New York City’s status obsession, gossip and drama are on full display in the new eight-episode FX series “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans,” which debuted on Wednesday.
The series set in 1970s New York revisits a scandal that was the talk of the town and features an all-star cast, including Naomi Watts, Chloë Sevigny, Jessica Lange and Demi Moore.
The story follows author and U.N Plaza dweller Truman Capote as he drinks and enjoys the trappings of fame with his “swans” — a group of upper-class socialite friends.
The swans include Barbara “Babe” Paley, wife of CBS President William Paley; Lee Radziwill, sister of Jackie Onassis; and C.Z. Guest, who was married to a Churchill and regularly graced magazine covers and “Best Dressed” lists.
But the swans cast Capote out of society after he airs their affairs and indiscretions in a tell-all article published in the November 1975 issue of Esquire. According to the show, this was the blow that sent him spiraling to his early death from liver failure in 1984.
Sevigny, who plays plays Guest, spoke to Gothamist about canceled friends, raising a child in New York City and spending decades as an “it girl.”
C.Z. Guest is a fascinating character. She was rebellious and iconic, written up in the press constantly from the time she was a teenager. Were the comparisons in casting you deliberate?
Chloe Sevigny: Ryan Murphy and I share the same decorator, David Cafiero, who has a store in the East Village called Cafiero Select. And David used to say that me and my mother really reminded him of C.Z. For whatever it’s worth, I credit him. He always keeps me in Ryan’s mind and in conversations.
The women in the show are both liberated and confined by their public personas. I imagine that’s something you know a bit about. Does it ever irk you to have to say “hey, I’m an actor and a director, not just an ‘It girl’?”
Oh, for sure. I feel like I’m constantly having to kind of prove that. But I hope my new acting work…
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