Now You See Her
With
Amanda Seyfried
AMANDA SEYFRIED has charmed us on screen for more than two decades. Now, between her 40th-birthday celebrations and awards-season appearances for The Testament of Ann Lee and The Housemaid, she talks to KAITLYN McNAB about taking on challenging new roles and no longer needing Hollywood’s approval
Two minutes into dinner with Amanda Seyfried, she pulls out a magic trick. It’s a set of dynamic brass coins that she bought from Hamleys toy shop in London – they’re yellow gold, just like the Cartier jewelry on her fingers. Her hands are still rosy from the New York City cold, as she sets up the trick on the tablecloth. It’s the first week of December, the day after her 40th birthday, and we’re sitting in the booth of a French restaurant on the Upper West Side.
In a matter of seconds, the Oscar-nominated actor makes a ring completely vanish, before it rejoins us by seemingly passing through solid brass. Her wide, seafoam-green eyes light up in wonder when she accomplishes the classic, clever illusion. “My friends are giving me magic tricks for my birthday because that’s my new plan: to learn how to do magic for kids,” she tells me, earnestly. “But I was with Paul Feig [the director and actor] last night for dinner and I showed him that I’ve been working on magic – he’s a magician and he pulled out a domino from his pocket, and then it just came out behind my ear. I was like… ‘Touché!’ There are levels. Magic is very hard.”
This may be true, but it’s fair to say that what Seyfried has achieved throughout the 2025-2026 awards season has been nothing short of spellbinding. Her consecutive, wildly differing performances in Long Bright River, The Housemaid and The Testament of Ann Lee have garnered her best-actress nods at some of the biggest ceremonies of the year, including the Critics Choice Awards and the Golden Globes.
The week we meet, Seyfried is about to be catapulted into dual-movie-rollout mayhem. With The Housemaid and The Testament of Ann Lee being released within days of each other, she is having to run between premieres, live performances and awards-campaigning, while also making it through a marathon of birthday festivities for her own milestone. “Never in my life have I been this busy,” she says. She wants her forties to be a chapter of fearlessness, one with much less self-doubt. “I’m embracing myself in this new decade in a way that I wondered if I’d be able to when I was a little younger,” she reflects. “I kind of value myself a little differently in that, wow, I got here and I’m doing OK.”
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Seyfried has been gracing our screens for more than two decades now, becoming a household name by nailing beloved roles in cult classics and musical epics alike. Over the past five years, however, she’s focused more on playing steelier women with knotty storylines – and though different on nearly every narrative level, from time period to tone, her simultaneous portrayals of The Housemaid’s Nina Winchester and the titular prophet of The Testament of Ann Lee are just further evidence of her dynamism.
The Housemaid, directed by Feig and adapted from Freida McFadden’s bestselling psychological thriller, follows Millie (played by Sydney Sweeney), a young woman who is hired as the live-in housemaid for the picture-perfect Winchester family, led by Seyfried’s Nina. But Millie and Nina both harbor dangerous secrets – and their potential exposure leads to a campy labyrinth of manipulation and revenge.
Seyfried calls Nina a “very indulgent role” – one that allowed her to “push the boundaries” of the character beyond the page. She is downright terrifying as the matriarch and says she was especially grateful for the safety she felt on set to rip off the hinges of Nina’s psyche.
She recalls a scene in which Nina goes ballistic, destroying her immaculate kitchen. “If they had any footage from when they called ‘Cut,’ it’s always me, like, ‘Are you OK? I’m so sorry!’ Sydney was like, ‘[That plate] got really close, but it was good!’ She is so game.”
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According to Seyfried, Sweeney was even down for a practical stunt when the script called for Nina to slap Millie across the face. “I was just having a really hard time,” Seyfried laughs. “I don’t want to smack somebody. My real Amanda comes out when I get physical, and I just can’t do it. Sydney kept laughing. She had just done Christy, so she can take a hit. I never really got it right… I think they cut away. I thought it would be way more powerful [not to slap her]. One of Paul’s notes was: ‘Make her think you might even kiss her.’” Seyfried and Sweeney’s chemistry is paramount to the story’s climax – and that near-erotic tension has paid off: the film’s been a box-office success, with a sequel already green-lit.
The role allowed Seyfried to combine being “compassionate, supportive, a mom and a listener – and a raging bitch. I got to explore my rage in this movie in a way that I’ve never gotten to do. I owe it so much. I’m a pussy, I’m not good with confrontation, with negative stuff. But now?”
“It’s empowering in a way. I act on things more,” she continues. “It’s part Nina, definitely, being a mom, especially of a girl. But playing characters like this, I’m like, wow, you don’t have to be desperate to feel rage. You can just be honest.”
