The Untold Truth Of Amanda Seyfried

Following in the footsteps of Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried became the second member of the Plastics to get an Academy Award nomination. Thanks to her portrayal of silver screen icon Marion Davies in David Fincher's biographical drama "Mank," she was up for an Oscar in 2021. It was a deserved form of recognition for one of the most versatile actors of her generation.

Seyfried has played everyone from '70s porn star Linda Lovelace to Daphne in "Scooby Doo" since shooting to fame as airhead Karen Smith in 2004's "Mean Girls," belting out tunes in "Les Misérables" and "Mamma Mia!," gracing the off-Broadway stage and guesting on "Twin Peaks" along the way. And the star's personal life has been just as eventful.

Yes, Seyfried has been in several high-profile relationships over the years. And as with her mental health battles, experiences with Hollywood's inequality, and family set-up, the candid star has been more than happy to discuss them with the press. Here's a look at her untold truth. 

In 2016, Amanda Seyfried opened up to Allure magazine about the OCD issues that she lived with for more than a decade. The "Big Love" star revealed that everything from the purchase of her home to her physical health had been impacted by certain compulsive thoughts.

"I had pretty bad health anxiety that came from the OCD and thought I had a tumor in my brain," Seyfried said. "I had an MRI, and the neurologist referred me to a psychiatrist." The actor also had to ensure that the Catskill Mountains property she bought in 2014 didn't have a stove to reduce the risk of fire.

Thankfully, since being prescribed a low dose of Lexapro in 2005, Seyfried has managed to curb many of her fears. And she doesn't believe there should be any stigma attached to taking medication for the issue: "I'll never get off of it ... I don't see the point of getting off of it. Whether it's placebo or not, I don't want to risk it. And what are you fighting against? ... A mental illness is a thing that people cast in a different category [from other illnesses], but I don't think it is. It should be taken as seriously as anything else."

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.

Amanda Seyfried sure didn't appreciate the bikini photo Arielle Charnas, aka the founder of lifestyle brand Something Navy, posted on Instagram in 2019. The "Gone" star appeared to take particular umbrage with its caption, "Proud of my body after two kids," in several strongly-worded messages on the same platform.

After sharing a friend's response to Charnas' original post on her own account, the actor wrote, "If we're ready to get paid for flaunting our lifestyle (and inspiring some in the meantime) we have to be open to the discussions surrounding what we're promoting. We have to back ourselves up — not run away from the issues it presents. There are gray areas everywhere. Each of us has a chance to back ourselves — especially on this platform. If you know who you are — take a second to decide if what you're throwing out there is worth it — in the big picture."

According to HuffPost, Charnas later claimed she felt bullied for being thin in an expired Instagram story, while many of her followers criticized Seyfried for going on the attack, too. The Oscar nominee later issued a semi-apology to Charnas in another Insta post which read, "I desperately wish it hadn't targeted (or blasted) one person (there are MANY who engage in this questionable messaging) and instead started a cleaner, general conversation ... To the lady in question: I'm sorry for the truly negative feels you've endured because of this."

Although Amanda Seyfried has always appeared entirely comfortable in front of the camera, she can be a nervous wreck when it comes to showing off her talents on the stage. It's the main reason why you didn't see the star grace a theater production until 2015.

"It was one of those things I kept putting off because I was scared s***less," Seyfried told ET that same year. The actor eventually plucked up the courage to say 'yes' to a role in "The Way We Get By," an off-Broadway two-hander penned by esteemed playwright Neil LaBute and co-starring her future husband Thomas Sadoski. "It is the perfect first play," she added before revealing that watching Hugh Jackman on the Broadway stage in "The River" several months previously hadn't helped to dispel her fears.

When asked by Broadway World how she'd coped with stage fright on the opening night, Seyfried replied, "Tommy and I start [the show] lying in this bed, and beforehand we center ourselves and talk. He's usually pretty cool, but the first show, I was freaking the f*** out. And he says something different every day — he's so supportive and amazing. But I can't breathe, and my stomach turns in knots. 'Cause I'm like, 'What if I panic? What do I do when I panic? What if I ruin the show?' It sucks."

