New 'Lizzie' Stills + BTS Photos

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International 'Lizzie' Poster + Clip (Korea)

 

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Video: Chloe Sevigny and writer Bryce Kass talk about Kristen in the 'Understanding Lizzie' featurette + BTS footage

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UK 'Lizzie' Poster

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'Lizzie' Clip - "Remember her name"

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New/old photo of Kristen on the 'Lizzie' set

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Chloe Sevigny talks 'Lizzie' and Kristen with Movie Freak

Sara Michelle Fetters: How did Bryce Kass’ script surprise you? What struck you most about what he had written? 

Chloë Sevigny: So I developed the project, so I don’t think I would say Bryce’s script surprised me. I produced it. There were many different versions of the script. So really for me, having done extensive research on Lizzie Borden and the murders in Fall River, Massachusetts, I really just wanted to humanize Lizzie and to make a personal movie about her. I wanted to explore the love. Having been to the home where the murders took place, which is now a bed and breakfast, the writer and I ascertained that there was no way these women couldn’t have been together, and I love a tragic love story.

There are rumors of [Lizzie] having romances with other women, and I think there’s a lot of historical documentation of relationships between servants and woman in households during that time period. In this case, Lizzie and Bridget were prisoners of this household. They were all prisoners of Andrew Borden, the father, and living in his house all together, so a relationship had to be borne out of that. Not necessarily sexual, but some sort of closeness. It had to exist. This adds another aspect of the movie in the form of the tragic love story and the fact people so often have dangerous experiences when falling in love. That somebody else can provide a certain amount of freedom, or happiness, or security, stuff like that. I think Lizzie experiences that. Lizzie thinks that if she and Bridget are together life is just going to be hunky dory. I wanted to explore that as well.

What was it about Lizzie’s story that captivated you and just kept you this inspired? Had you wanting to explore this story in such detail?

I’ve been continually fascinated with her, but when we first set out to make the project, it was quite a while ago, and then the property, it went to another studio. So we had to fight to get it back. But that’s just part of the business. It wasn’t like I was every day trying to get this movie made. There were long periods when I was doing other stuff, other TV shows and movies. But it cycled back into my life at the right time. We got the property back and within a year we’re releasing the movie.

So it was more waiting for all of that to happen. But I think to me, there’s already a captive audience for Lizzie’s story. People want to know about Lizzie, just look at the other TV shows, movies, plays and operas that have been made utilizing her story. This woman has captivated American audiences for a very long time.

What I really liked about the movie is was the way that you humanized this situation. We really do feel that intense pressure that, not only is Lizzie feeling, or that Bridget is feeling, but her sister, Emma, is forced to deal with as well. You can just really feel this smothering on Andrew’s part and how it is affecting every member of the household.

Yeah. I think that’s right. Even the step-mother. I think they’re all prisoners in this house all together.

Why was it so important for you, Bryce and Craig to pass that feeling of being trapped, of being smothered by Andrew, onto the audience as completely as you do? I don’t think I’ve seen about Lizzie Borden that’s emphasized this element of her story to such a degree before.

I think that that’s the big reason why Lizzie committed these heinous acts. That she had no options. She was really oppressed and repressed, and there was nowhere for her to turn. I think a lot of women still feel trapped and have very limited choices. We don’t want to condone violence, obviously, but we did want to shed a light on abuses of power.

Talk a little bit about the relationship between you and Kristen. How did you two develop that intense, almost wordless chemistry?

I think we’re really both really good at acting without dialog. I think we both just have that ability. For me, I can just stare endlessly at her, there’s so much going on behind her eyes. You can always see her thinking. I think that she’s one of my favorite actresses because, knowing her as a person, and even before I knew her, you can tell she’s a very authentic person. She brings that to Bridget.

It comes across in her performances. Kristen’s not holding anything in. She doesn’t want anything to ring as phony baloney, for a lack of better words. There was a mutual admiration between us over our choices, about who we are and what we represent. And, yeah, I think we just really liked each other. I think that is the bottom line.

With this being an independent production without a ton of financial resources, was there time for you two to rehearse? Did you even want time to rehearse? Or did the two of you just figure out how you were going to interact when you got to the set?

We were working around her schedule, around her availability, but Kristen came to Savannah and was there for the whole duration. Because of that we had a few days before we started shooting that we were combing through the script, going over every line, every nuance, and anything that she was curious about. We worked on it all because we knew that on the day of shooting there wasn’t going to be a lot of time.

But then, even on those days, she wanted to explore and do other things, and when you have a great actress like Kristen you want to give her that time to put that out there. That’s not difficult. You’re excited to have that. When you have someone that’s going to deliver, you want to give them the space to do just that, and Kristen continually delivered.

Then there are those scenes between you and Jamey Sheridan. There is this tension between the two of you that is there right from the start. How was it that you were able to just make that feel so uncomfortably palpable?

I think a lot of that was on the page, going back to what you said about when you receive the script, so that was already there for us. It is also the crux of the story. We wanted to really hit that home, and Jamey was a team player. I think he was excited to take on this patriarchal figure and make him so complex. I appreciate everything he brought to the performance and to the part.

Jamey didn’t want Andrew to be this tyrant. He was like, no, that’s just not the way it’s going to be. He is very quiet, very intense, very methodical, all of which is almost scarier than having him get loud and go big. I think that is really what he does with the part, makes Andrew his own like that, which to me is more interesting than someone who could have been just flying off the handle all the time. Keeping it quiet is freakier.

Looking at the caliber of actors you were able to get to be a part of the film, were you at all surprised they came aboard? Fiona Shaw, Kim Dickens, Denis O’Hare, these aren’t big parts yet they are still given the freedom to make the most out of them.

It didn’t surprise me. I think they all wanted to support the film. I think there’s so few films out there that I think can talk about social injustice, speak to what is going on in society right now, and yet also entertain. I think it just felt like an important story that they wanted to be a part of telling. Dennis and I have worked together on “American Horror Story,” so we already had a relationship, and Fiona Shaw had worked with Craig on “Channel Zero” I think, do they also had a relationship. And Kim Dickens had worked with one of our producers, so there was that relationship, too. A lot of it was just us calling up people that we knew and hoping that they would find something in the script that they found compelling so they would want to be a part of telling this story. Everybody came out and gave us their time. It was so generous.

And, personally, I just love watching Denis. He’s so creepy!

I don’t want to reveal anything, but I’m so glad you say that. The two key scenes you two share together, the way they sort of bookend the core parts of the narrative, you two are just superb in those moments.

Thank you! Denis is just so great. He’s a generous actor. I loved doing those scenes with him.

I know we’re out of time so I’ll just ask one last quick question. What do you hope people are talking about when the film comes to an end?

I think it’s a beautiful story about women who are trapped and oppressed by men. Lizzie fights back against the status quo. She’s an outlaw.

