American actress, model, filmmaker and fashion designer. After graduating from high school, Sevigny found work as a model, and appeared in music videos for Sonic Youth and The Lemonheads, which helped acquire her “it girl” status. In 1995, she made her film debut in Kids, which earned major peters bloody mary mix critical acclaim.
As a child, Sevigny was diagnosed with scoliosis, but never received any surgical treatment for it. She often spent summers attending theater camp, with leading roles in plays run by the YMCA. Sevigny described herself as a “loner” and a “depressed teenager” whose only extracurricular activities were occasionally skateboarding with her older brother and sewing her own clothes. In high school, she grew rebellious and began experimenting with drugs, particularly hallucinogens. As a teenager, Sevigny would occasionally ditch school in Darien and take the train into Manhattan. In 1993, at age 19, Sevigny relocated from her Connecticut hometown to an apartment in Brooklyn, and worked as a seamstress. Sevigny encountered screenwriter and aspiring director Harmony Korine in Washington Square Park during her senior year of high school in 1993.
Aside from film work, Sevigny starred in a 1998 Off-Broadway production of Hazelwood Jr. Sevigny played 17-year-old Laurie Tackett, one of four girls responsible for torturing and murdering 12-year-old Sharer. Kimberly Peirce saw her performance in The Last Days of Disco. Following the success of Boys Don’t Cry, Sevigny appeared in 1999 in the experimental film Julien Donkey-Boy, which reunited her with writer-director Harmony Korine. In the film, she played the pregnant sister of a man with schizophrenia. In 2000, Sevigny played a supporting role in Mary Harron’s American Psycho, based on the controversial 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Around 2002, Sevigny began collaborating with friend Tara Subkoff for the Imitation of Christ fashion label and conceptual art project, with their first collection being released in 2003.