Amanda Seyfried is a regular of those People magazine polls which attempt to determine who is the hottest Hollywood star of them all, such as the 2011 piece dubbed "25 Beauties (and Hotties) at 25." Before rising to fame, she carved out a modeling career that included photoshoots for tween clothing store Limited Too with Leighton Meester.

But turns out that the actor wasn't appreciated for her looks while growing up in Allentown, Pennsylvania. In a 2018 interview with i, Seyfried revealed she'd only gone into modeling "because it was glamorous and because people let me," before adding, "I was made fun of at school for being pale and ugly."

The "A Million Ways to Die in the West" star also spoke up about her difficult teenage years in a 2020 interview published on Female First: "The toughest challenge I've faced was school. It was tough and I was bullied, but it doesn't last forever ... I wish I could tell my 16-year-old self don't listen to mean girls! They're just there to make you feel bad and the truth is they feel bad about themselves too — that's why they do it."

Amanda Seyfried has dated several actors over the years including Ryan Phillippe, Alexander Skarsgård, and Justin Long — and of course, she's now even married to one. But her first romance with a fellow Hollywood star came about in 2008 on the set of "Mamma Mia!" And it ultimately left her heartbroken.

In 2012, Seyfried said in Elle (via People) that she was devastated when she discovered that Dominic Cooper was still seeing the girlfriend she believed was now an ex: "I was just kind of foolishly thinking that the two of them were done and Dom and I were involved. But we weren't really as involved as I thought. So I got my heart broken pretty hard. And then it took a long time for us to break up again. After that, it's really hard to open myself up to a new person. Really hard."

Seyfried told the magazine that their on-screen romance had made it much simpler to build a connection in real life. She said, "You're both open. You're put in a situation where you have to make out with each other. It's easy for things to get carried away."

Amanda Seyfried sparked a Hollywood guessing game in 2015 when she revealed that she was once paid only 10 percent the salary of her male co-star on a particular big-budget film, despite the fact they had relatively equal status.

The Golden Globe nominee told The Sunday Times, "I think people think that just because I'm easy-going and game to do things I'll just take as little as they offer ... It's not about how much you get, it's about how fair it is." Seyfried then added that women in Hollywood "have to decide if you're willing to walk away from something."

Seyfried spoke out in the wake of the Sony hacking scandal which confirmed that both Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams were paid less than Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale in "American Hustle." So which co-star and which movie could she have been referring to? As Vanity Fair noted, the list of guesses included Justin Timberlake and sci-fi thriller "In Time," Eddie Redmayne in the big screen adaptation of "Les Misérables," and even her one-time boyfriend Dominic Cooper and ABBA jukebox musical "Mamma Mia!" But so far, Seyfried has kept schtum.

Amanda Seyfried and husband Thomas Sadoski were both involved with other people when they first met on the set of 2015 off-Broadway production "The Way We Get By." The former was dating fellow Hollywood star Justin Long, while the latter was married to casting director Kimberly Hope. But in a 2018 interview with Net-A-Porter, the "Chloe" star insisted that nothing happened between the pair until their respective "bad relationships" ended.

Seyfried told the outlet that Sadoski didn't disrespect Hope, who he divorced just months after sharing the stage with the future Oscar nominee. And the actor's faithfulness only confirmed to her that he was the one. She added, "That was another reason why I thought, later on, that I could marry him."

The former model also revealed her relief at how she can tell her and Sadoski's story without having to feel guilty. In fact, love only truly blossomed between the pair in 2016 when they worked together for a second time alongside Shirley MacLaine in the dramedy "The Last Word." A year later they walked down the aisle at a low-key ceremony when Seyfried was just weeks away from giving birth to their daughter.

In 2017, Amanda Seyfried and Thomas Sadoski became parents for the first time with the birth of their daughter whose name they've decided not to disclose. And becoming a mother had an instant impact on the "Letters to Juliet" star.

During a chat with Fox News in 2019, the actor said, "I realized my power with actually delivering a child. That's one thing that kind of changed the whole thing for me. I'm a very anxious person and I'm terrified of so many things, and I realized that I was wasting a lot of time worrying about things that didn't matter and things that didn't impact me. I'm more present."

Parenthood has also changed how Seyfried deals with her career. In 2018 she told Net-A-Porter that she now feels more empowered when it comes to making decisions: "I'll say, 'No, I can't do that press trip. I'm spending time with my daughter. Oh, you want my top off for that part? How about we scrap that sex scene altogether? And no, I'm not wearing those thongs!'" Seyfried revealed she wanted up to five more babies in the same interview. She's now only got four more to go, as three years later she and Sadoski welcomed a son into the world.

