by MATTHEW HAYS

Chloë Sevigny tries desperately not to roll her eyes as a photographer asks her to strike a pose at the Toronto International Film Festival. She's sitting in an oppressive hotel room, one of many set up for shoots and interviews with various film types rolling through town for the event.

And Sevigny is entertaining the requests of the photographer, despite their wackiness. "Can you pull that curtain over your head?" he asks, straight-faced. She cooperates, but looks so happy when the photographer leaves the room. She looks at me and smiles. "I'm ready for our conversation," she says.

It's an odd, but perhaps fitting, beginning to an interview with Sevigny. She's been asked to do a lot of wacky things throughout her short but illustrious acting career, and now she's having to answer what seem like an endless laundry list of pointed questions from about her most recent roles. This year alone, she's starring in an unusual trio of films that have put her broad range as an actor in full view: Dogville, Lars von Trier's latest tribute to oddball filmmaking (which will have its Montreal premiere at the New Film Festival this week); Shattered Glass, the story of the notorious New Republic reporter Stephen Glass who faked a number of high-profile stories; and Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny, a film that has shaped up to be the most sexually explicit and controversial movie of the past few years (New Film Fest programmers were still scrambling to secure a print to screen at their event at press time).

Conniptions at Cannes

"There are a lot of different things I seek out in a role," she tells me. "The director, the script, the role itself. I want it to be something I've never done before, something that will stretch me. I thought Shattered Glass had a really great story, and I thought it could be a strong commercial film. With Dogville, they called and said that Lars wanted me to play a role and I said yes immediately, because he really is one of my favourite directors. There wasn't any question about that one."

But Dogville hasn't simply turned out to be another great von Trier film; the movie was hated by much of the U.S. press at Cannes for what many saw as a vicious anti-American streak. In an apparent reaction to the movement he championed (Dogme 95), von Trier has crafted a surreal, expressionistic film, filmed entirely on a single stage with virtually no props. Assembling an astonishing cast (Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, James Caan, Patricia Clarkson, Stellan Skarsgard and Ben Gazzara), von Trier has Kidman playing a woman on the lam from gangsters who must take refuge in the small town of Dogville. There, in what becomes symbolic of American society as a whole, the citizens' commitment to help others is tested by their pledge to protect Kidman. At three hours plus, what some are declaring an epic masterpiece others are decrying as an endurance in arty, trendy anti-Americanism (I would fall into the former category).

But despite that controversy, despite all the previous controversies surrounding the various film projects chosen by Sevigny - including Kids, Boys Don't Cry and Party Monster - nothing has quite taken on the proportions that The Brown Bunny has. For those of you who haven't been paying attention, Bunny is the sophomore effort of Vincent Gallo, self-styled bad boy actor and director (his first film being the critically-lauded Buffalo 66). The movie is an entirely weird road movie in which Gallo wanders around, gets laid, wanders some more, and then gets laid again. It set off such a stir in Cannes (see sidebar) that it was subsequently re-edited and shown at the Toronto Festival, where it had already generated so much buzz it packed houses. Whether or not Gallo liked it, he appeared to have created an inadvertent comedy. (And he didn't seem to like that one bit, leaving the fest three days earlier than planned.)

Doing Gallo

The scene that has mouths agape is the final one: Bunny culminates in a reconciliation sequence in which Daisy (played by Sevigny) gives Gallo a blow job. It is easily one of the most sexually explicit scenes ever shot in a film this prominent. Basically, it feels like watching porn, except with stars in it. Some have trashed it, but I feel that this sequence has a lot of demographic potential: women and gay men can marvel at Gallo's impressive schlong, while straight men and lesbians can gaze at the lovely Sevigny as she takes on Gallo's monster member. This movie has something for everyone!

Sevigny is so over the controversy. In fact, she's already snapped at one Toronto daily reporter, who had the bad idea of opening their interview by asking Sevigny what she was thinking when she took on the role. "Right now in America there's a real prudishness going on," she tells me, growing more serious. "It's a return to the puritanical. I think it's the war and all the patriotism that goes along with it. I think it's odd that at the same time that we have all these reality shows and commercial films that have all this gross-out sex humour, it seems like when you try to show real love and tender love and sex people are so shocked and criticize it. There's a scene in The Sweetest Thing where Selma Blair gets a guy caught in her throat. No one commented on that at all. I wonder why that is. I'm just curious as to why the scene in Bunny would be so questioned when that other stuff isn't."

For the record, Sevigny had no qualms about doing a movie with Gallo. "I trusted Vincent because I've known him for so long. For 10 years, I've seen his paintings and his photography and his music and Buffalo 66. I felt he had a beautiful aesthetic and a great mind."

And the Ebert thing? "I know, he's really outspoken. He's got to keep his mouth shut sometimes. He's actually not really like that. He just likes to put on a show for show's sake. Vincent's a decent fellow."

Still, she concedes that "Vincent's been the toughest director to work with. He's just such a perfectionist. And that was a very intense and emotional scene. I think Lars has probably been the most fun of any director I've worked with."

Sevigny says the fuss over Dogville and Bunny has left her undaunted. "I'll still keep choosing whatever roles I like. So long as it's something I haven't already done. And if it makes a few waves, all the better. Why make movies if you're just going to bore people?"

Dogville has its Montreal premiere as part of the New Film Festival, which screens from today, Oct. 9, until Oct. 19. The Brown Bunny is still in limbo. Info: 847-1242. www.fcmm.com

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