SIGOURNEY WEAVER AND HOPE DAVIS DISH ON INFAMOUS DIVAS

(VIDEO) Sigourney Weaver and Hope Davis play Babe Paley and Slim Keith, Truman Capote’s lunch dates known as the swans in the film Infamous.

Sigourney Weaver and Hope Davis star in Infamous as the society divas Babe Paley and Slim Keith who were part of Truman Capote’s tight knit circle of confidantes known as the swans. Sigourney and Hope talk about the research they did to play these celebrated women by reading Slim’s memoirs Memories of a Rich and Imperfect Life and meeting their relatives.

Infamous shows a decadent time in the 1950s filled with long lazy lunches at posh restaurants and fancy cocktail parties. The ladies got into the spirit while shooting the film.

Hope: “She wrote a very interesting book about her life and all of the people that she encountered; everyone she dined with or talked to on the phone and most of them very famous. She included scads of photos about herself and all of her friends so we kind of had everything we needed in that one little book. Sigourney: There wasn’t too much film about Babe Paley. I was able to meet with her daughter who said that she put her make-up on before she even left her room every morning. Even her husband and children didn’t see her without make-up which says a lot. That’s why I had to really stretch to play this part.”

Sigourney has also attended a few of those parties throughout her career and even had the opportunity to meet the real Capote at one of them. She says she’s glad to have referenced the younger Truman played by Toby Jones at a time in his life when he was happy rather than meeting Capote in his later melancholy years.

“We did have champagne cocktails one night in the lovely hotel suite in Austin, Texas where we shot the movie and sat around and had lovely chit chat. It was wonderful. Sigourney: I grew up in New York and my mother used to take me occasionally to these restaurants for lunch, not as glamourous. That’s a whole New York that I think has faded somewhat, those great restaurants which they created in Austin on the soundstage. That was a whole era of New York society I imagine still exists but certainly not for ourselves.”

Infamous opens Friday.rn

“I met him. I met him actually and Slim Keith at the same party. They both sort of peered up at me with their huge dark glasses on. It’s interesting to look back. When I met him it was toward the end of his life and he certainly wasn’t merry. He kind of looked at me. I’m so happy that I got a chance to get to know the younger Truman with everything ahead of him, with all of that talent and all of that passion and all of that gaiety and all that style because I never knew anyone but the later Truman.”