The Stunning Transformation Of Chloë Sevigny
Chloë Sevigny is not merely an actor. Throughout her life, she has been a model, a muse, and an arbiter of style who inspired girls the world over with her specific brand of alternative chic. When Sevigny was still a teenager, she was christened the cool girl of her generation in a fawning New Yorker article. Her early success could have been chalked up to a fluke, but she proved she had the chops to sustain an impressive career, working with acclaimed directors such as Whit Stillman, David Fincher, and Lars von Trier.
Sevigny eventually took her own turn behind the camera, directing short films that received critical praise. She has always managed to straddle the line between indie and mainstream success, winning over audiences with her performances in cult classics like "Kids" and "American Psycho," acclaimed TV series such as "Big Love" and "American Horror Story," and Netflix hits "Bloodline" and "Russian Doll."
As of this writing, Chloë Sevigny shows no signs of slowing down, starring in "Feud: Capote vs. The Swans" as C.Z. Guest, and directing the short film "Lypsinka: Toxic Femininity." Here's a look at how the '90s "it girl" got her start, and how she has transformed into the multitalented performer she is today.
She grew up in a wealthy community but her family wasn't rich
Chloë Sevigny was born in Massachusetts on November 18, 1974, and raised in Darien, Connecticut. Although Darien is an affluent coastal town, Sevigny's parents were not wealthy. "We didn't have as much money. It was a real struggle for my father. Any sense of bullying I ever got was around that. Like, 'Your mom drives a Honda, you're poor,'" Sevigny shared with Interview magazine. The actor's father worked in insurance before becoming a painter, while her mother worked at a nursery school and, later, a stationary store. As Sevigny told The New York Times, she worked for a time as a nanny. "I did their laundry, made their dinner, gave them baths," she said.
Despite living a typical lifestyle, the Sevignys had a bohemian sensibility that shaped Chloë's perspective. "My family was unconventional," the actor explained. "My father was an intellectual, and my brother and I always rebelled against the status quo in the town. ... And that sprinkled into me and my outlook."
Although the Sevignys were not the richest family in town, Chloë was able to experience some of the finer things. Sevigny fondly remembers her father, who worked in the city, taking her to Saks on a monthly basis. "All the women in the girls' department knew me," she told Interview. That's when my infatuation with New York began."
Her brother's girlfriend was an early style inspiration
Chloë Sevigny is widely considered a style icon, having appeared in countless fashion campaigns, runway shows, and lending her expertise to clothing lines such as Imitation of Christ and a Warby Parker glasses collection. Sevigny's fashion sense has contributed to her "it girl" status, and her unique style choices have garnered her high praise from fashion mags and inspired fans the world over. So, where did Sevigny get such great taste?
It turns out she found style inspiration right in her hometown of Darien. Sevigny told The New York Times she idolized her brother Paul's girlfriend at the time, a girl named Ella who donned kilts and Doc Martens and dyed her hair blue. "I'd never seen anyone in this town that looked like her before," Sevigny recalled. "I just wanted to be her."
As for Sevigny's seemingly inherent coolness, she credits Paul for passing that on to her. "I didn't look up to singers or anything, I didn't have that many icons, but I was really into my brother," she told the New York Daily News. "He was like the coolest thing on the planet. ... He was a hard-core kid."
Chloë Sevigny was discovered in New York City when she was a teen
Although Chloë Sevigny attended theater camp as a child and had early aspirations of becoming an actor, her teen years somewhat sidetracked her ambitions. "I didn't want to do anything. I just wanted to smoke pot," Sevigny shared in an interview with The Guardian. Sevigny's parents were not very strict, allowing her to spend weekends in New York City on her own. This would eventually lead to her big break.
When Sevigny was 17 years old, she was discovered while standing on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Sevigny's style and unique features caught the eye of an editor at Sassy magazine who asked Sevigny if she'd like to model. The modeling gig led to an internship, along with other opportunities. Sonic Youth frontwoman Kim Gordon, well-known to Sassy magazine, decided to cast Sevigny in the band's 1992 video for "Sugar Kane," which led to an appearance in the Lemonheads' "Big Gay Heart" music video in 1993. Soon after, Sevigny's film career would begin.
Her role in Kids shaped her as an actor
"I knew I wanted to be an actress since I was really young, like kindergarten," Chloë Sevigny told The New York Times. "But after the Sassy thing, I was like, 'I'm going to do something.'" Sure enough, she did.
