Amanda Seyfried Turned Down TV Role Over Frequent Sex Scenes
The actor stated that her comfort with intimate on-screen moments has decreased with age and a growing awareness of her children's attention.
Actor Amanda Seyfried has indicated that her willingness to film sex scenes has diminished, leading her to decline a television role that required frequent intimate moments. Seyfried, 40, shared her evolving perspective on such scenes during a panel at the Hamptons International Film Festival, with her comments gaining wider attention this week.
"Our jobs are weird," Seyfried said, as reported by People. "And as I get older, it gets weirder. We have to be romantic with people that we’re not romantic with."
Seyfried reflected on how her approach to acting out romantic or intimate scenes has changed over her career. She recalled a past attitude where filming such moments was perceived as a positive aspect of the job, quipping, "I can’t believe back in the day I was just like, ‘We gotta make out. Great! This is awesome. I know how to make out.’" She described it as a time when it felt like a simple perk: "It was a non-thing. It was like, ‘I get to make out with a hot person today … And they’re paying me.’"
However, this perspective has shifted significantly. Seyfried revealed she recently passed on a TV series specifically because of its content involving frequent sex scenes. "I passed on a show where I would have to have sex all the time because of the sex," she stated. "Doesn’t matter [who it’s with] ... I don’t wanna do it. I’m uncomfortable with it. I’m not into it right now."
Seyfried, who has two children with actor Thomas Sadoski, also cited her children's increasing awareness of her career as a factor. While she has closed the door on such scenes for now, she acknowledged that her feelings might change in the future. "Maybe if [the project] came along again [at a later point], maybe I’d be in a different space. But I don’t wanna deal with being naked with a stranger," she said.
Other actors, including Julia Roberts and Penn Badgley, have also publicly shared their decisions to avoid filming sex or nude scenes. In February 2023, Badgley discussed on his podcast "Podcrushed" that he no longer wished to film sex scenes for the Netflix series "You," explaining that fidelity is important to him and his marriage, and he reached a point where he was not comfortable doing them.