THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE Star Amanda Seyfried Is Vogue’s January Digital Cover Star!

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On the heels of her Golden Globe nomination for best actress for her performance in “The Testament of Ann Lee,” Amanda Seyfried sat down with Claire Messud to discuss preparing for the role, navigating fame at a young age, her family, and more.

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On preserving time for her kids: “It’s the privilege I have at this point in my career,” she explains. “I can say, ‘Listen, I’ll make this work, but…I have to sleep with my kids Friday night, Saturday, Sunday—I have to go to bed with them.’ That’s my only rule. And it does fuel me. I mean, it probably helps them, but it definitely helps me.”

On the challenges of growing up in the unforgiving public eye: “I didn’t get more famous or recognizable in any way until I was 18,” she says. I point out that many might consider 18 pretty young for fame. “But I wasn’t the star,” she says. “I didn’t become super-famous overnight. I was just somewhat recognizable and appreciated.”

Seyfried, who knows she was “born to sing,” explains the essential importance of her embodied experience in this exhilarating middle of her life. She initially struggled, she says, with the film’s Shaker hymns: “I couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t see it. But at that point I was just like, Something needs to change within…. It’s just a new perspective on what this woman is, and why she sings. She doesn’t sing the way I sing; she’s singing to get closer to God…. I had to wrap my head around singing from a place within me that doesn’t care about how it sounds.”

Writer: Claire Messud
Photographer: Eddie Wrey
Fashion Editor: Jorden Bickham

[Photo Credit: Eddie Wrey for Vogue Magazine]

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