Chloë Sevigny, the actress who brings a party with her wherever she goes, will put some of the same tight-buttoned instability she’s perfected on Big Love to the role of the notorious Lizzie Borden, the Massachusetts spinster who was acquitted of murdering her father and stepmother with a hatchet in 1892, but condemned to an immortality of “40 whacks” folklore. Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman’s Playtone will produce the miniseries about Borden for HBO, which will presumably cover everything through her cause célèbre trial and possibly examine the many theories as to why she may or may not have been guilty. What this means for the distribution of the upcoming Lizzie—starring Gary Busey, Corbin Bernsen, and Don Swayze—remains to be seen.
To prepare for the role, Variety reports that Sevigny has already been staying at the Lizzie Borden Bed And Breakfast, where guests can sleep in the very rooms where the Bordens were murdered and even enjoy “a breakfast similar to the one the Bordens ate on the morning of the murders, which includes bananas, jonny-cakes, sugar cookies, and coffee.” Sugar cookies for breakfast? They would have been dead soon anyway.