Amanda Seyfried says she turned down a television series because the role required more intimate love-making scenes than she was comfortable filming.
The 40-year-old actress discussed the decision with Alec Baldwin at the Hamptons International Film Festival on Oct. 4, according to PEOPLE. She did not identify the project.
She said the same opportunity might appeal to her at another point in her life, leaving room for her feelings to change.
Seyfried was attending the festival with The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd. Her appearance in its A Conversation With series was billed as an hourlong discussion of her career.
The Identity of Her Costar Wouldn’t Have Changed Her Answer
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“I passed on a show where I would have to have sex all the time because of the sex,” Seyfried told Baldwin. She said her objection would have remained regardless of who was playing opposite her.
“I don’t wanna deal with being naked with a stranger,” she said. Her assessment of the work was blunt: “I’m not into it right now.”
Looking back at earlier roles, Seyfried laughed about how casually she had once approached kissing scenes. She remembered being excited about making out with an attractive costar and treating it as an enjoyable part of a job she was being paid to do.
She now finds the requirement to create convincing romance with someone she is not romantically involved with increasingly strange. Some experiences are comfortable and others aren’t, she explained, according to Entertainment Weekly.
Her Daughter Praised Her for Saying No to Photo Requests
Seyfried also discussed how raising children has made her more aware of the example she sets when responding to other people’s requests. Her children now notice her choices, she said, and she wants to be less of a “pushover.”
She recalled walking through Manhattan with her daughter, Nina, when a stranger asked for a photo. Seyfried looked at her daughter and declined. After crossing the street, she checked whether Nina was comfortable with how she had handled the request. Her daughter told her she was proud.
The situation repeated at a coffee shop, where a barista asked for a picture. Seyfried said she would come back later, and Nina again praised her for turning the request down. The actress was struck by finding herself receiving encouragement from her child to set a limit she felt she should already be enforcing.
She Previously Recalled Fearing for Her Job at 19
In an August 2022 interview with PORTER, Seyfried looked back on being on set without underwear at 19 and questioned why she had accepted a situation that made her uncomfortable. “I was 19 and I didn’t want to upset anybody, and I wanted to keep my job. That’s why,” she told interviewer Tyler McCall.
At 36, Seyfried said she was experiencing a level of professional respect she had not felt before. She attributed it to understanding herself better instead of the recognition surrounding Mank and The Dropout. She also described therapy and a life outside the entertainment industry as ways of managing work pressures.
Her Festival Visit Included a New Drama With Scoot McNairy
The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd had its U.S. premiere at the festival on Oct. 3. Written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson, the film casts Seyfried as a schoolteacher in an abusive marriage who begins teaching creative writing at a maximum-security prison and becomes involved with an inmate played by Scoot McNairy.
The festival presented the 121-minute drama as a Centerpiece selection. Its next announced festival engagements include an Oct. 24 screening at the Virginia Film Festival, followed by a discussion with Nelson moderated by IndieWire’s Anne Thompson.