“Hello? Thanks for the—hang on—watch out for the mountain lions, sweetie!” Given the upward lilt at the end of his paternal warning, one gets the impression that actor Bill Paxton is joking. He’s not. Tucked away in rural America, the three-time Golden Globe nominee sounds worlds apart from the New York ad blitzkrieg promoting the third season of his hit drama Big Love, which returns to HBO this Sunday. Back in Manhattan, street-level billboards come equipped with audio jacks into which passersby are invited to stop and listen to the confessions of random strangers. Meanwhile, human advertisements pepper heavily trafficked intersections with thought bubbles atop their heads, meant to expose true feelings they would never dare utter. The show’s tagline this season, after all, is “Everyone has something to hide.” And Paxton, for his third year as Bill Henrickson, assures us that the show’s polygamy-centered plotlines are about to accelerate. Here, although immune to blog speculation and aggressive marketing ploys, the star of Twister and Apollo 13 readies himself for a return to Salt Lake City.

In HBO’s 'Big Love,' she’s the conniving but dorky middle-sister-wife with the bad hair and nerdy, buttoned-up style. But in real life, the Oscar-nominated actress is so uncannily cool and effortlessly put together. Tired of going topless on cable TV, but thoroughly game to show her ‘behind,’ as she calls it, the onetime ‘It-girl’ and indie darling just debuted her revealing line of ready-to-wear, Chloë Sevigny for Opening Ceremony. Now, if writer Bruno Maddox can only get her to show a bit more of herself. You know, in that other way. As you’ll find, in Chloë Sevigny’s personal world, nothing is quite what it seems.

For more images of Chloë Sevigny, click here!

“Oh, and I particularly like that angry walk of hers that you do,” I say to Chloë Sevigny.

“Walk?” she says, italicizing.

“You know,” I say, struggling. “That special tilting attack-walk you have when she’s angry. Your face goes dark, and you sort of lower one shoulder, and you charge across the lawn at an angle.”

Fans of “Big Love”—HBO’s glibly titled but increasingly watchable series about a family of less-than-saintly, modern-day polygamists trying to make a go of it in deceptively menacing suburban Utah—know precisely the walk I’m talking about. Chloë Sevigny, however, the walk’s creator, claims not to. And so on a stretch of carpet outside a theater in Manhattan, where we are scheduled to watch a play, I find myself trying to demonstrate it for her.