Chloë Sevigny's Real Name: Chloë Sevigny

Quick answer: Chloë Sevigny is documented professionally as Chloë Sevigny. Encyclopedia.com records her birth date as November 18, 1974, in Springfield, Massachusetts, and says she was raised in Darien, Connecticut (Encyclopedia.com; Interview Magazine).

Real name and early life

Encyclopedia.com lists her as Chloe Sevigny, without the diaeresis used in many later credits, and names her mother as Janine Sevigny; her father worked in insurance sales and as an interior painter, the same entry says, though some sources it cites give his original occupation as accountant. She has a brother, Paul Sevigny, a disc jockey. Interview magazine confirms the Darien upbringing, describing how, in the early 1990s, she took the Metro-North Railroad into New York City from that Connecticut home. The same conversation describes a household that valued routine, including going home for the holidays and attending Mass. Encyclopedia.com says she interned at Sassy magazine beginning about 1993 and worked as a salesclerk at Liquid Sky, a clothing and music store in Brooklyn Heights, and at other shops, and that she also modeled and appeared in advertisements.

Career highlights

Interview recounts that she was first offered a smaller part in Larry Clark's Kids (1995), then, two days before shooting, the lead; she gave the script to her father to read before deciding. Encyclopedia.com lists that role as Jennie and records an Independent Spirit Award nomination for the film. Her performance as Lana Tisdel in Boys Don't Cry (1999) brought an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress in 2000, along with a Golden Globe nomination and several critics' awards, Encyclopedia.com says. Other film credits in that entry include Trees Lounge (1996), Gummo (1997), and The Last Days of Disco (1998). Encyclopedia.com also lists later television work on HBO's Big Love and records that she later became a spokesperson for MAC Cosmetics, beginning in 2004. In the Interview conversation she looks back on the decision to become an actress, and specifically to do Kids, as the situation that changed her most.

Name notes for searchers

She is known professionally as Chloë Sevigny; Encyclopedia.com uses the spelling Chloe Sevigny. Searchers looking for Lana in Boys Don't Cry, Jennie in Kids, or an actress from Darien, Connecticut, are usually aiming at the same person. A longer given-name form sometimes seen elsewhere is not independently documented in the sources cited here.