Amanda Seyfried Calls Lewis Pullman in 'The Testament of Ann Lee' "Bonafide True Artist"

Amanda Seyfried Calls Lewis Pullman in ‘The Testament of Ann Lee’ “Bonafide True Artist” | TIFF 2025

My dog had his cameo and he was cut from the film. Okay. I was just about to say, “Wait, your dog’s in the film?” Has he has he been told that he was cut? I haven’t broken it to him yet. Have you? No. No. I was going to tell him on his birthday. We just finished a movie. I was We were working on the film up until the very last minute. The print arrived a few days before the premiere and it was the first time I got to actually see it properly. The print it felt incredibly fast uh to to just be done and then show it and sit in an audience in a room full of people and watch it together and have this communal experience with this thing that we’ve been working on in our little bubble for you know a couple years. So that’s yeah you don’t ever expect any kind of reception. In fact, for me, I always assume everybody’s gonna hate everything until they don’t. And it’s helped me in life. Yeah, it does. I don’t get disappointed very often because of it. But it’s just everything you would want if if you kind of have an ideal world, ideal perception, it would be it would be what we got. Did you all do particular warm-ups or like what did you do to start the day before you got into on the days when you’re doing the the movement and the and the noises and all of that? What do you how do you get into it? We did a lot of uh group exercise. It’s a bit like theater camp, you know, this movie because we have so much physical work and voice work to do. So you guys would would start your day warming up with uh with the dancers on the dancers really know how to stretch. They really do. Yeah. And so we learn a lot. But we do a lot of and we did do a lot of like like um throughout the day the whole crew we will do a lot of like you know heart opening meditations and you know good stretches stretches and everyone kind of gets in on it. The it’s really physical for the crew as well. We have a lot of really long sequence um handheld takes and so I think everyone sort of joined in a lot in like that like warming up and getting into it. I will say that there was like in the beginning we when we were in the studio we did that kind of like exorcism of sorts um which was a long process of us kind of like and I think that you kind of Mona end up in the movie with that scene with with Stacy and Scott there’s this scene where you kind of where an first witnesses kind of this form of practice where you kind of almost put the audience through the same experience that you put us through which was kind of like exercising all of the kind of like your your social instincts to maybe laugh at first or to like judge and then you sort of give in and surrender and then you sort of kind of fall into this bizarre hypnosis. Um, and that was a really kind of integral part of the process. She it’s choreographed to a point and then there’s just you have to let go and that was part of the ecstasy of the of what these people did and ecstatic dancing and you have to let go and and and that room was separated by people who held on a little bit whether it was ego or fear whatever it was between them and the people who are just like completely giving themselves over to the film to whatever would come to the vulnerability and that is you. you are you it was a beautiful thing to witness because I didn’t know it was very well and he you just gave into this exercise and I was like oh this he’s he’s like a bonafide like true artist I mean and you also you know you obviously you’re a very good actor but it it’s a it’s a you go it goes way deeper than that and this movie it challenges you truly yeah I was just following you guys’ leading there’s nowhere to really hide in this movie because if and any given scene I mean, you’re either worried about your dancing, your singing, your manunian accent that there’s no real evidence to how it actually sounded at the time. So, we’re all kind of collectively agreeing to this one thing. Um, and so that like, yeah, I think that there’s no Where are you going to hide? You have to just dive head first. And trust. And trust. Total trust. Total trust. Trust Mother Mona. Well, and each other that you that you have each other’s back, you know. Oh my god. We’ve we’ve been through some things. Oh my god. Oh, it pains me. And And it also breathes just hilarity at times. Like what are you like what for example are you thinking of right now? Name it when I’m speaking in tongues. Oh. And everybody behind me. Well, you learned you spoke you speak. You spoke. Yeah. But then you did the whole but then it the di how do you say it? The diagetic audio. diagetic audio comes in and then I’m can speak and say anything I want and I was starting to like with people because it was so like laugh like it was really and so you guys were trying not to laugh and people were throwing at me and and it was and I watching it back I just had it was wonderful because I remember it just being so fun so fun like the it breeds such unpredictability and freedom and and it just and we can all, you know, obviously it was hard to not laugh sometimes together, but it was just it was really it felt like we could indulge in that in a way that we can’t usually. And Lee didn’t write anything down herself. She was illiterate and uh this the story is based on testimonies from her her um followers and and witnesses to her life. There’s very little record of workingclass people, especially from that time period. So, uh, but we would, yeah, we we dug deep and we found something that made a lot of sense to us and then based it on that. Um, the other one, what is a, especially when you’re traveling for work or for production, like what’s a creature comfort that you need to bring with you to heating pad? Heating pad. Electric heating pad. I sleep with my kids guilty. And so there’s nothing warm in my bed, so I have to put it there. U, maybe like an eye mask that covers my ears as well. Also then just like kind of a full sensory um death death replication. Yeah. He likes to feel like he might be dead. Kind of like a relaxing dying feeling. Actually, I know we have no time, but I moved in together at the end of the shoot because our families had left and we had two weeks and she made this place. She would like be be up. Music would be playing out of the speaker. She had French press coffee made and candles going and she was just making her director’s notes for the day. And I’d be like, “Oh my god, this is lying.” So I did one thing for her. I did her laundry and she was like, “It’s everything.” And I was like, “You create that cozy. What’s that word? It starts with a h.” Yeah. He create that like naturally and to live with her. I didn’t want to go home. So, thank you. That’s beautiful. Oh, you too. No, I looked at my little like bold up socks and things in my closet. I might have done my laundry. Best I could do for you, Mona. Like in this business, we’re missing the commentary, the director’s commentary because this should be taught. I believe what what Monet does should be taught in film schools and in film seminars because like if if you just gently spoke throughout the movie, it would it would give so much context that people don’t necessarily need, but that they really really want. And I I have so many questions about why why did you choose this? Why did you you know, it’s it’s it’s a feat what you did. And I think it’s like it need the commentary needs to come back. We need to get DVD players again. That’s why we’re here. We are selling some great to announce a new DVD player company.

‘The Testament of Ann Lee’ director Mona Fastvold and stars Amanda Seyfried and Lewis Pullman stop by THR’s TIFF suite at the 1 Hotel in Toronto and talk about working on the film, calling it “a lot like theater camp.” Plus, Seyfried praises Pullman’s work in this film, calling him a “bonafide true artist.”

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Amanda Seyfried Calls Lewis Pullman in ‘The Testament of Ann Lee’ “Bonafide True Artist” | TIFF 2025

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