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Kristen talks 'Lizzie' and more with the Tribune

Ten years ago, Kristen Stewart became what she calls "oddly famous." The California native had started working in films when she was 9 but it was the "Twilight" series that came along almost a decade later to generate more than $3.3 billion in box office sales and send her stardom skyrocketing.

The one question Stewart kept getting asked was what she planned to do after "Twilight." What she did was keep making movies ranging from big budget tales like "Snow White and the Huntsman" to her recent work in the independent-style production, "Lizzie."

In "Lizzie," Stewart plays Bridget Sullivan, the housemaid in the home where the father and stepmother of Lizzie Borden (Chloe Sevigny) are brutally murdered. More than a century has passed since the crimes were committed, but Borden continues to be an iconic figure in creepy American history.

"It's hard to think of your life as a trajectory," Stewart says. "It's easy for an outsider to kind of gauge on what seems to be the most significant happenings in your life and use those as touchstones. I was working rather consistently on smaller independent movies before I did 'Twilight.'

"I kept getting questions about how it felt now that I had all this success and would I be taking advantage of that. Or, did I feel like I couldn't live the way I wanted to and do independent movies anymore. Nothing really changed for me professionally except for an immense amount of access. It's easier to get a project greenlit."

Stewart's approach to her career is to ignore all of the outside chatter and focus on projects that interest her in some fashion. In the case of "Lizzie," it helped that while she liked the script, Stewart was the very first person considered to play Sullivan. Her casting was critical for director Craig William Macneill and writer Bryce Kass.

The moment Sevgny and Stewart started working together, it was clear that they had the chemistry needed to play the two women who bonded over their circumstances. There has been a lot of fact and fiction related to Lizzie Borden. It was critical that what is presented in "Lizzie" has been verified as much as possible.

"Lizzie's what would be considered then as having dysfunctional sexuality. That detail seems to be consistent enough that it must be is rooted in some truth," Stewart says. "Considering her housemaid, whom she apparently was close with, was the only other person at the house during the two hour period when the murders happened and she didn't hear a thing. And she was washing the same window for two hours.

"So I am pretty certain they were in cahoots."

Kass describes Stewart and Sevigny working together as a "once-in-a-lifetime partnership between two gifted performers at the height of their power." Macneill adds that Stewart was so prepared to play the role that she brought more levels to the character than were in the script.

That's natural acting abilities as Stewart has never been a big fan of doing a lot of research and rehearsal. In the case of "Lizzie," there was very little information on Sullivan so Stewart's approach was to get an understanding of the time period and what women would have been going through in terms of social and economic oppression. The one thing she was concerned about in her performance the most was making sure that her Irish accent was believable.

This approach has been the norm for Stewart who has been acting for 18 years in such films as "Panic Room," "Adventureland," "The Runaways," "On the Road" and "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk." Stewart became the first American actress to be awarded France's Cesar Award in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role in Olivier Assayas' "Clouds of Sils Maria."

Her selection of roles has been a different process each time. There have been some films that Stewart knew immediately  after reading only a few pages she wanted to do. Other times, it has been the actors or directors involved with the project who prove to be a lure creatively.

"As soon as I start reading a script and I start to get nervous and worried that it is going to be made properly, because I want it to be preserved and taken care of, that's when I know I have enough vested interest to do something as ludicrous as being an actor in a movie," Stewart says.

Stewart finds it difficult to evaluate where she was 10 years ago compared to today and where she thinks she will be in a decade. For her, it all comes down to the same forces that have been inside her before, during and after that period that made her "oddly famous."

"I am so happy to be working with who I am working with. I am also really happy that my interest has never dwindled. I am still as obsessed with making movies now as I have ever been. Even more," Stewart says.

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AP portraits of Kristen and Chloe Sevigny for 'Lizzie'

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Kristen and Chloe Sevigny talk to the LA Times on 'Lizzie' + Portraits

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Over 10 years ago, Chloë Sevigny wasn’t getting the type of movie roles she wanted. Though known for an Academy Award-nominated supporting turn in 1999’s “Boys Don’t Cry,” she was still playing second fiddle. So she created a leading role for herself with “Lizzie,” now playing in limited release, about the infamous Lizzie Borden.

“I wanted to star in a movie,” she said. “I wanted to provide myself the opportunity … and I said I wanted to play this complex character and explore it in depth and come up with our interpretation of the myth of her, the legend of her.”

“Lizzie” is a psychological thriller based on the 1892 killings of Borden’s father (played by Jamey Sheridan) and stepmother (Fiona Shaw). Sevigny plays the titular character in the weeks leading up to the deaths for which she was accused, tried and acquitted. She’s joined by Kristen Stewart, who was on the cusp of stardom in 2008’s “Twilight” when Sevigny was first trying to get this film made and plays the family’s maid and Borden’s lover, Bridget.

Sevigny says she was “very familiar” with the Borden mystery having been born in Massachusetts. She even spent a night at the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast, the home where the murders took place.

“They spin the whole yarn for you and get you spooked out and they say like 50% of the guests leave in the middle of the night,” she said. “Once I heard their pitch I said, ‘This is a movie and I want to make it.’”

The original conception of the project, written by Sevigny’s longtime friend and then-roommate Bryce Kass, landed in the form of a miniseries they shopped at HBO. (Sevigny was near the end of “Big Love” on the network at the time.) As the production stalled, Lifetime released “The Lizzie Borden Chronicles,” a television movie starring Christina Ricci, in January 2014. But Sevigny had already invested so much time and energy that she was still determined to get the film made.

“It took on different forms over the years, but we just decided to make it a smaller film focusing on life in the house and [Lizzie and Bridget’s] relationship,” Sevigny said. “We turned it into a love story.”

And even though Sevigny had had the opportunity to tackle more complex roles since she initially set out to do the film, she “had to see it to fruition.”

“I wasn't going to have it fall by the wayside,” she said. “I had to see it through.”

For Stewart, signing on to the project was simple.

“Just [Sevigny’s] name on the page and the fact that she had put it together herself and the fact that it was her first time producing … and based on my impressions of her from afar and knowing her casually and her work, I knew I would want to be part of it,” she said.

Stewart then read the script and “it proved to be a nice inside look of something I only knew the nursery rhyme version of.”

“I was attracted to the idea of what might lead up to something that heinous and how these two women in similar position [were] bolstering each other and things going wildly out of control.”

While making the movie, the entire team tried not to allow the obsessive interest the case often inspires to impact their work.

“Some of them are fanatical, and I’ve done book adaptations and things that people are passionate about and when it differs from what they believe it [should be], things can get heated,” Sevigny said. “So you have to anticipate that … but hopefully they’ll appreciate what we do and see the beauty and passion in it.”

