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Extended Interview: Amanda Seyfried

CBS Sunday Morning / Jane Pauley
The Truth Network Radio
December 1, 2025 3:01 am

Extended Interview: Amanda Seyfried

CBS Sunday Morning / Jane Pauley

00:00 / 00:00
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December 1, 2025 3:01 am

Amanda Seiford discusses her acting career, menopause, and paramenopause, while also highlighting the importance of reproductive health and abortion rights. Meanwhile, Jane Pauley talks to various guests about different topics, including a conversation with actor Amanda Seiford about her life, career, and experiences.

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Actor Amanda Seifred has a lot going on, two new movies and a streaming series coming up. She tells Sunday mornings man in Hollywood, Ben Mankowitz, all about it. I think the city life is great for a a visit. Full-time for me, it was a little too much. I grew up in the suburbs, and I think I always.

Wanted land. I think I just wanted space because space to me feels like safety. I was looking for a place to call my own. I was looking for a place to be myself, and I was looking for a place to be kind of like. the queen of the castle.

Like I just wanted to make my own decisions and design my own life and and have the the animals that I always wanted to have. And now I do. And I'm just about to turn 40 and I'm exactly where I want to be.

So is 40 a Upset you? Get in your head a little, maybe? It got in my head for a while. But you know, I think a lot of people do this the year you Turn a certain number, you're always kind of thinking of the next year. Like, oh my god, I'm 37.

I'm so close to 38.

So you just tell people, you're like, I'll be 38. I've noticed the conversation is less about. the way you look and and how people perceive you in the industry and the audience and the outside world. and more about how you're going to How are you going to come to terms with paramenopause and menopause and the loss of. Your ability to reproduce.

It's just, it's all the hormonal shifts that happen. Like the conversation is more about what's happening internally and emotionally, as opposed to how people are perceiving us. And I do feel like. There are a lot of women who have been outspoken about it, thank God. Like Naomi Watts, for instance, and it's just like, yes, thank, I feel younger now.

Than I probably would have 10 years ago if I was turning 40. I feel like I I feel like I'm really embracing my 40s in a way that I didn't, I never would have if we hadn't. If we didn't start focusing so much on the power of who we are and what we do in our lives as women. And now I'm like, bring it on. I'm, I'm, yeah, okay, I'm 40.

Do I act like I'm 40 sometimes? Absolutely not. But we're all kids too. And we all, if we can embrace all sides of ourselves, then like, then we're just. I guess more at peace.

You became a mother. How did Hollywood's perception of Amanda Seiford change? Oh sh Mom rolls. I Plead a mom. Like Mank?

I didn't. And in the dropout, I didn't. But basically, everything else, I was being offered the wife and the mom. And that's not. If that's not the worst That's not the worst thing in the world.

It's not like it wasn't terrifying to me, it was just very. It was it was it's unsurprising. A little bit sad. Yeah. But I also was totally game for that because I now am a mother.

I can actually portray it in a way that I wouldn't have been able to if I didn't have that connection to something. I mean, people have played mothers time and time again without being mothers, and that's great. Like, you can connect to something in you that's very nurturing and maternal or whatever the character. Asks for, but I do think I understood it more, and things just affect me. more deeply than they ever have.

And I think that's part of the reason that I was able to Yeah. You know, get to what felt like the bottom of my soul for Ann Lee. And in the movie, I did a mouthful of air about postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis. It's like I was able to. Feel deeply what my character was going through in a way that is really essential for.

for the audience and the story, and it costs a lot more. But it's also so much more enriching and it's enhanced. Those are more emotionally complex characters. Yeah. Right?

I mean, which makes them more interesting, I imagine, for an actor. And I've learned this about you. It doesn't take long to learn this about you. You want to be challenged. Yeah.

Yeah, badly. Badly, because here's the thing: the challenge is within a certain parameters. I'm I'm not going to do things that make me feel like I might die. Like, I'm not going to jump off a cliff ever again for a movie. But emotionally challenging is that.

Did you jump off a cliff for a movie? I did. In what movie? Mama Mia. Oh, right, yeah.

Because there's no real peril in that from the movie standpoint. No, but for the you, sure. For the four of us standing at the top of a cliff? Yeah. How dare they?

You know, I still think back, like, who We all survived, obviously. But but yeah, I think um I there are parameters, so it's like I'm not going into the deep blue sea. I have enough of a lifeboat. Inside of me to pull me out when things get too tricky or too scary. emotionally.

I have had enough therapy and enough Um insight and perspective to know what happens when I may fall too deep into something. And And I have enough tools and support to not let that happen.

