'Mank' Star Amanda Seyfried Covers Vogue Australia February 2020 by Lachlan Bailey
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Actor Amanda Seyfried, who was born and raised in Allentown, Pa covers the February 2021 issue of Vogue Australia. George Cortina styles Seyfried in images by Lachlan Bailey, with Hannah-Rose Yee zooming in for the interview.
Read the exchange with new mother Amanda Seyfried on her family, the role of a lifetime in Netflix’s ‘Mank’ and why she owns 23 animals at her beloved home in New York’s Catskills.
Amanda Seyfried in ‘Mank’
The role of a lifetime referenced by Vogue Australia is Seyfried playing Marion Davies, the longtime companion of William Randolph Hearst, in Netflix's ‘Mank’. The interview was published before awards season nomination, now in full swing.
The headlines read: ‘Mank’ tops Golden Globe nominations with six nods [CBS News] ; Netflix dominates’; Critics Choice Awards: ‘Mank’ Leads With 12 Nominations, Netflix Makes History With Four Best Picture Nominations [Variety]; note that Oscar nominations are not yet announced.
At the time of her Vogue Australia interview, Amanda Seyfried did not know about all this good awards news. After letting lose with profanity about people who adopt animals without a deep commitment to caring for them, the American actor exhales.
“Why do you get goats if you have to get rid of them?” she demands. “I’m just really frustrated. I want to take them, but I’m at capacity with goats – because of the dynamics, you know?”
There is no room for any more goats at the Catskills home (an inn for Biblical purposes) Seyfriend share with two young children and husband fellow actor Thomas Sadoski. She bought the home seven years ago, splitting her time between LA and upstate New York. Increasingly, in a post-COVID world, LA is in her rear-view mirror.
She rattles off her menagerie, like a deranged Christmas carol – many calling chickens, five wilful goats, who like to put up a fight in the morning (“it’s the precipitation,” Seyfried notes, sagely), one sweet turtle, and a shaggy horse grazing in a field.
“I need animals around, because the sense of calm and groundedness and feeling rooted – you can’t deny it when you’re having to feed big fuzzy faces every morning,” she says. “Plus,” she adds, “you don’t focus so much on human dynamics if you have to also worry about animal dynamics.”
Many limelight creatives are reluctant to agree that their own lives are in a really good place. Angst must be part of their ‘struggling’ story. It’s true that Seyfriend had a nightmare about her performance in ‘Mank’ — one that said all the praise for her performance was fake news. (It’s probably just Trump blasting away in her psyche.)
In fact, the awards nominations are rolling in, and the actor who has worked for more than two-thirds of her 35 year-old life, understands that she created a movie role as Marion Davies, that “is going to stick.”
“I worked hard, it’s an incredible movie,” she enthuses. “I love how it’s directed, I love how it turned out. I’m super happy with my performance ... I could talk about it all day.” It is great, and she is, and life on her farm with her family and her 23 animals and all of their needs and dynamics is great. Really wonderful, actually, a life that is deep and satisfying and full. A “beautiful grind,” she sums up. “And don’t get me wrong – I love my grind.”
Read the entire Vogue Australia interview with new mother Amanda Seyfried.
