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SYDNEY SWEENEY IS CAUGHT IN A WEB…
Iwant to continue to shock people with the characters that I play,” says Sydney Sweeney. The 24-year-old has done little but in the last few years, with attention-seizing roles in some of TV’s highest-profile hits, from troubled teen Cassie in Euphoria and suicidal Alice in Sharp Objects, to child bride Eden in The Handmaid’s Tale and withering rich kid Olivia Mossbacher in The White Lotus. The shocker this time: a leap to Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, where she’ll star alongside Dakota Johnson in Madame Web.
Character details are shrouded in a web of secrecy, but Sweeney’s already swotting up, telling Variety: “I’ve been ordering a bunch of comic books. There’s a lot to learn.” Whether hero, villain, or a figure operating in the murky area in-between, Sweeney isn’t done taking risks. “I like playing characters that make people think, and make me think.”
Certainly, few actors have inspired more navel-gazing column-inches in recent months than Sweeney. Refreshingly outspoken about on-camera nudity, she has questioned the wave of attention she received in the wake of her raw performance in Euphoria after more than a decade in the industry. She has a point given that her characters have come to embody the Gen-Z experience on screen.
Growing up in Spokane, Washington, Sweeney was an active wakeboarder and martial artist, but pursued acting after working as an extra on a no-budget horror comedy that happened to be shooting in town. Almost a decade of hard graft followed, until a breakthrough 2018, in which she appeared in four films and three buzzy series. Despite recent success, Sweeney’s work ethic hasn’t slowed – in 2020 she launched her own production company, Fifty-Fifty Films, which will exec-produce an HBO Max adaptation of Jessica Goodman’s novel They Wish They Were Us.
But first – the Spider-Verse beckons. And, perhaps, an opportunity to put those martial arts chops to good use. “I’ve always been a really big fan of all of the Marvel and Sony Universe movies,” Sweeney’s said. “I’ve grown up watching them all and I’ve been engulfed in the entire world my entire life, so being able to be a part of that is such an incredible, incredible thing.”
MADAME WEB IS CURRENTLY IN PRE‑PRODUCTION.