So every time I say it's a challenge, it's really hard. And I look back and I'm like, I wouldn't want to do that again. But when I'm in it, It's It's m it's m it's more than a challenge. It's a new life. I'm being born into something, a new version of myself.

All these concerts. Holy summer.

Well to heaven. We are gone. But in the desert, we are. Leaving. Behind wintry wind.

Are colding. The way in with Aunt Lee is that she was. Her conviction was everything. Her devotion to God. is so powerful.

And I think We can all strive to have to be that devoted to something. Because it makes you feel safe. I mean, there are a lot of religion is. to me about feeling less alone and finding a way. To navigate your life through a higher power, right?

And she. And I love that. I think it's beautiful. Do I need to believe that she levitated? No.

I need to believe that she believed 100%. In what she was saying and what she was doing. And the coolest thing about her is that she created, especially in a world where this just did not exist, within all the pop-up religions that were happening and these men that were preaching. the word of God to you know, people everywhere, all over the place. She was using that.

to create a a utopia, like a like a just a a community of people who would all be treated equally. And And who would no longer have sex. But I think the the idea that we that we're better off together, working together as equals, is still it still rings true to this day. Like if you take away power and control of each other, And for all the parts about her story that, you know, I'm like, come on, you didn't, you're not talking to God, right? But But you used it to create this perfect world.

I'm failing almost everything.

Well, there must be something you're good at. I can put my whole fist in my mouth. Wanna see? Yeah. After Mean Girls, really the next big thing, because we're going to move along, we're going to skip over some interesting years, but.

You know, you have this life-changing moment at Mean Girls. And then there's another life-changing moment. what four years later right with mom and that was huge yeah i mean that was really the thing that opened the floodgates in terms of opportunities. And that was hard. That was like a hard one to get.

That was a hard one to get. Why was that a hard one to get? It was just a lot of. It felt like a lot of hoops. But I also had been working with Playtone, who produced it on Big Love, the Mormon show.

So I kind of, they already knew me. And you're going to do a third one? Yeah, absolutely. Do we know anything about the story? Are they going to?

No, I think if we all decide that we'll do it for free, they'll be like, cool, let's do it tomorrow. No, I think it's really just. Timing for the studio. I don't know the ins and outs. I know Judy Kramer, who created it, is working.

furiously on a script with Benny and Bjorn, you know, some new music, but I don't know anything past that because. I I just assume it'll happen. exactly ten years from when we shot the last one, which is 17, so we'll shoot it in 2027. Out in 2028. Out in 2028.

Every 10 years. Every 10 years. I know. Colin. Or Piers was like, Can we just not wait another 10 years until we do it again?

And we're like, Yeah, of course we won't. And then of course it'll have gone by. Yeah, and there's everybody because everybody keeps working. Everybody's. It's not just that, it just I feel like You need to breathe a little.

And then, if the people really want it, they'll make it known. I mean, we want it. But it can't just be a vanity project so we can hang out. We have to do it with a real, an interesting enough storyline. Yeah, of course.

But if the principals all want to do it, given the amount of money it makes. I just don't know how they get Meryl back. Yeah, that's the tricky part. Because her character is dead. She's a dead person.

Yeah, she's a dead person. Evil twin?

Okay. Go back to your soap opera days. There it is. There it is. Boom.

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You don't want to upset daddy. I'm kidding. I'm just kidding. No, but he's. There's The director for an actor Is Like um Is is teacher.

And For the most part, they're Pretty good teachers. And he's the best. He, um He knows what he wants. And he has a very specific method of getting it. And He's funny and you just you you wanna You want to nail it for him because he deserves that, because he works so hard, and because, especially, Mank was such a.

really was such a passion project for him because his dad wrote it and it's just It was really hard because I was so insecure. That was the most insecure I'd been in a very long time because I knew he was a master and I knew I knew. I knew I could get fired at any moment and that fear it's just It's the it's the It's the worst and the best because you really are as prepared as you could possibly be. And then you have the time to To just keep getting better and going deeper and getting truer and you don't get those many opportunities because you don't get that much time to shoot. I don't know.

I don't know how to describe it.

Well, I think you are describing it, Privy. You're not being hyperbolic. You had a legitimate fear that if you messed up, he'd have somebody else play Marion Davies. Yeah, I was surprised that he Would speak to me about it. When I got the call that I was gonna zoom with him like that night I had to re I was shooting a mouthful of air, the the postpartum depression movie.

That's with Brian Koppelman's wife, right? Amy Koppelman, director. Yeah, it was her first movie. as she directed. And And we were in it together.

I mean, she's still one of my closest friends, and we were really in it. But I got the call at lunch, and I was like, I have to read this 140-page script like now. For Dave Adventure. For tonight. And she's like, okay, I'll read it with you.

