Working with Meryl Streep might sound intimidating, especially when you’re a young actress. But according to Amanda Seyfried, letting that feeling take over is precisely what can get in the way of a good scene.
As Entertainment Weekly reported, Seyfried opened up about her Mamma Mia! costar during a conversation with Alec Baldwin at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Her description of the Oscar winner was surprisingly relaxed.
“She’s super chill and always honest in every performance,” Seyfried said.
For Seyfried, who played Streep’s daughter Sophie in the movie musicals, the experience offered a lesson in staying present rather than getting distracted by the reputation of the person opposite her.
“It’s just you could have a script written by the worst computer and she would make it make sense and feel authentic,” she added.
Still, even with someone that skilled sharing a scene, Seyfried said an actor’s nerves can become an obstacle.
“You can’t go wrong, unless you are intimidated,” she explained. “And then you can, you can totally just ruin the vibe.”
The pair first appeared as Sophie and Donna Sheridan in 2008’s Mamma Mia!, joining an ensemble that included Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters and Dominic Cooper.
Their mother-daughter relationship gave the ABBA-filled musical an emotional center alongside its wedding mix-ups and exuberant song-and-dance numbers.
Both actresses returned for 2018’s Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, which also brought Cher and Lily James into the cast. Streep had a smaller role in the sequel, appearing as Donna’s ghost after the character’s death between the two films.
Seyfried’s recollection offers a different view of working with a Hollywood legend: Streep’s presence wasn’t the problem. Getting too caught up in who she was could be.