Amanda Seyfried Says She Did Nude Scenes at 19 to Not "Upset Anybody"
The Dropout star regrets not pushing back in her early career.
Today, Amanda Seyfried is a 36-year-old Emmy and Oscar nominee. But in her early career, she was a teenager trying to make it as an actor and to find her place in the industry. The Mean Girls and Dropout star looked back on those days in a new interview with Net-a-Porter, recalling a time when there wasn't the same "respect level" she feels around her now. In fact, the star said that she did some things when she was a younger actor that she didn't fully want to do, including disrobing for certain roles so as not to rock the boat or "upset anybody." Read on to see what else she had to say.
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Seyfried started modeling as a child.
Seyfried is no stranger to being in front of cameras, having started a modeling career at the age of 11. Her first acting role was on As the World Turns when she was 15, and she made her big screen debut five years later, playing the ditzy Karen Smith in Mean Girls.
While the young actor had to deal with her fair share of "gross" comments—one iconic Karen line is about her breasts predicting the weather, something male fans would repeat to Seyfried on the street—she was content to not be "super famous," as she told Marie Claire earlier this year. "I've always been somewhat recognizable," she continued. "It's been the healthiest trajectory. [It's] not a scary spike. I have my priorities. I know who I am. I know where I'm going. I know what it means. It means that I'm getting to do what I love."
She recently lost out on a coveted role—but it didn't break her.
Another benefit to being a show business veteran, Seyfried explained in her Net-a-Porter interview, is not being thrown by rejection. The profile notes that the Mank star was in consideration for the role of Glinda in the two-part feature film adaptation of the musical Wicked, with the part ultimately going to Ariana Grande. Seyfried shared that losing the job "was devastating" to her, but didn't "take away from [her] confidence at all."
"When I meet somebody who's younger, like in their twenties, and they get rejected … by a job or something like that, it crushes them completely for a minute," she told the outlet. "Nothing can crush me completely, when it comes to work. I'm uncrushable! Not one thing can crush my life, unless it has to do with my family." Seyfried is married to actor Thomas Sadoski, and they have two children.
But she has some regrets about being a people pleaser.
Seyfried, who's up for an Emmy for playing Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, told Net-a-Porter that she made her way through pre-#MeToo Hollywood "pretty unscathed." But she still felt pressured to go with the flow and not speak up in certain vulnerable situations.
"Being 19, walking around without my underwear on—like, are you kidding me? How did I let that happen?" She wondered aloud. "Oh, I know why: I was 19 and I didn't want to upset anybody, and I wanted to keep my job. That's why."
The actor didn't name the movie or TV show she was talking about, but projects she filmed around that time include American Gun, Alpha Dog, Veronica Mars, and Nine Lives.
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Her comments arrive amid a discussion around the value of intimacy coordinators.
Earlier this month, Game of Thrones actor Sean Bean gave his opinion about intimacy coordinators in an interview with The Times, and his controversial quotes went viral. Intimacy coordinators have become much more common on sets in the wake of a reckoning around harassment and coercion in Hollywood, and their job is to liaise between actors and production to make sure that everyone feels comfortable and safe filming intimate scenes—something that would likely have benefited Seyfried on that unnamed production.
Bean claimed that working with an intimacy coordinator would "spoil the spontaneity" of the scene, adding, "I think the natural way lovers behave would be ruined by someone bringing it right down to a technical exercise."
Several of his fellow actors pushed back against his comments, including Emma Thompson, who told an Australian radio show (via Variety), "Intimacy coordinators are the most fantastic introduction in our work. And no, you can't just 'let it flow.' There's a camera there and a crew. You're not on your own in a hotel room, you're surrounded by a bunch of blokes, mostly. So it's not a comfortable situation full stop."