Stewart added: “For anyone that’s already into this, it would make me happy to know they are interested in something slightly reimagined. And we don’t set ourselves up for criticism because we don’t claim to be spot-on. We present a hypothetical, fully. It’s, ‘Imagine if this happened.’”

Take, for example, the romantic relationship between Sevigny and Stewart’s characters. No one truly knows if the two women were lovers.

“There isn’t too much information on [my character] other than her whereabouts during the murder, which led them to want to have the main element of this story be their relationship. Because the one thing you know for sure is that she must've known that it was going down, because she was the only person there other than Lizzie,” Stewart said. “She was washing windows for two hours? Really?”

Exploring this relationship also allowed the film, Stewart said, to explore what life was like for queer women during a time period in which their narratives are often overlooked.

“There are so many stories that we’ve seen over the years that would have [LGBTQ] story lines that are not present because they just weren’t being acknowledged,” she continued. “Maybe it's a period piece or even an older film where they are not acknowledging the gay element that is probably there. I think it’s really cool to go back and be like, ‘What does gay look like back then?’ and ‘Who would both of these women appear to be? How would they present in a time when they couldn’t be natural with it?’

“I felt super restricted by the clothes alone. You can’t be anything but that black dress, that maid. And when they finally did reveal themselves to each other, even though it was barely fleshed out …”

Sevigny interrupted: “It’s really tender, and practical.”

“And its nice that we didn’t have someone — like our straight male director — step in and say ‘I have ideas about how to tell this story visually,’” Stewart continued. “Nobody was like, ‘Yeah, but let's make it beautiful.’ I love that [when they have sex it’s] kind of run and gun, super real. And it’s not shy and not not trying to show anything. There is an immediacy to it that is authentic and good.”

As such, “Lizzie” is instructive, Stewart said, to “anyone who makes a movie that is not directly reflective of who they are, or something that’s not totally in their wheelhouse.”

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Chloe Sevigny talks about 'Lizzie' with The Advocate and mentions Kristen

“I think she did it. Yes, I do. I think she snapped,” Sevigny tells The Advocate. Borden was charged with the 1892 murders of her father and stepmother, but was acquitted because the male jury couldn’t believe that a woman of her social standing was capable of such savagery.

Since Lizzie premiered at Sundance early this year, much has been made of the scene in which Sevigny’s Lizzie and Bridget undress, stripping away the sartorial constrictions of 19th-century New England to commit the murders. Prior to bludgeoning her stepmother, Abby (Fiona Shaw), Lizzie unbuttons her dress, drops her corset, and steps out of it completely nude in order to preserve her garments. Director and horror wunderkind Craig William Macneill (The Boy) shrewdly juxtaposes the undressing scene with an earlier moment in the film in which Bridget gingerly, lovingly fastens the buttons on Lizzie’s cuff in a prelude to their eventually consummating a physical relationship.

While the scene in which Sevigny’s denuded Lizzie repeatedly brings the ax down on her stepmother has already been written about at length, it’s no less shocking for the viewer to experience that visceral release with her.

“[The murder scene] was kind of my idea ,” Sevigny says. “I feel like the audience deserved that and Lizzie deserved that. I wanted her to strip off those social restrictions — a.k.a. the corset — and then just get carnal. She was just adrenaline. Did she even think that she was actually going to do it? Once she started, she couldn’t stop.”

But, at least as rendered in Sevigny’s version, Lizzie’s crimes are not without cause. Unmarried and often sickly (she is said to have suffered from epileptic seizures), Lizzie lives with her parents and her sister Emma (Kim Dickens) under the draconian rules of her father, Andrew (Jamey Sheridan). He allegedly eschewed paying for lighting although he had the money to do so, and in this version, he repeatedly sexually abuses Bridget, while his wife — aware of his predations — awaits his return to their bed. Meanwhile, Lizzie is subjected to violent altercations with her smarmy Uncle John (Denis O’Hare), who seeks Andrew’s fortune at the expense of the Borden sisters’ financial safety net. And all the while, she’s continually threatened with being sent to an asylum for the transgression of being a woman who refuses to adhere to the rules set forth by men.

The film was written and in production well before the reckoning around sexual abuse that played out last fall, so while the #MeToo element of Lizzie was inherently inscribed in the work, Sevigny says that the discussion about abuse caused her to view some of the movie’s themes in a different light than when it was initially conceived.

“It is so much more real,” Sevigny says of the sexual abuse in the film. “Not that I didn’t believe it was a real thing to talk about then, but now it’s just what she represents as this American outlaw that questions the status quo and the tyrants and the oppressors and the patriarchy.”

“This is a movie about smashing the patriarchy!” is how she pitched the film to Stewart, Sevigny says.

As much as Lizzie is about taking down the patriarchy, it’s also about female solidarity. And Sevigny, working with an independent film budget, luring A-lister Stewart to the project was more than a coup.

“I had to try and seduce her,” Sevigny laughs. “I got her number, and I was sending her text messages about the story and what it meant to me and why I thought she would be good for the part.” 

Following a meeting in a Los Angeles café, Stewart came on board. "There was a mutual admiration, and she was like, I just want to help you,” Sevigny says, adding that she's done the same for some of her friends looking to get projects off of the ground.

Borden has been a subject of cultural fascination since the murders were committed. The story has inspired the popular children’s rhyme, a Broadway musical number, a ballet, a short story, and a recent television series starring Christina Ricci, to name a few iterations. Sevigny admits to becoming fascinated with Borden and the crimes once she really began to dig into the subject.

“I think that it’s still unsolved and people can project all of their own ideas on it and explore it. Any true crime, especially unsolved crime, people want to play the investigator,” she says of the ongoing interest. “Even I did when I started doing research — going to the house, reading different books, reading newspaper articles and court transcripts."

“I’m going to find the real truth to the Lizzie Borden story!’” was her initial reaction to discovering the clues, she says. “Nobody’s ever going to know the real truth," she concedes.

What did captivate Sevigny and the writer Kass was the idea that among the transcripts, newspaper articles, and think pieces of the era, there was little information about what went on behind the walls of the Borden household. And so the pair landed on the idea — the real Borden is rumored to have had an affair with actress Nance O’Neil — that Borden not only had an accomplice in Bridget but that the women were in love.

“There’s no way Bridget could not have been in cahoots,” Sevigny says. The actress and Kass made that determination after a visit to the Borden house. “There’s no way they couldn’t have done this together. And there’s no way Lizzie couldn’t have been aware. There are two hours between each murder and they were both right outside. We ran with that. Of all the other things we read, all of the hypotheses and theories, it was the actual space that led us to our story.”

Beyond writing Bridget as an accomplice for Lizzie to explain the logistics of the murders, Sevigny and Kass landed on giving the infamous spinster a love story to help drive the action of the film.