You probably wouldn't expect an Oscar-nominated movie star to enjoy spending her downtime tending to chickens, goats and a donkey named Gus. But that's exactly what Amanda Seyfried gets up to when she's not in the showbiz world.

The "Red Riding Hood" star relocated from the Big Apple to a farm near the Catskills mountains. Now residing there with her husband Thomas Sadoski and their two children, she told The New York Times that she just "knew it was what she had long been searching for." But did the fantasy live up to the reality?

Well, it seems so. "Everybody needs a center of gravity, somewhere to feel safe," Seyfried noted in the 2020 interview, before adding that the Catskills life "solidified my need to be out of the game when I'm not working, to be in nature and to refresh ... It's insane how much I can feel so accomplished and successful here without having to be in a successful movie." And if you thought that the Hollywood couple simply hired staff to deal with all the day-to-day chores, think again. In the same year, Seyfried told Us Weekly, "I get up, I feed the animals. I recently really trained Tommy, my husband, to be able to feed. He knows everything now. He can do everything."

Many actors will go to great lengths to claim that getting up close and personal with an objectively attractive co-star is nowhere near as fun as it looks. Not Amanda Seyfried. In 2011, the Allentown native freely admitted that she'd enjoyed it whenever she was required to get it on for the cameras.

While promoting sci-fi thriller "In Time," Seyfried told W (via Yahoo! Movies), "Sex scenes are great. A lot of my co-stars have been sexy guys my age, and so, why not? I'm not going to pretend it's not fun. Justin [Timberlake] was great — he had come from doing 'Friends With Benefits,' where he basically had sex every day at work — and so it was easy for both of us. We just kind of got it on, and then were like 'that was good.'"

But when asked about her favorite on-screen conquest, Seyfried didn't choose Mr. Sexyback. She opted for a female co-star, Megan Fox, and the time they locked lips in comedy horror "Jennifer's Body," adding, "They had an extreme close-up of our tongues, and I'm telling you, the thing about the scene is that it's actually really sexy." However, that slightly contradicts what Fox told Variety in 2019: "I remember Amanda and I were horrified that we had to make out. Her more so than me. I was slightly more comfortable being able to do it. She was not excited about having to film that scene at all."

In 2017, Amanda Seyfried became one of several Hollywood stars whose nude photos were leaked on the internet in a hack that was dubbed The Fappening 2.0. The actor addressed this distressing invasion head-on.

Almost immediately after the pictures surfaced online, the "First Reformed" star's attorney demanded that the website that first posted them, Celeb Jihad, remove them in a strongly-worded letter. TMZ reported that it read, "These photographs are believed to have been leaked, i.e., wrongfully obtained by a third party or parties without Ms. Seyfried's knowledge or consent. Your unauthorized use and distribution of the Seyfried Photographs constitutes, at a minimum, copyright infringement, violation of Ms. Seyfried's right of privacy under applicable law and tortious conduct under state and common law."

The images in question also featured Seyfried's boyfriend at the time they were taken, Justin Long, which no doubt made things even more awkward considering she'd just got married to Thomas Sadoski when they leaked. "Harry Potter" star Emma Watson was also caught up in the scandal which emerged three years after the likes of Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and Gabrielle Union fell victim to The Fappening 1.0.

Amanda Seyfried has racked up more than 60 acting credits since making her screen debut at the turn of the century in soap opera "As the World Turns." And several of those, such as "Mamma Mia!" and "Les Misérables," were massive box office hits.

So it's little surprise to learn that the Oscar nominee has accrued a considerable amount of money during her decade-spanning Hollywood career. In fact, if Celebrity Net Worth is to be believed, Seyfried has $12 million to her famous name. And she's not been afraid to splash the cash, either.

In 2010, Curbed New York reported the "Dear John" star forked out $1.9 million for a condo in New York City's Greenwich Village. The next year, TMZ reported Seyfried purchased another property, this time in the Hollywood Hills, from her co-star in "Jennifer's Body," Adam Brody. And we can't imagine that the farmhouse in the Catskills came cheap, either.