American actress Amanda Seyfried shines in several high-profile film premieres of the year. Off-screen, she chooses a quiet family life on a secluded farm. She showed the Vogue team her world.
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Amanda Seyfried suggests meeting at a cozy restaurant in upstate New York. A few years ago, she and her husband, actor Thomas Sadoski, and their two children settled on a farm in the countryside near the Catskill Mountains. The establishment where the interview is scheduled is perched on a hill, with stunning views of picturesque fields and forests. The actress slips through the door – tiny, like a teenager, without makeup, with waves of blond hair still damp from a shower. The staff greets her warmly.
She immediately reveals a few important details about herself. She doesn't like to complain (so she only mentions her torn meniscus, which worries her very much). She admits that she is a hyper-control person: even when talking to me, she fixes our table without looking away – she puts packets of Sweet'N Low sugar substitute under a wobbly leg. She calls herself grounded and admits that she loves spending her free time with her family and close friends the most. That is why she chose a secluded farm nearby instead of ambitious Los Angeles or bustling New York.
The past year has been eventful for the actress. New film work has showcased the full range of her talent. Today, Amanda plays risky, complex characters, in contrast to the frivolous roles at the start of her career in the films “Mean Girls” (2004) and “Mamma Mia!” (2008). In 2021, Seyfried received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress – silent film star Marion Davis in David Fincher's biopic “Munk” about screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz. A year later, she won an Emmy Award for her leading role as con artist Elizabeth Holmes in the Hulu series “The Outcast.” Last year, she played a Philadelphia policewoman who confronts the opium mafia in the eight-episode drama of the Peacock streaming platform “Long Bright River.”
Earlier this year, Paul Feig's blockbuster film The Handmaid was released, based on the best-selling novel by Freida MacFadden. Seyfried plays Nina, the nervous, wealthy employer of the maid Millie (Sidney Sweeney). “Amanda's performance changes the whole film,” the director comments. “In the hands of a less experienced actress, this role could have been too simple, but Seyfried gives it vitality and depth.” Indeed, her Nina evokes conflicting emotions – the viewer simultaneously envies her, fears her, hates her, regrets her, and ultimately even admires her. A sequel to the thriller is planned for filming this year.
But Seyfried's biggest acting win came in her role as the 18th-century founder of a female Christian religion in Mona Fastvold's musical The Testament of Anne Lee, which was released in March. The actress was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance. The deeply feminist film tells the story of a prominent woman religious leader during the early days of the United States.
A few days before meeting Seyfried, I met with The Testament of Anne Leigh director Mona Fastvold at the Arugula Cafe in Brooklyn’s Barum Hill neighborhood. Mona is an ethereal, platinum-haired beauty, surprisingly calm compared to Seyfried’s quick-wittedness. Born in Norway, she was captivated by the story of Anne Leigh, a British immigrant who is barely known to the general American audience. “She’s one of America’s first feminists,” she says.
An illiterate housemaid and cook, in 1758 Lee joined the Shaker sect, a Christian sect that worshipped with hymns and shaking dances, from which they got their name. After giving birth and losing four children, Anne Lee sought psychiatric treatment and declared herself a seer. In 1774, she gathered a group of followers, chartered a barely afloat ship, and sailed from Great Britain to the northeast coast of America. There, they established a settlement in the secluded town of Niskayuna, a little more than an hour’s drive from the farm where Seyfried now lives. The Shakers promoted celibacy and female leadership. Mother Ann was a caring and authoritarian woman who treated her parishioners as her children and gathered her flock until her death in 1784.
“At eighteen, I was already recognized, but it wasn't a story of sudden fame, I didn't wake up a superstar”
The epic set pieces in Mona Fastvold's film have been compared to the paintings of Caravaggio. But perhaps the most striking feature is the ethereal singing of original Shaker hymns arranged by Daniel Bloomberg, the composer who scored Brady Corbett's Oscar-winning drama The Brutalist. The ecstatic dances that the Shakers practiced during their services were choreographed by the director's close friend, American choreographer Celia Rawlson-Hall: Mona wanted to give them an animalistic plasticity.
Seyfried and Fastvold have known each other for a long time, but have only worked together once, on the 2023 Apple TV series “A Crowded Room.” In the tense thriller, written by Akiva Goldsman, Amanda plays a clinical psychologist who deals with a criminal with multiple personality disorder (played by Tom Holland). In “The Testament of Anne Lee,” Seyfried was given maximum creative freedom. “She trusts me unconditionally,” Fastvold says, “and that’s the best gift for a director.”
The film was shot in Hungary in the summer of 2024, with some scenes filmed in Sweden and in the Massachusetts village of Hancock Shaker. “There was a warm, caring atmosphere on set,” Fastvold recalls. Actress Thomasine Mackenzie, who plays one of Anne Lee’s closest friends and the film’s narrator, admits that this project was different from the others — all the crew members invited their families to the shoot.
