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It’s noon on a recent Friday, and little Vanja is in dreamland. I hear Chloë Sevigny cooing as she answers the phone. “I was just looking at the baby. He’s sleeping,” the actor says, nested in her Manhattan apartment. A little over four months ago, as the perpetual ambulance sirens rattled the streets of New York, Sevigny headed to Mount Sinai East with her partner, Sinisa Mačkovic, who directs the art gallery Karma. Birth plans don’t usually factor in pandemics, but then again plan is always a relative word. “I called almost everyone I know that had given birth in the past few years and asked them their experiences,” Sevigny recalls of her crowdsourced research. “All of them said it just didn’t go as they wanted; then, in the end, they didn’t care. I was kind of prepared for anything.”
Of course Sevigny is cool under pressure. Last fall, in Italy, she quietly weathered her first trimester while on set for Luca Guadagnino’s new HBO series, We Are Who We Are. In the show, she plays Sarah Wilson, an Army colonel who has relocated to seaside Chioggia with her wife and mercurial son, a nail-polish-wearing Klaus Nomi fan who is homesick for New York. Wilson is more complicated, more tender, than the usual hard-ass commander we see on screen. It’s against type for Sevigny, too, who had her hair chopped short by an on-base barber and was forbidden from wearing so much as mascara.
This is the moment—a paragraph or two into a Sevigny story—when the phrase It girl turns up, an omnipresent shorthand for the way the Connecticut native became a focal point of downtown attention beginning in the 1990s. Already known for her thrift-store alchemy, a teenage Sevigny made her onscreen debut in the 1992 Sonic Youth video for “Sugar Kane,” filmed partially inside Marc Jacobs’s studio alongside a mock presentation of his future grunge collection for Perry Ellis. The camera follows Sevigny, with her softly grown buzz cut and low-slung jeans, as she threads through crowds and slips into Jacobs’ presentation, making a turn on the makeshift runway wearing only superimposed black bars. It presaged how Sevigny’s career would play out: film cross-pollinated with fashion and the characters of New York—whether it be an early role in Larry Clark’s Kids or the odalisque pregnancy portraits this spring by Jim Jarmusch.
Now a mother at 45, with a high-profile new show and a growing itch to direct her own feature, what to make of the never-ending It girl status? “God, the ‘It girl.’ I kind of shut down a little bit around it,” Sevigny admits. She’s polite about the whole thing, grounded. “I’m very grateful that that helped propel my career, this mystique—whatever—that people place on me. But I don’t revel in it,” she says. “It was always a negative connotation, to me: ‘It girl,’ like a flash in the pan.” She pauses, recalling how the phrase originated with Clara Bow, who stole hearts in the 1927 talkie It. “And I love Clara Bow, so…” Sevigny says, playfully equivocating.
The actor channeled that flapper magnetism in one of her last shoots before giving birth, held over Zoom for New York magazine. Now, as Sevigny explains in a conversation during Vanja’s nap, the vibe at home is low-key: Polaroid photos of the baby, remote Pilates. At least, until she succumbs to an at-home cardio plan. “A friend was talking about that bike. What’s that bike called? Something with a P,” she says, sounding like someone who blessedly missed the Peloton memes of early quarantine. “Last night I brought it up to Sinisa, and he was, like, ‘Where are you going to keep it in the apartment?! They’re so expensive,’ yadda yadda.” She laughs—still game for just about anything, but too much of a New Yorker for that one.
Vanity Fair: Having a baby in a pandemic sounds surreal. Looking back, what sits with you?
Chloë Sevigny: I feel like I am so blessed and have so much to be grateful for that I really can't [complain]—do you know what I mean? So many people have much more trying or difficult experiences. I remember I posted, originally when we first heard the news that they weren't allowing partners [in delivery rooms], and read a lot of comments from women who were, like, “My husband was away at war through all of my childbirths,” or this, that, and the other. Not that I need my Instagram for perspective [laughs]—but it can help, those kinds of comments. Women give birth every second all over the globe, in all kinds of different circumstances. It really helped me toughen up.
The stand-up comic in your short film Carmen jokes that finding out a baby's sex isn't the biggest surprise in life; death is the biggest surprise. Did you find out in advance?
