Amanda Seyfried is opening up about her evolving feelings toward projects with intimate scenes.
“Our jobs are weird,” Seyfried, 40, said during a recent panel hosted by Alec Baldwin at the Hamptons International Film Festival in East Hampton, New York. “And as I get older, it gets weirder. We have to be romantic with people that we’re not romantic with.”
“Sometimes it’s great. Sometimes it’s really uncomfortable. But I can’t believe back in the day, I was just like, ‘We gotta make out. Great! This is awesome. I know how to make out,’” she quipped. “And it used to be so fun. It was a non-thing. It was like, ‘I get to make out with a hot person today … and they’re paying me.’”
Now, however, Seyfried shared that she has had a change of perspective.
“I passed on a show where I would have to have sex all the time because of the sex,” she said. “Doesn’t matter [who it’s with] … I don’t wanna do it. I’m uncomfortable with it. I’m not into it right now. Maybe if [the project] came along again [at a later point], maybe I’d be in a different space. But I don’t wanna deal with being naked with a stranger.”
Seyfried noted that her kids — daughter Nina, 9, and son Thomas, 6 — are “paying attention,” which influences her decisions. (Seyfried shares her children with estranged husband Thomas Sadoski.)
“And so I have to be less of a pushover,” she said. “The other day — this is so silly — but Nina, my daughter, and I were walking across the street [in Manhattan] … and a person on our side of the street asked for a picture, and I looked at my daughter, and I said, ‘No, I’m sorry.’ And then we walked across the street and I was like, ‘How was that for you, Nina? Was that OK?’”
Seyfried recalled that her daughter told her she was “very proud.” The mother-daughter duo then went to a coffee shop, where they were asked the same question.
“And then we go to the coffee shop, and the coffee shop barista was like, ‘Can I have a picture?’ And I was like, ‘No, I’ll come back later.’ My daughter’s like, ‘I’m so proud of you for saying no.’ And I was [thinking], ‘What the f***? She shouldn’t be saying this to me. I should be saying no,’” she said, adding that her rule now is: “[If] I’m with my kids, I say no. … Whatever [they are] going through is more important than what I’m going through.”
