even a supporting part in a lot of these indie movies, like from Her to whatever it is, they’re going to put Olivia Wilde or Amy Adams. There are these big names that just get the parts over and over again, and there seems to be less work to go around in film right now.

Wow, thank you for your honesty. (Laughs)

Of course. (Laughs)

And how was it like working with Mindy Kaling?

Actually, it was really scary doing that show. I think it’s super awesome that she has that show and I think she’s really funny, but there’s a lot of improvisation that goes on. It was the same as Portlandia, and I don’t think I realized that. I thought everything would be more kind of written out for me, and then you get on set and it’s like her and a couple of the other writers, who are the actual actors, are always throwing things around. That’s a real muscle that you have to exercise, and they’re just really good at it, and I’m not. (Laughs)

So it was just like a new interesting situation to walk in, ‘cause they’re doing it all day long, every day, for like 10 months a year, playing these characters, working these muscles. Like I did these scenes with James Franco and he’s really good at it because he also does it a lot in movies and stuff. I don’t know if it’s a talent I have, but I was really impressed with her. I just thought she was really cool, a really nice girl.

Do you feel like you were able to get the hang of improv?

I feel like if you did it a lot, if it was something you really worked at…I feel like the main thing you need in order to do it is confidence. You have to be confident, and I don’t know if I have that confidence.

You’re an anomaly in that you’re an Academy Award-nominated, Golden Globe-winning Hollywood actress who doesn’t really seem to chase prestige, or fame for that matter. I mean you still do some small films and guest spots, like Law and Order and American Horror Story.  I was just curious, when faced with forks in the career, how do you make your decisions?

There’s a lot of factors…. Something like The Mindy Show. People would never expect that. So it’s kind of something also to do with the way people see you in the industry to something that’s a challenge for yourself. Or if you’re just a fan, like I was a fan of Portlandia. There are different things that factor in.

But really, I’m almost 40 and I’ve been working in the industry for 20 years now so there’s gonna be different ups and downs and plateaus and stuff and you just wanna keep working and keep relevant I think, however you can do that. Stay in the public eye and surprise people.

Like you said, you would never expect me to be on Law and Order. That was kind of a funny thing for me because it’s like a real rite of passage in New York. Every single New York actor has been on the show and I knew that it wasn’t going on for much longer. I was like, I want to be on it before it’s done. It’s kind of like being in a Woody Allen movie almost. It has this kind of funny—not prestige—but it’s just something that everybody’s done.

I guess I kind of still feel like some people don’t think of me as an actor. It’s like, “She’s a personality, or she’s this town-town It girl, fashion girl” or whatever. You know, doing Law and Order, it was like, “No, I’m just an actor and I just want to work hard like everybody else and play different parts.” So it’s different for different things.

I was gonna ask that, actually. Earlier in your career, you were celebrated for your taste and downtown cool. So you were labeled as this fashion-indie It girl. And I was wondering, did it ever become difficult to continue being an actress? For people not to see you that way? Did it ever get in the way?

I think it does, and it did, and it still does a little bit, but you can’t let that affect you so much. There’s so much rejection in the industry, and so much judging from the way you look to whatever it may be. So you just have to stand by the decisions that you make and keep going, I guess, as uninteresting as that is as an answer. (Laughs)

I don’t really know what to say. If we were afraid of what everybody thought of what we did all the time, we would never do anything, I guess.

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You can watch Those Who Kill on JackCITY every Thursday 9 p.m.

Chronicling Chloe

1992

Discovered by the legendary ‘90s teen magazine Sassy, where she eventually interned

1993

Appeared in Sonic Youth’s music video for Sugar Kane

1994

Appeared in The Lemonheads’ music video for Big Gay Heart

1995

Snagged her first film role in the controversial feature Kids

1998

Starred as Alice Kinnon in the acclaimed film The Last Days of Disco

2000

Nominated for an Oscar for her supporting role in Boys Don’t Cry

2001

Appeared on of Vanity Fair’s “Legends of Hollywood” issue cover with Gwyneth Paltrow, Penelope Cruz, and Cate Blanchett

2003

Played Daisy in the controversial Vincent Gallo film The Brown Bunny

2010

Bagged a Golden Globe Award for her role as Nicki Grant in HBO’s Big Love

2013

Played Christina in The Mindy Project, worked with Jason Dill on Supreme x Comme des Garcons shirt Spring Collection, and collaborated with Opening Ceremony for their Fall/Winter Collection