Amanda Seyfried revealed that she regrets not having the courage to push back against the pressure to do nudity as a young actress early in her career.
“Being 19, walking around without my underwear on – like, are you kidding me? How did I let that happen?” Seyfried, now 36, said in an interview with Porter published on Tuesday, August 9. “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 Dropout star started her career on soap operas, appearing on As the World Turns and All My Children in the early 2000s. After Mean Girls was released in spring 2004, Seyfried suddenly had a booming career, booking TV shows including Veronica Mars and Big Love as well as R-rated movies like American Gun and Alpha Dog.
Though Seyfried didn’t name-check the project where she felt pressured to take off her clothes — and still considers herself “pretty unscathed” for coming of age in 2000s Hollywood — the Emmy nominee explained that her career is different now because she is confident in herself.
“There’s a respect level that I have never felt so fully around me,” she explained. “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.”
Though she feels valued now, it took a long time to build up her self-esteem to feel OK asking for certain things — like a stylist. In a February appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the Les Mis star joked about not knowing red carpet fashion rules early in her career at the Mean Girls premiere. She explained that the flashbulbs of the cameras made her dress see-through, which she didn’t realize until she saw the photos.
When asked why the movie studio didn’t help coordinate “something to wear,” Seyfried said, “I slipped through the cracks because I didn’t ever ask for anything, because I thought I was in the way, which is not the way I want to raise my daughter, for sure. … But people liked me because I was easy.”
The star shares daughter Nina, 5, and son Thomas, 2, with husband Thomas Sadoski, who she married in March 2017. The family lives far away from Tinseltown on a farm in Hudson County, New York, only commuting to Los Angeles when needed.
“Thomas comes with her when he can, but he’s equally adept at being a hands-on dad and taking care of business at home when she’s busy and he’s not,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly in March. “They try to time their schedules that way, as well as making plenty of time for date nights and trips away by themselves.”
