Chloe Sevigny on ‘American Psycho’ Remake, Luca Guadagnino, and More

Chloë Sevigny loves to work, of course, but as the mother of a five-year-old, she has other things to consider, too.

“I’m a working actress, but also having a family at home and being more rooted in New York now that I have a child, there’s a different level of consideration for what projects I take on,” the actress told Indiewire. For some performers, describing themselves as a “working actor” could seem like self-deprecation, but for Sevigny, even though many of her priorities have changed, it’s always about the work.

And the work that makes up her resume is iconic, having first come up in the indie film pipeline at 19 years old in writer Harmony Korine and director Larry Clark’s “Kids,” the controversial ’90s coming-of-age film about a group of New York teens left to their own self-destructive devices. Since then, she has been nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Kimberly Peirce’s “Boys Don’t Cry,” worked with directors like Luca Guadagnino and David Fincher, became a television mainstay in Ryan Murphy’s extended TV universe, and written and directed her own short films. Don’t forget her considerable muse status in the fashion world and dedication to indie film.

Currently, she’s starring in two independent films, both out in theaters now: “Magic Farm,” the second feature from “El Planeta” director Amalia Ulman, and “Bonjour Tristesse,” the feature debut from Durga Chew-Bose, based on the novel by Françoise Sagan. (Otto Preminger first adapted the novel for his own 1958 film, starring Deborah Kerr in the role now belonging to Sevigny.) While these new films are wildly different, Sevigny’s presence grounds both, and her name gives a certain cultural cache — people will go to see films from a new filmmaker because they are longtime stans of the actress. 

Chew-Bose’s adaptation of the 1954 novel follows Cecile (Lily McInerny), a young woman whose carefree summer with her father on the French seaside is interrupted by an old friend of her late mother, Anne (Sevigny), who shows up to upend everything. 

Sevigny had initially received the script from her agent and was interested in playing the taut, constantly chignoned Anne because it felt like a new adventure. “They thought it would be a good opportunity to play more of a lady that has a real sense of ownership and elegance, and she’s more refined,” Sevigny says, drawling out lady, giggling. She was excited to play Anne so she could, as she says, “bring the dramaaa,” while gleaning inspiration from her own mother and personal friendships.

But playing Anne, such an elegant force, also had unexpected challenges for Sevigny. “It was hard because I had recently had a baby. I wasn’t so happy in my body. It was really hard to get back to my pre-baby physique, and I felt like I wanted her to be more of this bird-like creature. And I wasn’t,” she said. “There’s this interesting moment in the mirror when I talk about my peasant hands. Anne wants to be something that she isn’t in a way, but she’s also like, ‘This is who I am. I’m going to make the most of it.’ There was this projection of elegance on her that I wasn’t quite feeling myself inherently. That was one of the more challenging aspects of the movie, wanting to bring that but not really feeling that way.” 

Sevigny described Chew-Bose as “a really bright woman [who is] very tender and very soulful.” And working with McInerny, in a breakout role on her second film after “Palm Trees and Power Lines,” Sevigny wanted to give any support she could on the set.

“For me, that’s just important as an actor, if I have any weight within the community, if I can support other women, that’s very important to me. I have three movies coming out in the next year with first- and second-time filmmakers and female filmmakers, and that’s always been something that’s important to me,” she said.

That guiding principle is what led her to play Edna in Ulman’s “Magic Farm,” where she plays a documentary host and producer wrangling a motley video crew. They head to South America to profile a viral musician, only to realize they landed in the wrong country and need to improvise. Sevigny was cast after interviewing Ulman for Filmmaker Magazine about her first feature, “El Planeta.” Ulman’s debut struck Sevigny and, later on, the director asked Sevigny to be in the film, specifically writing the part of Edna, the host of the fictional Vice-esque show, for her.

However, Sevigny’s only regret about “Magic Farm” was the scale of her part and how little time she spent filming in Argentina. “I wanted to only go for two weeks, and now that I did the movie, I was like, if I had given them more time, I would’ve had a better part. So I learned my lesson, you know what I mean? All the other characters get to have these real story arcs and love interests, and I was like, if I had given ’em a few more days, I bet I could have. He [Sevigny’s son] won’t even remember that I was gone. But it’s hard to be away as a new mom.” 

While “Magic Farm” and “Bonjour Tristesse” will tide over Sevigny fans for the time being, she also has another well-acclaimed indie coming soon, the Sundance winner “Atropia,” from writer/director Hailey Gates, about an actress who working in a simulated Iraqi war zone. Gates is a friend of Sevigny’s who also starred in Sevigny’s directed short, “White Echo.”

“I went and did a day on that to support her. That movie’s great. It’s so fun,” she said. And Sevigny also worked again with her frequent collaborator Luca Guadagnino — who directed her in the HBO limited series “We Are Who We Are” and the cannibal romance “Bones and All” — in his upcoming college-set thriller “After the Hunt,” starring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, and Ayo Edebiri.

While Sevigny hasn’t yet seen the finished product, which is eyeing a fall festival debut before hitting theaters in October from Amazon/MGM, she knows the post-#MeToo-centric film will be “polarizing” and will “ignite some conversations.” And much like anyone would be, she was smitten with Roberts. “Julia’s radiant. She’s such a movie star. I think it’s a great opportunity for her to really dig her heels into something really juicy again. And she was so lovely. I feel like I hadn’t ever worked with somebody as pleasant as her. That was really surprising. She was just so excited to be there. I think she also fell in love with Luca. I was just like, ‘Everybody does.’”

However, beyond working with Roberts for the first time, there’s another frontier maybe she hasn’t yet charted: replaying a prior role. Guadagnino is set to remake “American Psycho,” based on the controversial novel by Bret Easton Ellis, and which starred Sevigny alongside Christian Bale. In Mary Harron’s 2000 adaptation of the novel about the sadistic (and at times uncomfortably funny) serial killer Patrick Bateman (Bale), Sevigny played his secretary Jean, who gets spared from his bloodthirst. But whether she would play Jean again, or appear in the remake, is another question.

“When I heard that [Luca Guadagnino] was maybe doing it, I don’t know if he is for sure. I thought he was doing a World War II picture,” Sevigny said. (This week, since our interview, DC Studios announced it will delay production on “Sgt. Rock,” Guadagnino’s planned next film, until summer 2026, if the movie happens at all.) I pitched to him that I should play Jean again, and that they do that reverse-aging on me. I thought that would be something that he would be into, conceptually having the same actress play the same part. But I don’t know. He said he was going to think of something else for me.” 

“Bonjour Tristesse” and “Magic Farm” are now in theaters.