In the spotlight
Amanda Seyfried has down-to-earth view of Oscar buzz
Amanda Seyfried, thanks to her performance as the boozy, platinum blonde ’30s film star Marion Davies in David Fincher’s “Mank,” is almost certain to be an Oscar nominee.
But this is a uniquely strange year for most everything and Seyfried, 35, is not a woman who blows her own horn.
“The Oscar conversation that’s happening is the first time it’s ever been discussed around my own performance in something. Hopefully it’s making people in the industry think differently of me,” said the actress whose credits include hits like “Les Miserables,” “Mean Girls” and “Mamma Mia!” as well as critically acclaimed arthouse fare like “First Reformed” and “While We’re Young.”
Davies was, notoriously, a worst-kept secret as the movie star mistress of media baron William Randolph Hearst from the time she was a teenager until he died at 88 in 1951.
“I see Marion Davies as a human being who through some interesting circumstances was able to carve out an interesting life. So this is an education on who Marion Davies is in a tiny way, and how Mank (screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, played by Gary Oldman) related to her.
“It was fun because I was responsible for showing the world this other side of her: this warm, smart, completely engaged, effervescent person.”
Seyfried, an Allentown, Pa., native, began acting at 15, then dropped out of college to do “Mean Girls” (2004). She hasn’t stopped since.
“I think you have to be really careful and really be deliberate about your choices when you want longevity. The priority for me was always that I just wanted to be working.
“It was great when ‘Mamma Mia!’ came and shifted my career into a different gear. I got different opportunities. I got paid more and all that fun stuff.
“But while I was doing that I was always looking for a home base. I was always gonna end up on a farm in upstate New York.”
Married to actor Thomas Sadoski (“John Wick 2”) with two children, Seyfried indeed lives on a Catskills farm with horses, goats and chickens.
“I’ve always been pulled back to nature. That’s important when you have a crazy life and you’re always traveling.
“Having a home that’s this calm and this peaceful with animals that you have to take care of really does help with keeping you grounded, having your life in perspective.
“So while my career was always important, it was never really the end game for me. The endgame was always to continue working consistently. It’s all about longevity.”
(“Mank” streams on Netflix Friday.)