We did. Sinisa, the baby's father, said he really wanted to know. And I was, like, If it's a boy, I kind of want to make peace with that before it comes out—because I really wanted a girl. Which is awful to say! Is that bad to say? [laughs] I have two nephews, and just overall in our family we need a little girl energy, maybe. But he's the sweetest, and we're so happy and everything's perfect. I can't complain.
How are you documenting Vanja at this time—in words, photos, film?
I keep thinking I should be writing down more: things that are happening, what he's looking at. I started a Finsta thing for my friends. I originally was doing the Close Friends thing on Instagram, but maybe it's better to have them all compiled. We take a lot of photos on an iPhone, but it's too much; we're never going to print these out. So I started buying film, and I've been shooting him with a point-and-shoot. I got some Polaroid film. I keep saying I'm going to get online and do one of those Apple photo books or whatever they're called, just so we don't lose track. It couldn't be that hard. Sinisa does design. He's, like, “I'll work it out for us.”
I do find, though, that so much of my childhood and memories are attached to photos. I'm, like, Is that really a memory? Or was that a photo? I have all these photos of me and my mother, and my mother when she was pregnant with me. I don't know if I'm so sentimental and nostalgic, but it's such an easy way to access emotions, and there’s something so romantic about it that I want to provide him with that.
Has creating life in some way shaped your creative ambitions?
I don't quite know yet. I mean, he's only been here for four months. I was working during my first trimester, shooting We Are Who We Are. Now I'm doing press as he's come out. I feel like a total dingbat. The baby brain is pretty real for me. I'm having trouble articulating and remembering words, and I don't know what's going on. That's been trying. But I've also had a career for 25 years. I feel like it's okay to not pursue something right now, just to take a breath. There are always those moments when you're an actor. I don't know—maybe you're on network TV on a long-running show like Mariska Hargitay, and all you do is work your entire life—but for me, throughout my career, I've had lots of lulls. [You just need] to remember that you'll make it through that lull and there will be something eventually. I do still want to direct something, and I am thinking about that. More than childbirth, I think the politics of today have informed my artistic ambitions. Certain stories that I was interested in before seem less relevant.
What has your postpartum care looked like?
We had a postpartum doula that a friend of ours [recommended]. She really helped as far as teaching us how to handle him and bathe him and feeding techniques and changing—all of that kind of stuff. She was really there to baby me. I'm not very good with people doing stuff for me, so that was tricky. But she was so sweet. Just seeing the way she was with the baby, and trying to mimic things that she did, kind of set the tone. She took a [COVID] test before she came; then she was only coming between us and home, so we were just in the bubble—us and the doula lady. We waited two weeks after the hospital before seeing my mom.
I was looking back at your short Kitty, about a girl who morphs into a kitten and marvels at her body changing. Were there parts of pregnancy that fascinated or unsettled you, living in a body that is no longer fully your own?
I liked being a host! I felt like I was never healthier in my life, probably because I wasn't drinking. I didn't have any morning sickness. But I did, towards the end, swell a lot. I got carpal tunnel, where I lost all feeling in my right hand. So I couldn't really even cook: If I would try to chop, it would get so sore. That was really frustrating. My hips were very sore all of the time, painfully sore, waking me up in the middle of the night. Those were two things I wasn’t really prepared for.
There's kind of a misogynistic tabloid spin around getting your body back. But it's also completely normal to want your own body back. What has been your approach?
I've been doing a lot of remote Pilates. Finally the studio reopened, and I went in and saw a different instructor. She's, like, “Yeah, you can do this till the cows come home, but you have to do cardio”—which I hate. A friend was talking about that bike. What's that bike called? Something with a P. And someone else suggested the Rebounder. It’s a little trampoline, which seems more quaint and fun than a bicycle, and, I don't know, easier to hide. But are you really doing cardio, jumping up and down on a trampoline? It would be good to have it somewhere where you could watch TV for half an hour to make it go by faster. I'm still trying to figure out the cardio and the losing weight thing. I think, more than gaining weight through pregnancy, we both gained weight during quarantine because, cooking at home, we were just having seconds every night! And walking around, up and down the subway—all of that daily activity, it just stopped.
You mentioned filming We Are Who We Are during your first trimester. Did that shift the onscreen mother-son relationship for you? I couldn't help but watch and imagine the poetry your son someday might read, or whether he'd be into Klaus Nomi or nail polish.