“I had a lot of empathy toward her. She had a rich inner life and she didn’t have a lot of outlets,” Sevigny says of Lizzie, who's depicted as being an avid reader and a patron of the arts.

“I felt like a lot of the world outside of Fall River was changing, but in that Calvinist community she was really smart. She had a lot to say and no one to say it to,” Sevigny adds. “That’s where we wanted to build the relationship with Bridget for her — that Bridget was finally an outlet. It felt like she deserved that love and an escape from her horrid existence.”

Amid the emotional abuse Lizzie endures from her father and the midnight visits he makes to Bridget’s room to rape her, the women find solace in each other. It begins with a bit of pedagogy as Lizzie helps Bridget to read and write but graduates to furtive glances and brushing each other’s hands as they pass notes in the stairwell, and eventually to a sexual release.

In her essay, "Lethal Lesbians: The Cinematic Inscription of Murderous Desire," film historian B. Ruby Rich writes of films that play into the murderous lesbian trope, like the aforementioned Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures and Nancy Meckler’s Sister My Sister (a film that Sevigny says she loves and sent to Stewart to watch in preparation for the role), in which incestuous maids murder their employer and her daughter. In these movies, murder is the ultimate consummation of the relationship. While the depiction of the murders in Lizzie is the denouement of the film, Sevigny says she wanted Lizzie and Bridget to have a sexual consummation as well.

“We wanted to give that to them. The movie is so restrained and so buttoned-up. And you see them in passing, these moments of almost touching and those kinds of period romance clichés. But they also work and they are also titillating to me,” Sevigny says. “I think the way that we did the sex scene — we’re not naked. We’re still confined by these garments. We need each other.”

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'Lizzie' Clip - "I Want us to Try"

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Video: Interview with Variety for 'Lizzie' + Kristen talks 'Charlie's Angels'

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'Lizzie' costume designer, Natalie O'Brien, talks about the movie and mentions Kristen with Fashionista

Producer and actress Chloë Sevigny spent nearly a decade bringing the latest dramatization of Lizzie Borden's alleged 1892 ax murders of her father and stepmother to the big screen. Her vision for "Lizzie," written by friend Bryce Kass, explores the lead-up to the still-unsolved grisly murders, and the famous trial of the accused murderer, played by Sevigny, from a feminist and "smash-the-patriarchy" point of view.

As a decision-maker in front of and behind the camera, she was fully invested; she even spent a night in the Fall River, Mass. murder house (now a museum and a bed and breakfast, which can't not be haunted, honestly). That meant everything in the film, including the costumes, required meticulous dedication to authenticity. Because of the salaciousness and brutality of the hatchet murders — and the fact that the Bordens were prominent members of the community — the case was like the O.J. Simpson trial of the day. So, the costume department had copious old photos, sketches and documentation surrounding the proceedings to analyze.

Costume designer Natalie O'Brien, who also outfitted Elizabeth Olsen as a spot-on influencer in "Ingrid Goes West," carefully studied "Parallel Lives: A Social History of Lizzie A. Borden and Her Fall River," by Michael Martins and Dennis A. Binette — a comprehensive "bible" about Borden.

"It has the kind of details like, 'and Lizzie Borden wore a blue cord skirt when the murders happened,'" O'Brien explains over the phone from Los Angeles.

For roughly the first half of the movie, Lizzie also wears a pansy pin on her collar (pictured above), which O'Brien notes is visible on a number of images of the accused killer. Behind the scenes, the costume designer and Sevigny brainstormed a possible backstory and decided that the pin must have been a gift from Lizzie's father and the most expensive piece of jewelry she owned.

As a producer, veteran actress and style icon, Sevigny gave regular input regarding her costumes and O'Brien welcomed the collaboration. "It's beautiful to speak with your actors, and be like, 'How do you see it? How do you envision it?'" says the costume designer. "[Sevigny] was a huge part of telling the story."

The lead also had one significant, and daunting, ask: to wear all original vintage. "Like 1890s authentic vintage," specifies O'Brien, "and that's very difficult to maintain — and even to obtain — so we were definitely like little warriors hunting for every kind of piece." Lizzie had many costume changes, including a late 19th-century blue ruffle-front, mutton-sleeve and pleat-detailed dress for when she first meets new maid, dramatized love interest and possible future accomplice Bridget (Kristen Stewart).

"That was falling apart," says O'Brien. "Everyday we would have to French seam it back together because it's hot days in Savannah [where they filmed] and there's wear and tear on everything." In the beginning of the movie, Lizzie attends the theater in an elaborate and pristine vintage olive green evening dress (below), which garners compliments from her stepmother and catty theater-goer.

The look was also intentionally covered-up to communicate Lizzie's reported aloof and guarded nature in an era when women liked to reveal a teensy flash of collar bone or décolletage (ooh, racy). "That was something [people] would say about Lizzie Borden: 'ugh, what's her deal? Why is she so closed up?' We don't know," adds O'Brien, who sourced from "everywhere," including costume rental houses, Ebay, Etsy and private collectors.

One particular private collector proved eager to lend: Sevigny, herself, who had amassed an archive of pieces from the 19th century. O'Brien initially was skeptical, as the decade when the murders occurred was a very specific time in fashion history, when unwieldy and not-so-functional "big bell mutton sleeves" were the thing. "That was a very strange era and it only lasted so long because it was so strangely extravagant," O'Brien says. But she was pleasantly surprised after looking through Sevigny's collection, which included a black polka-dot dress with the most beautiful pleats and lace piping, which Lizzie puts on post-murders to greet the police.

"She had some really beautiful items that actually really fit in the era," O'Brien continues. "I was like, 'Wow, she's really been doing her homework for awhile.'" However, Lizzie's blue corded skirt and printed blouse murder outfit had to be custom-built, due to the need for multiples — because blood.

O'Brien's team also custom-built Bridget's maid uniforms and working-class wardrobe of dark sweaters and practical jackets paired with muted full skirts, which provided a socio-economic contrast via color palette and condition. "When she first comes in, you can see her ankles, and that was a big no-no," she explains. "That shows that Bridget didn't have anything tailored and it was more of a hand-me-down." Eagle-eyed viewers may also notice a rip on her jacket shoulder.

O'Brien even went a bit method with making sure all of Bridget's costumes literally fit into the suitcase she brings to the Borden house. Although she wasn't able to squeeze in one extra maid's costume. "I said, 'OK, maybe she made it or bought it [after she arrived], so I'll let that one one slide,'" O'Brien laughs.

One may also notice — especially in a few key disrobing scenes — the lack of buttons and fuss when it comes to Bridget's clothing as compared to Lizzie's complicated tiny buttons up the back. Back then, women of a certain class needed help from servants to get dressed, thus also allowing for an intimate moment between the two. "Bridget wouldn't have that help," O'Brien explains. "So anything she wore, it had to be something that she did herself."

