{"id":323204,"date":"2026-03-01T09:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T09:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/323204\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T09:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T09:30:12","slug":"actor-amanda-seyfried-on-her-new-york-farm-dublin-and-life-saving-hobbies-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/323204\/","title":{"rendered":"Actor Amanda Seyfried on her New York farm, Dublin and life-saving hobbies \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI said to my husband: \u2018Maybe we could look into some land outside of Dublin<\/a>\u2019,\u201d Amanda Seyfried<\/a> tells me. \u201cBecause we both love Ireland<\/a> so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Okay. Well, I\u2019m sure she\u2019d be very welcome. Plenty of movie stars have spent time in the country. Has she been there recently?<\/p>\n

\u201cNot since, umm, 2018. The pandemic ruined everything for travel. It\u2019s the only way I could see myself not being an American in America<\/a>. Standing my ground and being like: \u2018You can\u2019t f**king ruin this: my home.\u2019 If I could just get all the animals on a boat. Do you think that would be possible \u2026 to Ireland?\u201d<\/p>\n

This is really not my area of expertise. I imagine import regulations might complicate the transportation of a menagerie from her farm in upstate New York to any part of Ireland. But who knows?<\/p>\n

Speaking to the charming Seyfried, currently promoting Mona Fastvold\u2019s extraordinary The Testament of Ann Lee<\/a>, is quite an adventure. Perched on a chair at the centre of a Soho hotel room, chewing energetically on a croissant, she takes the conversation wherever some inner wind dictates. How did we get to her becoming a latter-day Noah? I\u2019m not entirely sure. We were chatting about the Trojan work she and her husband, fellow actor Thomas Sadoski, do for War Child, the child protection charity, and somehow drifted into global despair.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The Testament of Ann Lee: Oscar snub for steely Amanda Seyfried is a mysteryOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cMy poor husband has had to take a back seat in his career for me to be able to go off and do Ann Lee,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s always going to be a struggle with two artists. I am not working right now. When I get back from Berlin he\u2019s going to be able to go back out on the road a little bit and do the things he loves to do. It\u2019s just like \u2026 how the world is going. I just don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyway, we will get back to that, but it is worth having a good chew at The Testament of Ann Lee. Compact and wide-eyed, Seyfried, now 40, made her name with hit comedies and mainstream musicals. Though she already had a healthy juvenile career, Mean Girls, from 2004, counted as a major breakthrough. <\/p>\n

As I enter, Seyfried is discussing shoe options for the London premiere that night. Looks like rain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, anything is better than what I\u2019m experiencing on the farm. It\u2019s like zero degrees when we wake up,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"THEAmanda Seyfried in The Testement of Anne Lee. Photograph: Searchlight Pictures <\/p>\n

Right, the farm. So, she shares the rural idyll with husband, two children and various rescued ducks, chickens, goats, cats and horses.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nature. You have space and the energy coming from animals. The needs of animals really simplify things.\u201d<\/p>\n

That must have helped her connect with Ann Lee. The film follows the protagonist, who lived from 1736 to 1784, as she and her followers farm land in the same state where Seyfried now tends her distressed goats.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, anything like that that can help,\u201d she says, before going on to mention one of her favourite poets. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t really think about that in connection to her. My affinity for all things that Mary Oliver has created made it easier for me to connect with someone like Ann Lee, who\u2019s just so pure. The portrayal that Mona wrote is just such a pure person who doesn\u2019t want or need for anything. She is this faithful, devoted young woman who had some trauma and then comes out the other end, believing she\u2019s the second coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was lucky enough to see the film on its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. This was 12 months after Brady Corbet\u2019s The Brutalist \u2013 which Fastvold co-wrote with the director, also her romantic partner \u2013 created a sensation in the same venue. There are connections. But The Testament of Ann Lee is a significantly more off-centre experience.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0This century\u2019s The Godfather: How Brady Corbet made the staggering film The BrutalistOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the best moviegoing experiences usually spotlight the abstract nature of humanity,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re all f**king weird, you know. You don\u2019t want someone to barge into your apartment or house when you\u2019re not expecting it. They don\u2019t know what they\u2019re going to find.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sorry? What now?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a weird species. We are a creative species. We are an incredibly complex species. Those stories don\u2019t have to be so epic or so dramatic to be interesting. This happens to be pretty epic. But that\u2019s because Mona very deliberately wanted to honour her life with an epic tale. Like what like most men get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Good point. Where is the female epic on a par with Ben Hur or Lawrence of Arabia or Dr Zhivago? The Testament of Ann Lee is, among other thing, a celebration of female charisma on a grand scale. Aspects of the Shaker aesthetic \u2013 notably their insistence on sexual abstinence \u2013 do not much register with contemporary thinking, but, in the film\u2019s telling, this is a communal sect that respects female agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat equality among gender and race, especially in 18th century, was hard to configure,\u201d Seyfried says. \u201cYet she did it. People bought into it because they understood the power of that and wanted to be free within the society. And, now, we\u2019re still going to vacillate on that ideal. There is so much fear \u2013 and fearmongering \u2013 in America right now. People are making decisions based on fear and not based on a bigger purpose of supporting each other, of loving thy neighbour. I mean, that\u2019s literally in the Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amanda Seyfried was born to a working-class family in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1985. Her dad still works at a hospital. She began modelling at the age of eight \u2013 featuring in print commercials for apparel companies \u2013 and went on to study opera before securing a recurring role in the CBS soap opera As the World Turns. Speaking to the New Yorker recently, she (faintly chillingly) noted she entered the business in a \u201cvery, very pre-Me Too\u201d era. Young female actors had little recourse if they were asked to do something uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

