Watts: Actor and exec producer
Sevigny and Ringwald: Actors
Just as Truman Capote had his coterie of elegant Gotham society ladies, “Feud” creator Ryan Murphy leaned on his stable of accomplished female actors to portray them in Season 2 of the FX anthology series: “The Watcher” alum Watts plays Babe Paley, wife of longtime CBS president Bill, while Sevigny, previously a star in “American Horror Story,” is C.Z. Guest and Ringwald, recently in “Dahmer,” a relative outlier as Johnny Carson’s ex, Joanne. For Sevigny, a longtime New Yorker who pored over images of Capote and his so-called swans growing up in Darien, Conn., it was a thrill to be filming at grand locations around Manhattan. “We wanted to celebrate old New York and a bit of that charm and glamour,” she says. “It was fun to be there doing it.” Ringwald was also aware of Capote, having performed in an adaptation of one of his novels when she was very young, and believes that, with Carson’s character, Murphy “really wanted somebody who was going to offer a contrast to all of those hangry women.” For all the veneer of perfection, “underneath there are major cracks and so many of them were in loveless marriages,” says Watts, who grew up outside the U.S. and wasn’t as familiar with moneyed 1970s society milieu as some of her castmates. “It’s sad, but it was a different era than it is now.” Adding to the melancholy: Treat Williams, who portrays Babe’s husband, unexpectedly died shortly after the production wrapped.
Lessons in adulting: Ringwald credits late production designer and producer Polly Platt with boosting her spirit when she was trying to move on from teen roles in films such as “Pretty in Pink.” “She was like, ‘You’re going to have a really long career. And the only way that you are not is if you decide that you don’t want to. It’s really up to you. You just have to keep doing what you’re doing and stick with it.’”