In the late 1800s, women were still expected to wear corsets, which meant the actual actresses all needed help from the costume department to get dressed. "I would personally deliver Fiona Shaw's corset in the morning because she is a bundle of joy," O'Brien says, about the actress playing Lizzie's stepmother (and the deliciously enigmatic Carolyn Martens on "Killing Eve" — seriously, all your favorite TV people are in this movie, too.) For the sake of authenticity, putting on the period costumes was a whole process: "It goes bloomers, shoes and then the corset because they can't lean over and put their shoes on," O'Brien explains.

Unsurprisingly, Sevigny also fully committed to the presumably tortuous corset situation to help immerse herself into character. "In the morning, she would come up and be like, 'Can I have my corset?'" O'Brien says. "I'm like, 'You don't have a scene for another four hours.'" Also unsurprisingly, Stewart, who's a fan of slouchy denim, casual caps and distressed t-shirts in her off-hours, wasn't as excited to don the restricting foundation garment. O'Brien would sympathetically loosen the actress's corsets when they weren't shooting.

"Sometimes, she would wear her jeans under her dresses," says O'Brien, about Stewart sneaking in her preferred uniform during close-up shots. "I'd pass her and be like, 'What are you doing?! Noooo, this doesn't look authentic.' She's like, 'I know, I'm sorry.'"

O'Brien gave her a pass. "There's even funny on-set pictures that paparazzi caught of her wearing her corset and her hat and then she's got her jeans and her Converse or Vans on the bottom." It was a different type of authenticity than the one O'Brien was focused on, but authenticity nonetheless.


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Video: Kristen and Chloe Sevigny's interview with We Live Entertainment for 'Lizzie'

Kristen Stewart and Chloë Sevigny talk Lizzie and how film festivals helped to shape their careers. from We Live Entertainment on Vimeo.

Transcript:

Scott Menzel: First, I wanted to say that I love the movie. You two light up the screen together. You’re incredible. Both of you. Chloe, I know this movie has been a long time coming for you. There’s a lot of backstory about it. What did it feel like to finally get it made?

Chloe Sevigny: It was shocking. I couldn’t believe every day that we were even on set, and I had so much enthusiasm, so grateful to everybody there that gave me their energy. It was super low budget. It was a real battle, and I felt like people were really excited to be there. From every crew member, I could feel the passion, drive, that we all had, and it was a good vibe on set. So that was really great to have that kind of support and encouragement.

Scott Menzel: Awesome. Kristen, what was your initial thoughts when you got the script and read it?

Kristen Stewart: I really liked it. I did it. Initially, I was really stoked to work with her in any capacity. The fact that she had been developing this for so long, and that she came at me with enthusiasm, immediately I was like, “Okay well it must be for a reason.” ‘Cause I admire her greatly and always have. So I read the script and thought that it was really up my alley. Really small and quaint, but only in a way that makes you wanna look closer at something ’cause it’s not easy to see, and it’s quiet the way that these women needed to function back then was very quietly, and so it was cool to hear … It was almost like the movie was like a whisper. Like a quiet conversation that you were now allowed to be privy to, and then when it explodes, in the end, it’s really disenchanting and terrifying. And so yeah, I was totally down.

Scott Menzel: I think you two are just so incredible in this movie I can’t say it enough.

Chloe Sevigny: She’s always incredible.

Scott Menzel: Kristen is amazing.

Kristen Stewart: I would have done anything. I didn’t even have to read the script.

Scott Menzel: Personal Shopper. Adventureland. Chloe, you’re great too. Come on. you started in Kids, and you’ve made your way up, and you’ve done so many different independent films, and you’ve just been incredible. Both of you.

Kristen Stewart: She is just awesome.

Scott Menzel: This movie premiered on Sundance. Kristen, I was sad that you weren’t there this year, but I know you had other stuff going on. How do you feel that film festivals have impacted your career and helped shape them?

Chloe Sevigny: Well for me definitely coming out of the independent world the film festivals give those films a platform to find audiences, and distribution, and press, and excitement around them, and having not worked in the studio system you rely on that, that’s all you have, and it’s really important because there are such small budgets for marketing, and everything else. So I think there’s also a stamp of approval that certain festivals can give a movie, and that generates excitement for them too. Just also being at festivals, and being in the film community, and running into other filmmakers, and producers, and actors, and just feeling that comradely that you’re in it together is like … I love being in festivals.

Kristen Stewart: Knowing that there is that esoteric side is also fun. Being like even if the whole world isn’t going to buy this, we see something in this and we’re gonna celebrate each other now, and take the time to acknowledge that there is a culture that exists that isn’t necessarily the masses.

Scott Menzel: Well thank you very much. It was good seeing you again.

Chloe Sevigny: Thank you.

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Chloe Sevigny talks 'Lizzie' and mentions Kristen with Nylon

What was it like pulling double duty for Lizzie, since you both produced and starred in it?
There were a lot of ups and downs. It’s been many years in the making and has been very emotional. There have been different versions of the movie, and you have to learn to roll with it. But I think [I learned a lot about the] business aspect of things, because that's something I've always kind of shied away from. So this was a real eye-opener. I've been working as an actress for 20-something years, and you know [about the business side to] a certain extent, but it’s just making a movie and hearing all the horror stories. But when you are [doing both for a movie], it’s obviously much more daunting and emotional. We got the movie made in the end though. I think the highlight of my producing duties was convincing Kristen Stewart [to get] on board.

What exactly was it about her that made you know she had to play Bridget?
I just could tell. I've met her a few times at some parties and just the way we communicated… I just always admired her as an actress, of course—her performances are incredible, and she looks incredible. But as a person, I also like what she represents to popular culture, and how she navigates the world and the choices she makes. It’s more about all of that than just her name or that I wanted to hang out with her.

I also hadn't seen her do something so contained. She's kind of like a wild thing and very emotional in her acting, and I thought it would be interesting to watch her do something where she wasn't allowed to behave in that kind of way. Where she had to keep it all in, but there is always so much going on in her mind. If you talk to her for five seconds, she’s just so bright, and she's always just questioning everything. Even without any dialogue, I knew there would be a ton of stuff going on there.

Her character definitely also had to deal with some serious patriarchal repression and sexual abuse but was in a position where she couldn’t really say anything. Did the current cultural climate at all have anything to do with the writing of her character?
Oddly, I feel like things have changed so much in the past year. We started shooting right after the election, and ever since, there's been a whole cultural shift. Which, obviously, we’re all excited about—like, finally. It now feels like the film is more relevant, and if it can contribute to that conversation, that's all I would hope for. [I hope] people would recognize this character as more like American outlaw who fights against the patriarchy, symbolically. We don't condone violence, but I just think that what Lizzie represents is even more meaningful now. Even fighting for Bridget who's the faceless, nameless [Irish] immigrant.