Amanda recalls the last weeks, when her family returned to the US and the team was finishing work, with particular warmth: “We hugged a lot – my character in real life also lived in a caring environment. We felt like mothers, women and artists who missed their families, supported and entertained each other. The final two weeks, we lived together with Mona: I wake up in the morning, and next to me is a lit candle and a small music speaker, from which jazz is playing.”
Despite her successful career, Amanda's family is the most important thing. She calls herself a homemaker and builds her work schedule so that she can be at home as much as possible. “It's a privilege that I have today,” Seyfried explains. “For the sake of the film, I'm ready to do anything, but on Friday, Saturday and Sunday I have to put the kids to bed myself. That's what keeps me going.”
Seyfried began acting in television commercials at the age of ten. “My mother was very supportive,” says the actress's older sister Jenny, “and she spent a lot of time driving her to auditions.” Amanda got her first role at 15, and soon after she starred in the cult comedy “Mean Girls.” Was it difficult growing up in front of an unforgiving audience? “At eighteen, I was already recognized, but it wasn't a story of sudden fame, I didn't wake up a superstar,” Amanda shrugs. I note that eighteen is also an early age for popularity. “But I wasn't a celebrity,” she denies.
“I'm ready for anything for the sake of cinema, but on Friday, Saturday and Sunday I have to put the children to bed myself. That's what keeps me going.”
Her peers, like Lindsay Lohan, lived for show and publicly struggled with alcohol addiction, body dysmorphia, and depression. Seyfried faced another challenge: being diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder at 19. “I was living in Marina del Rey, California, filming the TV series 'Big Love.' My mom had to take a leave of absence and move in with me from Pennsylvania for a month. I had a brain scan and was put on medication that I still take every night.”
Seyfried has always had a warm relationship with her family – her sister lived with her in Los Angeles and worked as her assistant. “I don't have many famous friends,” the actress admits. She has long been friends with her makeup artist Stephanie Pasikov and agent Abby Bluestone, who helped her find the farm 12 years ago. “Abby and I have been together since we were 16, which is rare. We fight like sisters, and she knows more about me than I do.” She met her husband in 2015 – they played together in the Broadway production of “The Road That Leads Us,” directed by Lee Silverman.
The owner of the restaurant where we meet stops at a table; she and Amanda chat like old friends. The actress recalls a cow she spotted a few days ago near her property. The restaurateur is surprised: cows are not allowed to graze on the roadside. “It was under the trees,” Amanda clarifies, and adds decisively, “There was definitely a cow there. A redhead!” When the waitress returns with a serving of chocolate chip cookies, Seyfried points over the horizon and cheerfully exclaims, “There's some damn cow there again. See that? I didn't make it up.”
On the family farm, Seyfried and Sadoski keep chickens (“People just give them to us”), ducks (“Someone ate one last night – probably a fox”) and goats. They also shelter rescued animals. There are cats – two recently brought in by animal rights activists (“One is so old he has diarrhea all the time, but he still purrs when he eats”). There is a 16-year-old Australian border collie, Finn (“Big guy, still runs like crazy”). There is a pony, a donkey and six horses – Amanda lists their names. “Usually the ones that come to us are old and lame,” says Seyfried. She sometimes rides horses, but most of all she loves just cuddling horses.
The children study at a local village school: five-year-old Thomas is in the preparatory class, nine-year-old Nina Rain is in the third. Do they understand what their mother does? The actress hesitates: “My world is spinning very fast – there are so many things to do every day. Sometimes it's hard for me to even articulate what I'm doing. But I always make it clear to them that I really want to be home with them.” At the same time, Seyfried wants her family to know that she loves her job. “I'm an actress, and I'm pretty good at it, right?”
Her life is full to the brim. Last summer, Amanda starred in the film “The Life and Death of Wilson Shedd” directed by Tim Blake Nelson. She is currently producing a documentary, which she promises to talk about later, and is also filming an animated “Cinderella” for Netflix. And, of course, she is promoting “The Testament of Anne Lee.”
At the end of a long lunch, Seyfried admits that she was born to sing and is happy to have had the opportunity in this musical. At first, the Shaker hymns were not easy: “I didn't feel them, but one day the thought dawned on me: it has to come from within. Anne sings to get closer to God. I had to get used to singing from the inside – and then it didn't matter what it sounded like.”
Seyfried tells how she recorded one of the songs for the film in London with composer Daniel Bloomberg and Korean cellist Okkyung Lee. “I sang with my body, not my voice. What a thrill it was!” She thinks for a moment and adds: “This work changed my worldview – since then I've tried to listen to the world differently.”
Photo: Eddie Wrey
Style: Jorden Bickham
Text: Claire Messud