"Factory Girl" | Separate visions drove story of '60s "rich girl"

NEW YORK — At a recent news conference to promote the movie "Factory Girl" (opening today in Seattle), its stars, Sienna Miller and Guy Pearce, who play Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol in the film, and its director, George Hickenlooper, were immediately put on the defensive.

Why, they were asked, should anyone today care about Sedgwick, the Paris Hilton of the 1960s, a poor little rich girl who by attaching herself to counterculture artist/icon Andy Warhol, became famous for being famous?

For British actress Sienna Miller, a devoted follower of fashion, the answer can be found in any photograph of Sedgwick, who burst upon the New York scene and flamed brightly, before dying of a drug overdose in 1971, at 28.

"She was really in the spotlight for only two years and she's still managing to affect my generation today," said Miller. "There's something really extraordinary about someone who has the ability to be that timeless, and therefore there must be something more to her than being a socialite ... "

As for that timeless Sedgwick look, Miller has a simple explanation for it.

"She used to do this jazz ballet, that was her exercise, so every day she'd put on her tights and leotards and she'd dance around her apartment, and that's how she kept trim," said the actress. "Then she was just too lazy [to] change, so she'd put on a big coat and go out, and everyone started to copy this look. "

Another view

It apparently never caught on with director George Hickenlooper.

"People aren't attracted to her just because of her fashion like Twiggy, but because of the passion she had for life and her desire to be loved," he said.

"I found in Edie and Andy metaphors for our own fragmented culture. I know that's really deep and stuff, but those are the reasons I made the movie. It wasn't because she was a great style icon or he painted soup cans."

"Factory Girl" has not reviewed well. Its reputation as a troubled film may have had something to do with that. Hickenlooper jumped at the chance to clear up the rumors.

Cast and crew didn't reassemble late last year for reshoots, but additional shoots. "Reshoots imply the film has a problem," he said.

"It was a very difficult film to finance. We were all passionate about having Sienna, but she's not Meryl Streep so it wasn't easy to get financing," said Hickenlooper.

Therefore, pages had to be cut out of the script to save money. When Harvey Weinstein then came on board as producer, so too came the money, and 35 pages were added to the script late in the game, so late that the film just barely made its December 2006 release date, screening in one theater in Los Angeles to qualify for Oscar consideration.

"We just ran out of time. We could have waited," said Hickenlooper.

"But people really jump on films that wait. We really felt like this was its moment," said Miller.

Added the director, "... I know some of you guys were sharpening your knives and calling it troubled, which irritated me to no end. I was in the cutting room and no one had seen it. How am I in trouble?"

As it is, academy members, critics and the general public aren't seeing "Factory Girl" until now, if they're seeing it at all. Had the film had a higher profile in 2006, Guy Pearce might have gotten attention for his eerie portrayal of Warhol.

When one journalist asked Pearce if he thought Warhol was in any way responsible for Sedgwick's death, the Australian actor bristled.

"I think that's a fairly typical response of a lot of audience members, unfortunately, in this day and age. I think you need to look at the film a little more deeply than just assuming he's the villain in the piece. There's a lot more to the relationship than clearly I was able to portray for you," he said.

"We project myths upon people, and I think that Andy unfortunately has received a lot of negativity as far as being responsible for the demise of a lot of people. I think a lot of those people would've self-destructed anyway."

Warhol being Warhol

While Warhol and Sedgwick may never have been lovers (Warhol was gay), Warhol has been quoted as saying that Taxi, the artist's nickname for Sedgwick, was the one woman he ever loved.

Miller and Pearce talked to several people who knew the real-life characters they were charged with portraying in "Factory Girl," and sometimes, said Miller, it seemed that no two accounts were the same.

"I think Edie just found it hard to exist in reality because reality for her hadn't been a very safe place, and her parents' way of dealing with drama when she was younger was to give her a Valium, so of course drugs would seem like a natural escape from an unhappy time," she said.

"But everyone said she was a loving, warm person who burned too brightly for this world."