Amanda Seyfried Recalls Pressure to Shoot Teen Nude Scenes: ‘I Wanted to Keep My Job’
On the heels of Nickelodeon star Jennette McCurdy's revealing memoir about her experiences as a child and teen actor and Sydney Sweeney's recent interview detailing the use of intimacy coordinators on set, Amanda Seyfried discussed growing up as an actress in Hollywood in the 2000s.
In an interview with Porter magazine, the Emmy-nominated actress said she came out of the pre-#MeToo era "pretty unscathed," but wishes that she could have come up in the industry now, where actors can have stronger voices.
While she says she was "pretty unscathed," she still mentioned experiencing uncomfortable situations like feeling pressured to shoot nude scenes as a teen.
“Being 19, walking around without my underwear on – like, are you kidding me? How did I let that happen?” she said.
“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 film referenced might be 2006's Alpha Dog, also starring Emile Hirsch and Justin Timberlake, in which Seyfried shot a nude scene with Anton Yelchin and Amber Heard in a pool. She would have been around 19 at the time of filming.
The revelation is a stark contrast to Sweeney's description of the intimacy coordinators available on Euphoria, a TV show notorious for its explicit and sometimes shocking scenes.
In a Roger Ebert interview, Sweeney explained, "They’ll walk you through everything that is going to happen and even if you’ve signed a contract saying, ‘Yes, I’m going to do this or show this,’ you can still change your mind. You can tell that person, ‘I don’t feel comfortable doing that,’ and they will be the ones who communicate that so you won’t feel as bad."
What Sweeney described about intimacy coordinators being the ones to communicate on behalf of actors who may feel uncomfortable is exactly what Seyfried lacked in the situation she detailed to Porter magazine.
There was no ability to enforce boundaries as a young actress due to the power imbalance between actor and director.
That kind of safety net is something relatively unheard of in Hollywood's past, but as the concept becomes more and more commonplace on modern sets, like romance-drama series Bridgerton, Hollywood is taking baby steps to provide actors with more security.
Earlier this year, Seyfried briefly touched on the same topic with Marie Claire.
She detailed how she felt "grossed out" by male reactions to her 2004 Mean Girls character Karen Smith's much-quoted line about being able to predict the weather through her breasts.
She said, "I was like 18 years old. It was just gross."
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