It felt kind of prophetic. I could see my son being into many of the things that the Fraser character was into. Maybe there's more sensitivity there than I would have had before. I watched the first episode, which I rarely do, the other night, and I could see in my performance there was a softness towards him that I'm not sure I would have played before. I'm still trying to figure it out. But yeah, I had this big secret, and it wasn't easy to hang out with other people from the set—cast or crew-wise. I waited [to tell people] until after all the genetic testing, even, so we waited even longer than the normal length of time.
What drew you to this role?
She seemed very multifaceted: her relationships with other people on the base, and having to deal with a woman in a position of power—those dynamics. Having those on the screen for people to watch and hopefully grow empathy out of. Working with Luca was a big draw, in all honesty. And then the dynamic with the son. I just thought there was a lot to explore there, in a little amount of time. I'm still interested in teens and the teen struggle. I just feel like as a teen, I was such a sponge. You're just growing so much—your enthusiasm and passion and all of that. I'd like to bring that to the screen [someday as a director].
Ordinarily, you would have had press appearances all this month. Does it feel like you're missing out? Or is it a blessing because of the baby?
It's a blessing because of how I feel about my body and being on camera right now. I feel like we're really missing out, as far as us having a premiere and all being together and being able to celebrate—especially since so many of the kids, it's their first big thing. It would've been fun to have them all hooting and hollering and getting really into it. Just that joy. I'm bummed to miss that.
In this downtime, what has remained of your skin or makeup or body care routine? What actually is getting used in your household?
Well, a lot of hand soap—Dr. Bronner’s. I like the tea tree and the peppermint. Then a lot of Weleda moisturizer, the Skin Food, because of all the hand-washing. I've still been trying to pull myself together—like, I'm having tea with Eileen Myles after this. So I try to put on a little makeup: Chanel bronzer, maybe a little concealer—but then you put on the mask, and it all rubs off onto that. And mascara. I use Great Lash by Maybelline. Blackest black, with the curved wand. I'm very specific. For the neck down, I've been doing this lavender shea butter that I got at Flower Power. It's a little shop in the East Village that's been there forever, and they sell mostly teas and herbs, potions and lotions. I love their products.
Has hair maintenance been tricky?
My hair was growing out, and my roots—I think, as a blonde, it's been harder to do the DIY thing. My hairdresser suggested I try doing a gloss, just to knock down the blonde so the roots weren't as prevalent. In some crazy lack-of-sleep hour, I ordered the wrong color and didn't realize until after I'd put it on. So that was a disaster. I had some guy come and fix it. And then I had Alissa [Frum] at the Blackstones in Tribeca do my color yesterday. I was surprised, during quarantine, how hair became such a thing. People really wanted their grooming situation—me included. I mean, not so much that I was protesting about it!
You launched a fragrance last year with Régime des Fleurs. Is Alia [Raza] going to make you a baby perfume?
I don't know. I should ask her! I wonder if she has any suggestions. Is it weird to put perfume on your baby? Can you spray it on the outside of the diaper or something like that, so you don't have to put it on his flesh?
Good question. It’s been done before. The last thing I want to ask about is New York. Some see you as a torchbearer for the city, in terms of its values. Who or what do you see as the pillars of New York?
The pillars of New York! I have to think about that. Spike Lee—he's very pro-Brooklyn. And Jim Jarmusch, although he's been upstate recently. That's okay; he'll return. In the East Village: Veselka, B&H, Mogador. Tompkins [Square Park], always and forever. I was very sad about [the consignment store] Tokio 7 closing. That's one of the things I'm most upset about with Covid. I don't think it's ever going to reopen. Where am I going to shop now? That was my number one. I was mostly getting money from things that I sold and then just spending it in there—like, on some crazy Comme de thing. I'm at a loss. Now everybody goes online, but I'm not very good at shopping online. I'm very tactile. What about Fran Lebowitz? We should add her. That New Yorker article in the beginning of quarantine, everybody was living for that. And Patti Smith—we live in the same neighborhood. I was in a taxi with my friend, and we saw her walking by. My friend was, like, “Let's yell out the window!” And I was, like, No, let’s not bother her. [laughs] She's always strolling around with her braids, looking beautiful.
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