Why do you think the Lizzie Borden story still resonates so deeply in pop culture?
I think true crime is endlessly fascinating for people. And it’s still unsolved, technically. She was never convicted, so I think people like to play detective and think, I'm going to figure it out. Even I did. I know when [writer Bryce Kass] and I started working on the project, we were like, “We're going to figure out who really killed them.” Of course, we didn't. But with every book that comes out, her legend grows and the data [mounts]. And she's become this icon for outcasts. I just think that people are fascinated by her and by the period. [Like living in the] turn of the century and living in the circumstances of that time. As you were saying, they were oppressed and repressed, and when they started fighting back against that... I mean, I believe we are still [fighting against that] as second-class citizens, but I think that's slowly changing.

Obviously, Lizzie’s been mythologized in a way that almost borders on caricature sometimes. Like, there are never really any nuances in terms of the narratives created around her, just that she was a crazed woman who snapped. How did you make sure to avoid that with this production? 
I think we wanted to really focus on her home life. Like, what it must have been like for her prior to the murders. [Bryce and I] both fell in love with Lizzie, and we are really empathetic toward her, so we wanted to show that side of her.

Then there's the turn. Obviously, you are seeing her through Bridget's eyes and also it’s a love story. I think a lot of people who fall in love, you see another side of [your partner, a change], a different aspect. In this case, of course, it’s pretty severe. But then you also find yourself asking, Do I even know who you are? Who are you? I think that's a common theme.

Lizzie and Bridget are in love, and she thinks Bridget is going to be free and happy. That this love is going to change everything for her, and I think that those expectations are dangerous.

On that note, the fact that this is a queer love story that takes place at the turn of the century is pretty incredible. What went into the research of this? How much of it is based on your findings?
There have been some books that have touched upon [Bridget and Lizzie’s relationship]. Lizzie was also famously with this actress, Nance O'Neil. But the film, I think, is about how women find strength in one another. I think we were interested in displaying that as well.

Were there any surprising things you stumbled upon during the making of the project though? 
I mean, truth is stranger than fiction. There are a lot of little details which we included in earlier versions of our movie, but it’s easy to get bogged down by them. In the end, we decided to not include as many as those. So I think some of the Lizzie fanatics might be disappointed that there are details left out, but I hope they go along for the ride and enjoy the nuances we bring to the story.

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Chloe Sevigny talks 'Lizzie' and Kristen with the LA Daily News

Chloë Sevigny wanted her Lizzie Borden to be an empathetic version of the historical figure she plays in the new film “Lizzie,” which is all well and good, but then Lizzie Borden did take an ax and give her mother 40 whacks, or so we’ve all been told, so … empathy?

“I want people to like her and root for her,” Sevigny says during an interview at the Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills about the film in which she co-stars with Kristen Stewart. “And then when she does it you’re just like, ‘Whaaat?’

“You really like this woman and she does this horrendous thing,” she says. “I think even though you know what’s going to happen, the way that we show it and tell it, it’s still really satisfying, at least I hope so.”

Sevigny is clearly a fan of Borden, who, we should note for the record, was acquitted of the 1892 ax-whackings of her mother and father, no matter what that infamous rhyme might have led you to believe. It comes through in the way she talks about Borden, and also in the stubborn passion she displayed in fighting for nearly a decade to bring “Lizzie” to the screen.

For Halloween one year a friend dressed up as Borden, which put the story of Lizzie and her ax back in mind, Sevigny says. A year later on a trip to Massachusetts with her then-boyfriend they decided to add the murder house in Falls River, Massachusetts to their itinerary of creepy New England tourist spots.

“I’ve always been into the Salem witch trials and all of that kind of oppressive New England culture, so I was like, ‘Let’s go to Salem, pay our respects, and go to see the House of the Seven Gables, and why don’t we go by Lizzie Borden’s?’” Sevigny says. “Found out that it was now a bed and breakfast, and I was like, ‘We gotta go!’”

Before bed at the Borden house they took a tour that builds up the spooky nature of where you are staying, she says, which drew her closer and closer into the story of this woman.

“In their telling of this year I was just falling for this character, this person, this woman,” Sevigny says. “I was feeling so much empathy for her and learning more about her and her circumstances, all the different rumors, and just falling, falling, falling for her.”

Their night in the bed and breakfast was restless and a little bit spooky, she says. The boyfriend felt like someone was touching him. She says she heard a weird howling. When she got home to New York City she started reading more about Borden.

“I was just like, ‘I think I want to play this person,’” says Sevigny, whose résumé includes an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress for “Boys Don’t Cry,” a long list of acclaimed indie film parts, and co-starring roles in such TV series as HBO’s “Big Love” and Netflix’s “Bloodline.” “I wasn’t necessarily getting opportunities in features, the kinds that I wanted. I was like, ‘Maybe I should just try and develop it.’”

She took screenwriter Bryce Kass, a friend and former roommate, back to the Borden B&B, and together they talked about what kind of story to tell, eventually settling on the idea of Lizzie as a woman trapped by the circumstances of her time – as an unmarried woman, her father controlled nearly every aspect of her life – who sought freedom in a manner most extreme.

“Part of what’s so captivating is the legend, and how people have built on the legend and added to it,” Sevigny says. “How she now kind of represents this feminist American outlaw who was rallying against the status quo and the patriarchy.

“She’s kind of an icon for outcasts and misfits, and those are my people,” she says.

The screenplay also incorporates the long-held historical rumor that Borden had been in a romantic relationship with the family’s housemaid, Bridget Sullivan, the character played by Stewart, and might have been motivated to kill her parents in order to inherit their money and start anew elsewhere with Bridget.

“She’s in her fantasy world, and I think that made the love story more complex and interesting to me,” Sevigny says.

The project was initially bought by HBO which saw it as a miniseries, but once there it stalled in limbo for years. Eventually Sevigny managed to get a team together to buy it back, and then worked to find a new way to get the film made.

Kristen Stewart was the first person that Sevigny, a producer of the film, and Kass considered for Bridget and she quickly signed onto the film directed by Craig William Macneill.

“She’s very real,” Sevigny says of Stewart. “I’m constantly in awe of the way her brain works, so bright and so inventive, and just so many ideas. I was like, ‘No wonder you’re a (bleepin’) movie star!’ I have always been shy and afraid to voice my opinion. Maybe I could learn a thing or two from this girl and be more vocal.”

Sevigny may be shy on set but she’s bold in her willingness to take chances, which is clear in the fearlessness with which both she and Stewart play their parts in the violent scenes we all know will come before the credits roll. Without giving everything away suffice to say there’s a naked vulnerability to these scenes, one that Sevigny says served the message of the movie.

