Amanda Seyfried is looking back on her career and… wincing just a little bit.
Amid the acclaim for her pitch perfect role as real-life fraudster Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout, she spoke with Net-A-Porter magazine about how her place in the business has changed over the two decades (!!!) she’s been acting.
There have obviously been big changes in Hollywood, particularly over the past five years thanks to the #MeToo movement. She told the mag she was envious of the young women coming up now, thanks to the industry’s eye toward the safe treatment of women, with intimacy coordinators and such. While she says she emerged “pretty unscathed” from her time as a starlet just getting started — no horrible casting couch stories, phew! — she does remember being put in some positions she can barely believe these days.
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She remembers being on set basically naked — or actually naked?? — when she was still a teen, reminiscing:
“Being 19, walking around without my underwear on — like, are you kidding me? How did I let that happen? … 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.”
Whoa!
Amanda didn’t name the project she was referring to, but a little math tells us she must be talking about Alpha Dog. The 2006 film, which starred Emile Hirsch, Olivia Wilde, Justin Timberlake, and the late Anton Yelchin, would have been shot right when the now 36-year-old actress was 19 years old. And her stripped down pool scene is maybe the most memorable of the movie!
FYI, the film, based on a real-life murder case, was directed by Nick Cassavetes, who had previously made The Notebook — though we should make it completely clear that Seyfried didn’t call out anyone for making her uncomfortable, and again, did not even name the movie she was talking about. This was more about how Amanda reacted.
Thankfully these days the business isn’t the only thing that’s changed. As she explained of the power she feels as a star now:
“There’s a respect level that I have never felt so fully around me. It has nothing to do with any level of fame or recognition or critical acclaim. Whatever it is, it’s not because of Mank, it’s not because of The Dropout, it’s not about having seen my movies. I’m respected because I’m 36 years old and I know who the f**k I am.”
Hell yeah, gurl! We love this look on her! Respect yourself, and others have to follow, right?
[Image via The Tonight Show/Universal/YouTube.]