And she's directing it. And we're on this teeny micro-budget. set and w we did it. We d I read it, um She gave me extra time at lunch. She was like, no, this is more important than this movie.

And then I talked to him and I was like, I don't want to, I have to sound smart. I have to seem. I haven't seen every single one of his movies. I've seen a lot of them. I love his movies and I.

I love what he does and I love how he does it and what I've heard about him, but I'm just like, God, if I don't... He's this is this is the opportunity of a lifetime. People see his movies. He makes great movies. Marion Davies.

Like, my God, it's gonna it's gonna Make my dad's life if I play this character. It's just like my whole life felt like it was like could possibly Almost Fall apart if I didn't get it.

So, your nervous self is there's an authentic component to your nervous self. Right, and I'll be like, I'm nervous. Um And then I, that was it. He offered it to me. And then I was like, this is a make or break moment for me.

You weren't 100% confident that you would nail it. No! This and Anne Lee, I'm like, I can't do, like, I can do a New York accent, a New York accent, sort of like, I can't do it right now, but like, it's like, it comes more naturally to me than a Manchester accent from the 1770s. But it was one of those things where every day. Every day I was just like this.

Oh. Would you do a Fincher movie again? Yes. I'm dying to do a Friday movie again. I'm dying for him to see Ann Lee.

Here's what. Yeah, he's going to like Ann Lee. He better like, he likes the trailer for that. Even though. You said, even though I wouldn't have the best time doing it, another French movie.

because there's a lot of self-loathing. But that helps sometimes. My anxiety helps me, even though I hate it. It moves something in me in the right direction. That's a good quote, and it's true.

Yeah. That is a good quote. Amanda Seiford once said. I don't agree with that anymore. It does.

It does. OCD is specifically something that I've suffered. With From By of No, um It's all it was all encompassing in my in my uh adolescence. Since I was, what, four or five, whatever. has really, really, really helped me It just has anxiety, generally, or generalized anxiety disorder, whatever, all the things that I have.

I've been diagnosed with. It's just, it's all. I've been able to channel them in the right ways and take the right medication to. to use it to my advantage and to like shut it up when it when it's not no longer helpful for the most part and that has helped me That has helped me. Self-loathing or self, you know, insecurity.

self-judgment, all that has, you know has also at times helped me keep my shit together. Yeah, it it it Again, self-loathing if it goes too far, you're in real trouble. Yeah, because then you can't see clearly. But if you can Mitigate it. Yeah.

A little self-loathing. It's like a little shame. A little shame. A little shame you can work with. Yeah, because if you don't have a little shame, you're in denial.

Yeah, and you're also, by the way, I would argue, you're also probably not that interesting. Yeah, no. You know, what are you ashamed of? Nothing. Really?

Nothing? You know, so. I know what you do at night. But so being able to channel it into something useful, and then a guy like Fincher, that helps. It's also when you're present in the moment, or when you're, you know, anything, any distraction from your own anxiety, which is to.

To perfect or get close to as perfect as you can get in a moment for David Fincher. It's nothing matters. Right, you're being given a task, a difficult task. Just do the task. That helps, right?

That's good. Yeah, give me something to do is a great way to keep me busy. Yeah, and it's not just Busy work busy. It's like It's mind acrobatics. It's emotional acrobatics.

It's like trying to. create a moment that That you're a f like so much of your body is trying to keep you from being able to do. Do you sing for your daughter? I do. I sure do.

Actually, she just started playing, learning guitar and songwriting. And so I've been playing guitar every once in a while when I'm home for the bearded dragon that we have inside, because he really likes music, it seems. He hasn't said anything, but I think he does. And so I'll play because the reverb's really good in the kitchen bearded dragon. He's like a lizard.

Could you play something? Is that possible? Oh, yeah, I think so. Is it? I don't know if it's tuned.

I played it yesterday. Oh, it's only tuned to the fourth fret. It might sound bad, and it takes too long to tune this. This is um Martin made in Bethlehem. What was I playing yesterday?

I was playing an old like Britney Spears song. It's not far. Is that you? I can walk. down the block.

The tabletop Close my eyes. Just made pies on they. Plastic. All my hairs Use to my No, I don't care. I used to mine, now I don't care, cause I'm grey.

Did I show you the Sure of my nephew. Taken at his big birthday surprise At my sister's house last Sunday. This is Monday and we're making pies. I'm making pie My side. I'm making it.

It's a little low. I'm Jane Pauley. Thank you for listening. And for more of our extended interviews, follow and listen to Sunday Morning on the free Odyssey app. or wherever you get your podcasts.

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