Why Fans Were Mean to Amanda Seyfried After 'Mean Girls'
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Amanda Seyfried has come a long way since her breakout film, Mean Girls. Now known for playing real-life scammer, Elizabeth Holmes in Hulu's The Dropout, the actress recently had a walk down memory lane — remembering how she got over studios who "buy a blonde" and established herself as a versatile actress.
Amanda Seyfried Dealt With Creepy Male Fans After 'Mean Girls'
Speaking to Marie Claire, Seyfried said that Mean Girls really put her on the map. However, she said that it meant dealing with creepy male fans. She recalled being recognized by boys who'd always ask her if it was raining. Her character, Karen could "tell when it's already raining" by touching her breasts. "I always felt really grossed out by that," the actress recalled. "I was like 18 years old. It was just gross." She added that she struggled with fame at the time.
"I think being really famous [young] must really fu----- suck," Seyfried continued. "It must make you feel completely unsafe in the world. I see these younger actors who think they have to have security. They think they have to have an assistant. They think their whole world has changed. It can get stressful. I've seen it happen to my peers. So, I bought a farm. I was like, let's go in the opposite way." In a separate interview with Variety, Seyfried was also asked about her previous statement about studios who "buy a blonde" post-Mean Girls.
"I said 'buy a blonde'? Interesting. I think I know what I meant by that," she explained. "Mean Girls got me on the map, it really got my foot in the door. But getting pigeonholed was the thing you had to fight. Back in 2004, I had to be really careful to not just be 'the pretty blonde.' So at the very beginning of my career, if I hadn't done Big Love, I was going to be Karen Smith. All the auditions I had for my first pilot season were just, like, blonde girl friends. I wasn't going to be the lead, because for whatever reason I didn’t fit into that. I don't know what it was."
How Amanda Seyfried Broke Out Of Her 'Mean Girls' Role
When asked how she broke out of the typical blonde girl tropes, Seyfried said it was all luck. "I remember for one movie — I can't say the name — it was between me and some model for a kind of ancillary character." she shared. "And I was like, 'Oh God, it doesn't matter who it is! And if it doesn’t matter, I don't know if I want to be a part of it.' But at the same time, I wanted to work, and I wanted to work with the actors involved. Luckily, I then had opportunities that went a different way pretty quickly, and I'm grateful for that."
Seyfried also doesn't regret Jennifer's Body which initially received negative reviews but has gained a cult following in the last years. "Oh my God! Honestly, in terms of box office success, we didn't see that. Whatever. For me, it was always about the experience of making it and being terrified of when it came out, because it felt like it always meant something," she told Variety. "It had a cult following, and for good reason. Karyn Kusama is an amazing director. It was a fucking really badass story about best friends that was hilarious, and dark, and smart. It was unique! Sorry, but I have not ever read another script or seen another movie that feels like Jennifer's Body. It was art. I'm really proud of the job I did, and the fun we had."
Was Amanda Seyfried Close With Her 'Mean Girls' Co-Stars?
Seyfried was the new girl when she first joined Mean Girls along with already-known actresses, Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, and Lacey Chabert. But according to Chabert, the Mamma Mia star didn't have a hard time fitting in. Seyfried would even hang out in her trailer during breaks. They also organized a Thanksgiving dinner for the cast. "She has this really dry sense of humor and dry wit," Chabert said of Seyfried. "The biggest challenge on set was to not laugh on camera, when we weren't supposed to be laughing."
In 2020, Lohan also revealed that the Mean Girls cast "are still good friends" these days. "It was really fun to do you know, the catching up all together the reunion because it felt like – and they didn't air part of this –- but it felt like it was, we had all just seen each other the day before," she said of their virtual reunion that year. "It still feels like we know each other so well because we spent so much time with each other and we discussed how it's been working with each other that it's been, you know, so continuous over the years that it feels like we're all still good friends, which was really nice, to catch up with everyone. So that was really fun."
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