“I feel like it’s a female empowerment movie in a way, and to see her doing this, to see her as a woman, I thought it served the story,” she says. “And I think it’s kind of punk for lack of a better word. It makes sense that she strips herself of these social constraints and just goes animalistic.”

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'Lizzie' Clip: "Women Do"

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'Lizzie' Clip + interview with Chloe Sevigny and director Craig Mcneill with INTO

It’s been 126 years since Andrew and Abby Borden were found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home, with their 32-year-old daughter (and stepdaughter, respectively) becoming the prime suspect. Lizzie Borden, an unwed housebound loner, was suddenly thrust into the spotlight, defending herself against the accusations that she wielded a hatchet and violently brought it down on the heads of her father and step-mother. Even though she was never convicted of the crime, the lore of Lizzie Borden has spawned not just stories and songs but true crime books, a Lifetime TV movie and then follow-up series, a musical, and a bed and breakfast/museum, all named in her (dis?) honor. Now, a film starring two of modern cinema’s revered rebel icons – Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart – delves into an aspect often left out of retellings of the bloody saga: Lizzie Borden’s alleged lesbianism.

Historians have attempted to discern whether Lizzie Borden’s love of female friends and eschewing of male partners meant anything in particular about her sexual identity (some, opting out, instead call her a spinster), but there’s not a ton of proof either way. Still, some believe Lizzie’s friendship with performer Nance O’Neil was a romantic one, and that Lizzie also had a relationship with Bridget “Maggie” Sullivan, her family’s 25-year-old Irish maid.

In Lizzie, hitting theaters this Friday, Sevigny plays the titular character as a repressed, buttoned-up young woman imprisoned in a boring day-to-day as dictated by her overbearing and judgmental father (Jamey Sheridan). Stewart is Bridget, quiet and dutiful out of monetary necessity, even when she’s expected to perform sexual acts outside of her job description for Mr. Borden. As Lizzie and Bridget discover each other’s shared hatred of their suffocating situations, they find a bond that evolves into emotional and physical affection, leading to the ultimate climax: the bludgeoning Lizzie Borden is infamous for, whether she’s guilty or not.

“It’s them finding strength through one another, and it’s also a tragic love story,” Sevigny tells INTO. “Lizzie is projecting so much on to Bridget and expecting so much and her expectations are thinking she’s going to find happiness and freedom through this love and in the end, fighting for it actually loses it, and we thought that was a tragic twist.”

Sevigny was the driver of the project and has been for several years as it went through many iterations – first as a television series with HBO that was eventually killed because of Lifetime’s own version starring Christina Ricci. There were directors attached at times (Pieter Van Hees was to helm at one point), but Craig Macneill eventually took on the feature, written by Bryce Kass. Sevigny says she met with women directors as well, but liked Macneill’s previous film, The Boy, and enjoyed “the respect that he had for Kristen and me and the script and for the project.”

“I tried to stick true to the feelings I had when I first read the screenplay,” Macneil tells INTO. “I genuinely cared for these two women who were trapped in this oppressive home under the control of this sadistic man. These two women were merely trying to survive and they found comfort and solace in one another. That connection took the form of an intimacy. And love.”

When Lizzie premiered at Sundance this January, it was one of four high-profile films that centered queer women protagonists, and one of the first to get scooped up for distribution (Saban Films acquired North American rights).

This is a pervasive and frustrating scenario in modern cinema, and though it’s not as off-putting as it can be in other dramas of this nature, the male gaze is perhaps illustrated best by an actual scene from Lizzie: When Lizzie and Bridget finally become intimate – believing they are finally alone together, undiscoverable in the barn – they are so involved in making love they don’t realize they are being watched through the window by Lizzie’s father, Bridget’s abuser. 

“I thought it was important to keep Lizzie and Bridget clothed for the love scene and not overly glamorize it in any way,” Macneil tells INTO. “We shot it handheld with wide lenses, very close to the subjects, which gives you sense that you are participating and sharing the space with them as opposed to observing from afar.”

The inescapable repression is palpable in that moment, reiterating that for women like Lizzie and Bridget, there is no way out – they are stuck under the thumb of men unless they do something drastic.

Although reviews out of Sundance were favorable, especially regarding the leads’ performances, Sevigny shared that she was somewhat disappointed with Macneill’s decisions to cut scenes she shared with both Stewart and co-star Fiona Shaw (who played her step-mother). Considering the best scenes are when Sevigny and Stewart have any chance to share a secret conversation or exchange of emotion in an otherwise stoic existence, this was frustrating for Sevigny, who had been trying to get some iteration of the project made since 2010.

“It was very hard,” Sevigny told Huffington Post. “I was like, ‘If you have another scene with Kristen Stewart and you don’t put it in your movie, you’re stupid. What’s your problem?’ But almost every movie goes through that. Almost everything that was on the page was filmed, and a lot of it didn’t make it in the movie. … There was more to the relationships that made them more complicated, and also then informed why Lizzie [commits the murders]. Now it’s a little more vague than what Bryce and I intended originally to do.”

“There were several scenes that didn’t make it into the final cut as a result of the overall running time,” Macneil tells INTO. “It’s always hard to let go of moments and scenes you love, particularly when you remember how thrilling it was to capture on set – but that’s just the nature of post-production. It’s like that on every project.”

Sevigny understands how this works – she’s been in the business for 25 years now, beginning with her first role in Larry Clark’s Kids. To say she puts her entire self into the Lizzie role is an understatement, so believing the cut scenes she referenced were necessary to this feminist re-telling of Lizzie Borden’s story isn’t difficult.

“It’s always a gamble,” she says, acknowledging that finding a director to come aboard a project that already had its script and stars in place leaves them with less ownership.

The now 43-year-old actress has been cast in explicitly sexual and often violent work. That much of this work is queer-themed is both for better and for worse, as sometimes it means heartbreaking consequences and punishment for the LGBTQ characters within – Lizzie included. Sevigny’s breakthrough role as Lana Tisdel in Kimberly Peirce’s 2000 film Boys Don’t Cry is perhaps what she’s best known for, garnering her Indie Spirit and Satellite awards, Academy Awards, Golden Globe, and SAG nominations. She was also up for Best Kiss at the MTV Movie Awards for her on-screen love scene with co-star Hilary Swank, who portrayed trans man Brandon Teena. Later, Sevigny would play a trans hit person on the self-contained controversial series Hit & Miss, as well as appearing in lesbian, bi, and queer roles in television (American Horror Story: Asylum), film (Party Monster) and the all-star HBO TV movie If These Walls Could Talk 2, which had her playing a motorcycle-riding butch greaser dyke opposite a love interest played by Michelle Williams.

Sevigny says the roles she chooses, though explicit or racy and, at times, contentious, are not without reason or merit.

