The American actor is sitting in a hotel room in Venice with director Mona Fastvold, talking about the film "The Testament of Ann Lee".
Amanda Seyfried laughs when she describes how people can be turned into monsters by sexuality, but then adds:
If you take away the ego and take away the sexuality, we become more sane. That's just the way it is.
The film is a true story about the woman who moved from England to America in the mid-18th century and founded a movement called the Shakers. The movement practiced sexual abstinence and forbade childbirth, which meant more members had to be found to keep the movement from dying out.
Called "Shakers"
During their meetings, the members sang and danced, hence the name "Shakers." At their peak, there were 6,000 people. The movement still exists, albeit with few members.
Fastvold, who is from Norway and is married to "The Brutalist" director Brady Corbet, had heard about the movement, and the more she read, the more interested she became in making a film about it. For her, it was obvious that Amanda Seyfried would play the lead role. They had known each other before, and even before filming there was a sense of the trust that was needed.
"This was the closest thing to a utopian film set I've ever been on. I worked hard, it was challenging, but nothing went wrong, it felt familiar and that was so incredibly important," says Amanda Seyfried.
“Is like Ann Lee”
Fastvold interjects:
Amanda is exactly the leader I imagined Ann Lee to be. She sings amazingly and can really move.
Both praise composer Daniel Blumberg highly. Seyfried describes the music as "a peculiar animal."
It has a rhythm, a sound that I've never experienced before. There's a sensitivity to these strange harmonies. It was a scary role because it could have gone wrong. But it didn't.
Mona Fastvold notes that it was not easy to make "The Testament of Ann Lee".
I'm a female filmmaker working in a male-dominated industry, trying to make films that no one has asked me to make. When it came to this one, people said, "Don't do it, do something else." But I'm drawn to stories about people who are searching for style and beauty and kindness.
Facts: Amanda Seyfried
Name: Amanda Seyfried.
Age: 40.
Family: Husband Thomas Sadoski, two children.
Lives: On a farm in the Catskill Mountains outside New York.
Occupation: Actor.
Selected previous roles: "Mean Girls", "Veronica Mars", "Mamma Mia!", "Jennifer's Body", "Chloe", "Dear John", "Les Misérables", "Lovelace", "Red Riding Hood", "Pan", "Twin Peaks", "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again", "Mank", "Seven Veils", "The Housemaid".
Current: In "The Testament of Ann Lee", which has a Swedish cinema premiere on 20/3.