\"AmandaAmanda Seyfried at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Nevada, last year. Photograph: Greg Doherty\/Getty Images for Lionsgate <\/p>\n

She remembers being sacked from a prominent TV role when still a teenager.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s f**king awful,\u201d she says. \u201cI understood that I was in in a very adult business. But it doesn\u2019t take away from the fact that I come home from school, I\u2019m doing my homework, and my mom\u2019s like: \u2018You didn\u2019t get the role. They\u2019re not going to have you back.\u2019 I already got the role and now they\u2019re taking it away from me. That was hard. They wrote me off after three days of work. Okay, I wasn\u2019t very good. I was very uncomfortable. I was too insecure, and that was partly because I was young.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does she have any advice for young people going into the industry now? No amount of chaperones can protect you from the sort of distress she describes above.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess the practical advice is: it\u2019s really hard not to take things personally,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s usually the furthest from personal. These decisions that get made between the casting directors and the directors, the studio heads, or network heads \u2013 or whoever you\u2019re auditioning for \u2013 it\u2019s rarely ever about you. That\u2019s hard to say to a 15-year-old, but it is true. And the more hobbies you have, the better. I think hobbies have saved my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t pretend to know Amanda Seyfried, but, after 15 minutes in her eccentric company, \u201chobbies have saved my life\u201d strikes me as an unbeatably characteristic comment. So what does she get up to when blizzards are battering the farmhouse in midwinter?<\/p>\n

\u201cI brought so many with me to London for the plane ride,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m making hanging baskets right now. I have wax, thread and floral wire and glue. And I am a massive crocheter. I make hats and sweaters. I knit scarves, and you name it. Embroidery. I make paper-star garlands and origami. It fills me with so much excitement. I am so inspired by colour and fabric and textiles. It\u2019s my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AmandaAmanda Seyfried in Mean Girls <\/p>\n

At any rate, with the help of her hobbies, Seyfried looks to have done a good job of managing a diverse career. Early success in Mean Girls and Mamma Mia! could have wedged her in a stereotype. She has the sort of airy energy that suits light comedy. But she made a point of taking unlikely swerves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s always scary when you jump into a different genre,\u201d she says. \u201cIn the beginning, I remember doing the movie called Chloe by Atom Egoyan, and knowing that was kind of a risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Oscar nominee Rose Byrne: \u2018When I go through passport control in Ireland they say welcome home\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

This was 2009. Few did, indeed, expect her to appear in an erotic thriller with Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore. The film was not an enormous success, but she had put down a marker. She wasn\u2019t just the teen queen or the song-and-dance girl. <\/p>\n

\u201cYes, people weren\u2019t expecting that,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd then I really soon realised that the less people are expecting, the easier it will be to disappear into the roles. I just want the audience to go on the ride. That\u2019s my job. And sometimes people play the same role for too long. And I think it gets trickier. I\u2019m also lucky that I didn\u2019t get stuck on a TV show. You meet a lot of people who get stuck on TV shows that keep going and they\u2019re contracted.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a sense of irrepressible energy to Seyfried. Her head is jagging back and forth. She is curling up on the seat. This is someone who likes to keep herself on the move.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so busy philanthropy-wise,\u201d she says.\u201cI\u2019m always getting involved in something new. Things are dire in the States. So, you do what you can with the money you have, and the access you have. And, obviously, we want to teach our kids that the more you have, the more you give. I use my time and energy volunteering for lobbyist groups to get more women in office. And there\u2019s just so much to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018I share this with my daughter\u2019: Jessie Buckley wins best actress at 2026 BaftasOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think she is serious about pointing the ark towards Ireland. It sounds as if she has an agreeable life on the other side of the Atlantic. With her baskets and her activism and her animal companions. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m at home and the kids go to school, I sit on my heating pad in the window box,\u201d she says. \u201cI watch the deer come in, around back by the bird house, and I hear the chickens and the peacocks. And it\u2019s like heaven on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Testament of Ann Lee is out now <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI said to my husband: \u2018Maybe we could look into some land outside of Dublin\u2019,\u201d Amanda Seyfried tells…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[21563,150100,93,631,61,60,7322,109417],"class_list":{"0":"post-323204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-amanda-seyfried","9":"tag-elizabeth-holmes","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-for-you","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-liam-neeson","15":"tag-mona-fastvold"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}