Chloe Sevigny spoke candidly about her experience with sexual harassment on Wednesday, recalling three moments where directors “[crossed] the line.”;
Speaking at Variety“s Cannes Film Festival panel this week, the actress touched upon some eyebrow-raising experiences and opened up about Hollywood’s gender issues.
“I’ve had the ‘what are you doing after this?’ conversation,” Sevigny recalled. “I’ve also had the ‘do you want to go shopping and try on some clothes and, like, I can buy you something in the dressing room’ [conversation],” she added. “Just like crossing the line weirdness.”
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In another instance, the star described a time when a director told her, “‘you should show your body off more. You shouldn’t wait until you’re as old as this certain actress who had just been naked in a film, you should be naked on screen now.'”
This comment would normally shock on many fronts, but it’s particularly puzzling given Sevigny’s scantily-clad roles. “If you know my career, I’ve been naked in every movie,” she replied.
While many of these conversations would easily be labelled sexual harassment in other industries, Sevigny chocks it up to typical Hollywood behaviour.
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“I would consider it Hollywood,” she said. “Was it sexual harassment? It’s such a fine line.”
The “Kitty”; director went on to discuss the sexist nature of the film industry and called out the “double standard”; that still exists on many male-dominated movie sets. “When women on set become a little emotional, or impassioned even, they’re labelled as hysterical or crazy and have a hard time getting hired again,” Sevigny said. “The double standard of the man being the wild, crazy, mad director is so embraced.”