“I think other films are more, I don’t know,  titillating or something – like Bound,” Sevigny says. “I think my films – not that I’m any better – but I think there’s a certain respect around them that maybe that kind of [salacious] talk isn’t prevalent around them. I think what happens between Kristen and I in the movie and our friendship is we’re connected outside the boundary of class or sexuality or sexual identity, you know? It’s something bigger. And it’s not gratuitous, either, and I think that’s also a main thing that runs through all of my films.  Whenever there’s sex, it really serves the story. Even in this movie – we’re never even out of our clothing together but still, it’s as sexy, or as possible if we were naked because of where you’ve gotten up to that point in the movie because you’ve seen how repressed they are, so it’s satisfying in its own way when you get to that point.”

Lizzie and Bridget’s being found out weighs heavily into the rest of the film, with homophobia leading Mr. Borden to ensure his daughter will receive nothing from him should he ever meet an untimely death. (Instead, he signs his estate over to Lizzie’s uncle, the equally evil Denis O’Hare.)  Audiences will likely root for Lizzie to succeed, and for her relationship with Bridget to survive outside of the stifling staleness they’ve been forced to live in, which turns a lot of queer horror tropes on their head. Instead of seeing Lizzie’s homosexual leanings as proof that she’s sinful and, therefore, a villain who deserves to be punished, Lizzie provides a much more complex context in which to understand why a young woman who might have it in her to murder her own parents.

“Yes, I do think she’s likable,” Macneill says of Lizzie Borden. “The film intentionally walks a fine line though. It allows you to identify and sympathize with a person doing who has done something extremely brutal. I want the audience to care for her – but I also want us to be afraid of her.”

Sevigny tells INTO she loves films like Heavenly Creatures, “where women find strength within each other and fight their oppressors.”

“If Lizzie did, in fact, do it, there’s no way that Bridget couldn’t have known that it was happening and/or have been a part of it in some way,” she says, basing her theory on a tour she took of the Lizzie Borden house. “To us, the love story is greater than anything. It’s them finding strength through one another, and it’s also a tragic love story. Lizzie is projecting so much on to Bridget and expecting so much and her expectations are thinking she’s going to find happiness and freedom through this love – and in the end, fighting for it, she actually loses it. We thought that was a tragic twist.”

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Kristen and Chloe Sevigny's interview for 'Lizzie' with AP + Portraits

Click on photos for full view.

Chloe Sevigny has been trying to do a fresh take on the Lizzie Borden tale for over a decade.

A fateful trip to the house in Fall River, Massachusetts, convinced her to look at Borden’s life through a different, more empathetic lens, pulling back the curtain on the suffocating circumstances surrounding the infamous 1892 ax murders of her father and stepmother and what might have driven her to do it. Borden was tried and acquitted of the killings, but continues to be a source of intrigue today.

After years of false starts, “Lizzie,” a tense and beautifully rendered psychological thriller co-starring Kristen Stewart as Bridget Sullivan, the maid and a pivotal figure in Borden’s life, is finally making it to select theaters Friday.

Sevigny, 43, and Stewart, 28, it girls of different generations, spoke to The Associated Press about the shoot, why the nudity in it is “punk” and directing short films before features.

The following remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.

__

AP: How did you decide to go after Kristen?

Sevigny: Bryce (Kass), the writer, said Kristen and I was like ‘Oh yeah. No one else.’ So then we went about trying to seduce her.

Stewart: I’m really easy. It was not difficult.

AP: Visiting the house helped you figure out the story?

Sevigny: It bore out our decision to tell the story this way. Not only were we interested in the love story, a tragic love story at that, and them both searching for freedom and finding each other, but also just the practicality that she (Bridget) was outside the house. There was no way she couldn’t have known what was going on.

AP: Kristen what did you find compelling about Bridget?

Stewart: I felt protective over her. She’s got truly no voice. I really liked the kind of lens that she provided us of Lizzie. The way she saw her was really sweet and kind of innocent but also pure.

AP: It shows women at that time of different classes.

Sevigny: They’re all Andrew (Borden’s) prisoners. Me and Abby and Emma and Bridget. We’re all prisoners in this household together with no options.

AP: Tell me about the decision to be fully exposed in this film.

Sevigny: The movie deserved it. That’s what the movie needed. I think it was even my decision. I wanted the movie to have that. And I think it’s kind of punk as a 43-year-old to be naked. I feel like we’re bombarded with these beauty ideals and I am trying to in my small way (with my Instagram) to say look at this woman, look at Anna Magnani, she’s a great beauty, and have girls see that and see more diversity and shapes and sizes and looks and know that these people are also appreciated for whatever they bring, not only their looks, but their talent.

AP: I saw on your Instagram that you two hung out at this bar, Original Pinkie Masters, during the shoot in Georgia.

Sevigny: That was I think the first gay bar in Savannah. And there’s an art school there so a lot of the art students and professors would be there. It was a nice generation gap. They had a great jukebox with all this amazing obscure music and it was just our local.

Stewart: It’s just a great bar.

Sevigny: Cool crowd. Nobody bothered her. They bothered me more than her.

Stewart: Which means it’s a REALLY cool bar.

Sevigny: It just means they’re older.

AP: Why did you both start out directing shorts before features?

Sevigny: I was frustrated as an actress, always giving myself over to someone else’s vision. Not that I didn’t always agree with their vision or wanted to be part of it or thought they were great filmmakers, but still you’re not in the editing room, it’s somebody else’s thing. I wanted to have my own thing and express my own ideas and visions and loves.

Stewart: Yeah same, I started so young, I’ve never felt more seen or expressed or like allowed to really be as when you’ve really told a story well, one that got inside you. I don’t draw a huge distinction between acting and directing. I think as an actor I love the indulgence, but I don’t want to say lack of control because I’m very controlling, I’m always in the director’s back pocket like, “How is this being seen?” I want to be able to fit into your frame perfectly. I want to know what it looks like.

Sevigny: I don’t. I become too self-aware.

Stewart: But I wanted to do a short before a feature because I had never done it before. Straight-up. And I love what shorts do for people’s willingness to do weird things. You’re not trying to entertain people, not that that’s something that I’m not into, I’m into that too, but it’s fun to do truly a free-verse poem.

Sevigny: More of an expression.

Stewart: It doesn’t have to be an hour and-a-half, it doesn’t have to be digestible. It just has to have a taste.

Sevigny: People are like why are you doing another short, why aren’t you doing a feature? And I have such reverence for feature filmmakers, I’m not prepared yet. I still am experimenting and learning.

AP: And as actors you both are often rebelling against the big business of Hollywood, consistently choosing interesting projects and directors to work with.

Sevigny: It’s called taste.

Stewart: And she strikes again! Dude! Honestly if I said that I would sound like such a tit, but because it’s her, because you genuinely actually have the pull, you can actually lift up that statement and (expletive) hurl it.

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