Chloe Sevigny has opened up about being labelled an “It Girl” in the Nineties and said it was a “confusing” time for her.
The actor and model, who became famous for her work in independent films, said that being named in a New Yorker profile in 1994 as an “It Girl” didn’t feel descriptive of her.
The profile was written by novelist Jay McInerney and described Sevigny, who was 19 at the time, as having “a spacey air of mystery and reserve as well as the street chic that keep causing people to ask, ‘Who is that girl?’”.
Speaking to The Cut recently, Sevigny, now 48, said: “It was confusing when Jay McInerney decided to call me an ‘It’ girl. I was in this club scene, but it was very niche. I surfed through it in a very quiet way and was kind of infamous within that scene, but it wasn’t like I was on ‘Page Six’ – yet.
“He didn’t really get my essence. It just wasn’t me. I was being very guarded. I wasn’t as blasé as he was making me out to be.”
Sevigny said she felt “uncomfortable” bringing McInerney to her hometown, Darien, in Connecticut, where she grew up while he was writing the profile of her.
“The only reason I agreed to do any of it was because he promised to buy me a Helmut Lang dress,” she added, claiming that McInerney “never” followed through with it.
“I ended up buying it myself: red latex with pink lace on top. I still have it, but I didn’t properly care for the latex and it glued itself together.”
McInerney told the publication that he “never thought” Sevigny would “become an actual actress”.
“She just seemed to exist in the moment and to not have any grand ambitions and yet to have so much style and so much charisma and so much influence,” he said.
Sevigny made her acting debut in the 1995 film Kids, directed by Larry Clark. She went on to star in the 1999 drama Boys Don’t Cry, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in her role as Lana Tisdel.
Elsewhere in her interview, she told The Cut that she had ambitions to become a “character actress”, but believes the “It Girl” label damaged some of her opportunities in Hollywood.
“The ‘It’ girl thing was confusing for Hollywood to wrap their heads around because I think they associated it with turnover, not with a working actress,” she said.
“I think the label did hurt me a little bit in Hollywood – they couldn’t project things onto me.”