In 1995, Sevigny landed her first film role in the controversial 1995 movie "Kids." In the film, Sevigny plays Jennie, a teenage girl living in the city who contracts HIV when she loses her virginity. The movie, which was shot guerilla style on the streets of New York, was written by Harmony Korine, a filmmaker who Sevigny dated and collaborated with on a number of future projects. "We kind of thought we're surrounding ourselves with this very indie-minded, indie-spirited kind of people and mentality," Sevigny said in an interview as part of the "SAG-AFTRA Conversations" series. "We were snobs," Sevigny added with a laugh.
Interestingly, Sevigny almost didn't get the starring role in the film, as she was originally cast in a much smaller part. She told Interview magazine, "I tried out, and I got the part of the girl that kisses the other girl in the pool. Three days before shooting, they asked me if I wanted to be Jennie." The film opened doors for Sevigny, but her artistic sensibility shaped the trajectory of her fledgling career. "It definitely informed a lot of my decisions for good and for bad," she explained in the SAG-AFTRA series.
Chloë Sevigny achieved mainstream recognition with Boys Don't Cry
In 1999, Chloë Sevigny starred opposite Hilary Swank in the film "Boys Don't Cry." The film, which is based on true events involving the rape and murder of a transgender man named Brandon Teena in Falls City, Nebraska, received critical acclaim, as did Sevigny for her performance as Teena's girlfriend, Lana Tisdel. Sevigny, who had enjoyed under-the-radar success in films such as 1996's "Trees Lounge" and 1998's "The Last Days of Disco," suddenly found herself in the mainstream spotlight, earning an Academy Award nomination for Actress in a Supporting Role.
But it was with mixed feelings that Sevigny celebrated her achievement. In a 2024 sitdown with Vogue, the actor spoke about some of her most iconic looks, revealing how odd it felt being dressed to the nines at the 2000 Oscars. "I remember ... being very confused or feeling guilty that here I was, draped in all this finery, while the girl I portrayed was still back in Nebraska having lost her loved ones," she said.
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She played a Mormon on Big Love, but she grew up Catholic
From 2006 until 2011, Chloë Sevigny starred as Nicolette "Nicki" Grant on the HBO series "Big Love." The series centered around a Mormon polygamist family with Sevigny, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and Ginnifer Goodwin playing the three wives of Bill Henrickson (played by the late Bill Paxton). While Nicki Grant was a dutiful sister wife, Sevigny was raised Catholic and maintains a connection to her religion.
In an interview with The Talks, the actor spoke about her religious upbringing and how it affected her. "I remember very much the iconography and the images and the statues in church were very emotional for me," she said. "Just the power of that, and even still — just seeing prayer card, what that image can evoke." As an adult, Sevigny stayed true to her roots, telling I-D magazine in 2014, "I go to Mass. I'm really into Pope Francis right now. I just bought a T-shirt that says 'I Heart Pope Francis' beside a heart" (via The Cut).
She made her directorial debut with 2016's Kitty
By the 2010s, Chloë Sevigny had carved out an enviable career as a film and TV actor, while remaining a darling of the fashion world. It was only a matter of time before she expanded her repertoire to include directing. In 2016, she made her debut behind the camera with the short film "Kitty," about a lonely young girl who dreams of becoming a kitten. The film, which is based on a short story by Paul Bowles, stars Edie Yvonne, Ione Skye, and Lee Meriwether, who is best known for playing Catwoman in the 1966 "Batman" film.
"Kitty" was important to Sevigny, as she had been picky about the types of projects she wanted to direct. "People had been asking me to do it over the years in video or for a fashion brand. But for my first foray, I wanted to do a pure gesture," she shared with Deadline. As for the film's offbeat premise, that was something Sevigny felt she could relate to. She told People, "There's just a lot that I identified with in this little girl, you know? She's looking at herself in the mirror and hoping to be or wishing to be something that she isn't."
Sevigny went on to direct three more short films: "Carmen" in 2017, "White Echo" in 2019, and "Lypsinka: Toxic Femininity" in 2024.
In 2019 she created her own perfume
In 2019, Chloë Sevigny partnered with Régime des Fleurs to create her own fragrance called Little Flower. The perfume has a rose scent with hints of black tea, along with honeysuckle and other flowers. "I've always worn rose perfumes, but I think of this as a city rose," Sevigny explained to Vogue.
