Amanda Seyfried is unpacking the magic set she just bought from Hamleys as I walk into her London hotel room for a chat. You want to tell me the things that make you happy. We are talking a few days after his appearance 16th Hollywood Executive Awards – warm, welcoming and full of animation and humor as he told me how excited he was to finally meet Steven Spielberg. Seyfried is an actress who balances commercial credits with heavy indie work. There was his first appearance The girls saidfollowed by Mama Mia!which forced him to look. His roles in Jennifer’s body again Lovelace she revealed a dangerous side, and stood out as Marion Davies in David Fincher’s A person. And yet his dedicated and courageous performance in Ann Lee’s Testament it’s unlike anything he’s ever done before.
LWLies: Can you pinpoint the exact moment you stepped into the role of Ann Lee?
Find out more Little White Lies
Seyfried: Really getting into character came before we even started shooting. I was lying on the floor in the studio with Mona [Fastvold] and my dog, trying to find the right feel for filming .‘Beautiful Gems’. It spans three different periods in Ann’s life. The first is happy and in love, the second is pregnant and waiting and longing, and the third is sorrow. There are three different types of dance and everything is mixed so I had to record .‘Beautiful Gems’ over and over again and sing it live. When I was in the studio, Mona was saying, .‘Let’s do it again but now just cry about it, just whisper about it…’ it was tireless. By the time I arrived I had already found it and that was liberating. Before you get to that point it’s exhausting, but that’s okay, that’s why it’s special.
There is an orgasmic and primal feeling in the dance sequence. What conversations did you have with singer Celia Rowlson-Hall?
I had no idea what this movie would look like when I read the script and what the music would sound like. The text is very unusual, in the best, most beautiful way. Not being able to wrap your head around something early is normal but scary because you think, .‘Am I the right person for this if I don’t see this?’ I started working with Celia in the winter. We were shooting at Hancock Shaker Village in Massachusetts during a blizzard. I’m not a dancer. It takes a long time for my brain and body to connect to create muscle memory. What I understood was that it would probably be seen but I had to keep dancing. I was seeing Celia’s videos and I understood that they are really thoughtful and very cruel. It’s probably just an extension of emotion. In this film, I had to show my soul in a way that I was not used to before.
He was last in London in October, when he performed at Café Oto in London with Daniel Blumberg…
I have never had an opportunity like that before. I met her on Zoom a few weeks before I met Celia. Even though his rhythm isn’t like mine… it’s not like anyone else’s, so that’s what makes him so unique. He doesn’t know music theory, he doesn’t know how to read music. I come from a technical background. I started music when I was seven years old. I started playing the piano, singing opera and playing the guitar. It comes from somewhere else in him. It is very clear and from the pit of his soul, almost…
…getting angry?
Yes! A lot of music is like that, but he’s not afraid when it comes to music. These songs are not easy to sing. They don’t always sound good. It’s hard to sing when you’re walking. I don’t have enough breath for some sentences. I couldn’t listen to myself when I sang and that was tricky. Everything was definitely a new understanding of what was needed. In the same way I have to take my ego out of the equation when I’m acting, I had to take my ego out of the equation when listening to how I sound. I don’t trust my bell the way I trust Mona and Daniel. I have to hope they hear what they want to hear.
It sounds like working with Daniel again on this film changed you and your relationship with music.
It hasn’t really changed my love for folk music. It really opened me up to instrumental music. Playing at Café Oto was heart-opening and surreal because, for the first time, I just sang. I was not afraid. I usually have a crippling fear of performing live and I was just there. I was holding a glass of wine, I was playing the instrument and singing on the microphone. I was not afraid for the first time in my life. Actually, I think you’re right, this movie changed me.
It feels like relief. You also had to learn the Manchester idiom…
I stayed away from the Manchester talk of the time. Things evolve over time to make it feel more modern, our dialect coach, Tanera [Marshall]he wants to clean it up a bit. Peterloo it was a movie we all watched and used like a bible. There are certain scenes that really helped me find my voice as an empowered woman. Maxine Peake is of course from Manchester, and of this age, but I needed a reference and I felt Maxine was the safest way to go.
Peterloo good. I discussed [its director] Mike Leigh recently, I was shocked…
It’s a great movie. When it comes to directors I always get nervous. Directors to me are always like this .‘Mother and father’. Mona’s mother – she said we called her [Amanda adopts a Manchester accent] .‘Mother Mona!’
We have to talk about your relationship with Mona because you used to work with her [the 2023 TV series] A Crowded Room…
It was my first time working with him, but I already knew him. I met him in my early twenties. We have a lot of mutual friends in Brooklyn. He chose me because he knew that I would give him everything. He knew I would come. He knew it was a challenge and he knows I’m no slouch! I’m no gem and you know I won’t be too hard on him. He has a clear vision and knows what he wants and directs well. He holds the room. He supports and takes care of the room but also controls the room. There is something about the mother .‘Mother Mona’ but she asks for what she needs in a simple and direct way.
There is one point where Ann is on the ship and she annoys everyone and defiantly continues to dance and sing. It’s very funny. Do you and Mona like comedy?
Yes. He’s Scandinavian so he’s very polite and nice, but he can be quite dark and that’s part of the reason we get along so well. When I introduce the audience to the film I like to say that you should not be afraid to laugh. It is absurd at times, because the Shaker religion is absurd. We have a shared appreciation for the absurd, and the way he navigates that and the way he writes, you can tell that’s what he’s going to do. You are very funny. We are very happy with it. There is a lot of darkness and sadness in this film as well. You have to hold both sides of that and it’s very difficult to do.
I think it does… So, on a spiritual level were you curious when it came to religion?
I had someone in my teens when I lived in Hollywood and we started going to this Presbyterian church. We were walking together and singing and I began to think that I had faith. I even started going to a Bible study class because I had just arrived in town and wanted to become a member. Then it came to me a year after we started that I would like to sing!
That’s what John Paul Jones, bassist for Led Zeppelin, said about his early roots in music. He didn’t go to church, he just went to church to play music.
You have community and music at church and it’s free. Did I agree with everything? Most of you. Most religions are very confusing to me. I always thought that the basis of religion was mutual respect and kindness.
That’s what Ann Lee tried. So that feeling of joy, you seem to get that a lot in the music, but when you connect with the director, that’s…
That’s all! I just did a movie with Tim Blake Nelson [The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd] again .‘euphoric’ is the best word to describe it. It’s too much to describe every day on set but I have had moments of that. He made me understand things about these poems in his own way. It was nice to take his note and include it in all my thoughts and feelings. I’m really an actor. I get such a kick out of it. It’s a beautiful mess. I remember I was with Thomasin [McKenzie] and Mona watching a movie in Venice and we were all holding hands. It sounded like a sister. I cried hysterically at the funeral, because of the end of the whole experience, in a film about a woman whose entire existence is under the threat of being erased – this was a beautiful person, as nuts as she was. His intention was incredibly strong and pure for most people.
