In this series, Emily Spivack, the author of “Worn Stories,” interviews creative people about their most prized possessions. Here, the actress Chloë Sevigny describes her longtime interest in Damien Echols, one of the West Memphis Three — the teenagers who were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for murdering three boys in West Memphis, Ark., in 1993 — and an artwork he made while on death row that she now keeps on a bookshelf in her Manhattan apartment. Sevigny stars in the new Hulu show “The Act,” which premieres on March 20, 2019.

I had been following the West Memphis Three case since I got out of high school in 1993. It exposed me to the injustices of the criminal justice system, and I was particularly smitten with Damien Echols’s personality, his intensity and his intellect. I came from a generation that grew up on the West Memphis Three documentaries and identified with those kids. When it’s somebody like the kids you know and hang out with, it hits you on a personal level.

I was getting off the N or R train at Eighth Street, walking up the steps, and I see this guy walking down Broadway with these dark sunglasses and a long black leather trench coat. I yell, “Damien!” I stop and he stops. He looks at me, and I just start crying. It was Damien.

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