It's not uncommon for celebrities to have their own fragrances; however, Sevigny was very involved in the creation of her signature scent, testing out different versions in the lab until finally perfecting Little Flower. "I feel like fragrance is really emotional to me," she told Paper. "It transcends beauty, or anything else. It's our strongest sense of memory and it's like wearable art."
Even the name Little Flower came from something close to Sevigny's heart, as it stems from her Catholic faith. The perfume is named after Thérèse of Lisieux, a French nun who became the patron saint of flowers. "She was also called 'The Little Flower,' and she died quite young and was very humble," Sevigny shared with Paper.
Chloë Sevigny married gallerist Siniša Mačković in 2020
Chloë Sevigny dated director Harmony Korine and Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker, and she was briefly rumored to be involved with actor Jason Segel, but she mostly managed to keep her romantic life private. Then she met and fell in love with Croatian gallerist Siniša Mačković, and has not been shy about sharing their love story.
The pair met through a mutual friend in the art scene, and it sounds like it was love at first sight. "We locked eyes and kept looking at each other for a while. Then after that we didn't really speak for a minute but we were asking our friends about each other," Mačković shared with Cultured. Sevigny was impressed by Mačković's confidence, explaining that another event a few days later, "Siniša came down and sat across from me and just stared at me again. I was like, 'Wow, this kid is bold.' I was like, 'All right, I like this.'"
Sevigny and Mačković got engaged in Turks & Caicos and were married at New York's City Hall in 2020 while Sevigny was pregnant with the couple's baby. "There was also a green card situation," Chloë told Vogue. "We were going to have our wedding with all of our friends and family later so I could drink."
Due to the pandemic, the couple postponed their wedding celebration until 2022, when they held a lavish ceremony in Sevigny's hometown of Darien, Connecticut, attended by family and friends. Sevigny, ever the fashionista, stunned in three different bridal looks.
She became a mom at age 45
In May 2020, Chloë Sevigny gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Vanja. Sevigny was 45 years old at the time, and she marveled at her ability to have conceived naturally in her 40s. "I had tried other avenues and not had luck with them," Sevigny revealed in an interview with Rolling Stone. "So, to naturally conceive at that age is kind of a miracle."
But Sevigny's pregnancy was not an entirely easy one, as it was considered high risk and was during the pandemic. "There was a pressure to induce [labor] for the sake of the hospital staff because if you induced you could get a Covid test," Sevigny explained. "And then the nurses and the hospital staff would feel more comfortable if you were negative, which is so crazy that that was something that was being encouraged."
Sevigny and husband Siniša Mačković's son is a happy and healthy child with curly locks as blonde as his mom's. The actor often speaks about Vanja in interviews and shares cute photos of him on Instagram, but she made an especially important comment about motherhood in her interview with Rolling Stone interview. "I hope people will be happy that it happened for me, but I also don't want them to think it's the be-all and end-all," she said, which is a heartening message for women who can't or do not want to have children themselves.
Chloë Sevigny channeled her glamorous side while playing C.Z. Guest
Chloë Sevigny, who appeared in several seasons of Ryan Murphy's "American Horror Story," teamed up with the director again in January 2024 for "Feud: Capote vs. The Swans." In the series, Sevigny portrays iconic socialite C.Z. Guest, a woman Truman Capote dubbed one of his "swans." The actor shared her delight in getting to play someone known for her high-fashion looks during an interview with W. "Finally! I've been wanting to play a glamorous character since 'The Last Days of Disco' and she was only like halfway glamorous," she said.
It doesn't seem like much of a stretch for Sevigny to portray a woman known for her style, but the real challenge was getting Guest's outfits exactly right. "We tried to be as specific to her as possible, poring over research photos of her," Sevigny told Vogue. "And the costume designer was obsessed with accuracy and resourcing vintage looks from very specific shows." As Sevigny told W, there weren't actually many photos of Guest in the time period of the show. "We tried to keep her spirit alive and be as loyal to people's imagination of her as possible," she detailed.
Sevigny also shared that portraying Guest was a daunting prospect, noting to Vogue, "[It's] a lot of pressure to play someone who people hold in such high regard." As a style icon in her own right, though, Sevigny is perfectly suited to embody the role.