“I’ve LEARNED over time to follow the work that asks something REAL of me; to choose what feels HONEST, even when it’s uncertain”
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Emotional freedom by way of honesty is a through-line in Seyfried’s recent filmography – it’s something she leaned into heavily for her stunning portrayal of utopianist Ann Lee, the 18th-century leader of the Shaker movement. On January 3, Seyfried accepted the prestigious Desert Palm Achievement Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival for the role. “I’ve learned over time to follow the work that asks something real of me; to choose what feels honest, even when it’s uncertain,” she said in her acceptance speech.
From The Brutalist’s visionary director Mona Fastvold, The Testament of Ann Lee demanded a lot of Seyfried. She moved her entire family to Budapest to shoot the film, including Finn, their 16-year-old dog. For more than a year, she received dialect, movement and vocal coaching. Lee’s Shakers collectively worshipped through exultant song and dance – and under Fastvold’s direction, Seyfried and the rest of the film’s ensemble express themselves through unbound cathartic praise that is chilling to watch.
Playing Lee sparked a lot of questions for the actor, who precedes her roles with a fierce self-interrogation over whether a character will challenge her. “Mona provided me with so much backstory, so much research. She created such an amazingly unique script,” Seyfried says. “It was impossible, just because there are literal scenes where there’s no one speaking. It’s just movement… I couldn’t picture it. And that wasn’t my job to picture it. It was just: can I learn this accent? Can I fall in love with this woman? Does it work in my schedule? And it did.”
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“I’ve never FELT closer to some kind of SPIRITUALITY than right now because of what [ANN LEE] taught me”
The film is resplendent and brutal, refusing to shy away from showing the graphic realities of Ann Lee’s life – both as a radical female religious leader who believed in equality and as a woman in the late 1700s. Many of the film’s most supernatural moments, however, are when Seyfried sings Shaker hymns a cappella.
She once said she “doesn’t do live singing”, but after that viral Joni Mitchell cover on late-night TV and now The Testament of Ann Lee, she’s changing her tune. “I’m live singing all the time now,” she beams. “I don’t want to make a record or anything, I just want to have fun. I need to let more people know that if you need a female harmonizer, or if you need a collaborator on a song, I’m not going to beg for royalties. I just want the opportunity to make the music!”
For Seyfried, entering her forties comes with an increasingly strong perspective on what matters most to her, at work and at home. She and her husband Thomas Sadoski are raising their children – Nina, eight, and Thomas, five – in the rural setting of a farmhouse in Upstate New York, with the intent of nurturing them with “respect for the world around us”. It also helps to navigate the fame that comes with Seyfried’s career. “It’s way less Hollywood noise,” she says of where they have chosen to live. “[My children] know that I’m a recognized person in the world, that I’m an actor and that me being on TV is very normal for them. And they also know that they’re safe at home and have their own privacy – and that’s everything.”
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“It is a bit jarring when we get to the city and people are stopping me on the street, but luckily my daughter seems to have an OK relationship with that,” she considers. “I think she’s more curious about it. She does have an eagle eye, so if we’re in a room full of people, she’ll notice when people are taking pictures of me. It’s not that she’s uncomfortable, she’s just a little bit protective of me in that way. And I’ll let her know that it’s OK, but thanks for looking out. And it’s great to have that communication. Just because it’s comfortable for me and I’m used to it does not mean that she’s comfortable and she should be used to it. I understand there’s a big difference between how she perceives things and how I perceive things because it’s my life and isn’t hers, but it’s starting to become hers in some ways.”
“I don’t FEEL like I have anything to PROVE to Hollywood anymore – to my peers or the INDUSTRY”
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Looking at what she wants to take into the next chapter, personally and professionally, Seyfried is drawing inspiration from her two recent roles. While playing Nina Winchester gave her the opportunity to explore confrontation, she feels Ann Lee has given her a chance to connect more with her spiritual side. “I considered myself agnostic since I was 18 or younger, but playing someone like Ann Lee… there are many things that make me feel alive, but I’ve never felt closer to some kind of spirituality than right now because of what she taught me,” she says. “The fucking magic of just being alive – it’ll be taken away in a second.”
“I don’t feel like I have anything to prove to Hollywood anymore – to my peers or the industry – but I feel like, if I did, I’d be really quite happy. I’m a chameleon. [Or] I want to be,” she muses. “I want people to say, ‘She could have been anyone.’” And it’s this ineffable alchemy that is the real magic of Amanda Seyfried.
The Testament of Ann Lee is in movie theaters now (US) and from February 20 (UK); The Housemaid is in movie theaters now
With thanks to The Fifth Avenue Hotel