Amanda Seyfried Breaks Down the Looks That Made Her a Star | Who What Wear

Amanda Seyfried Breaks Down the Looks That Made Her a Star | Who What Wear

You constantly audition for things like hot girlfriend or girl in bikini, you name it. And I was blonde. Hi, who where? I’m Amanda Ciphford and today we are going behind the looks. Lay miz. The costumes were so epic. It was the first time for me in my career that I had worn something that I didn’t even dream was possible because I would see these in movies. I just never thought that I was going to get a chance to do that. the way it feels when you have that corset on that tight and and you have layer upon layer of widening material. It brings you to another planet. And I loved playing because she’s just so wonderful. She’s so kind. She’s so good. She’s so in love and she goes through a lot in that movie. I know it’s so impractical and hard to maneuver in these costumes, but it’s worth it. Dear John, whenever I see clips of it or photos of it, I always I always think, “God, I look so good. My hair was so blonde and I didn’t even dye it and my character just looks so cozy and put together.” I remember do doing my first fitting and trying to wrap my head around wearing a bathing suit. I was doing a lot of like exercise with this trainer for the movie cuz it’s a beach movie, but I’m never a person that’s ever been comfortable in a bikini. And I remember having the bikini but getting to wear that cover up. It was a very popular look at the time and I was just so grateful for that cover up because I didn’t feel completely vulnerable in that bikini that I’m always just so uncomfortable in. So I still to this day I wear I wear one pieces. That was such a fun fun movie experience. So every year I see Karen during Halloween and it just makes my day. Obviously the clothing from that is iconic. They gave us the space to have opinions about what we were wearing. I certainly wasn’t one to rock the boat. I was just like, I’ll tell you what I get. I was only 17, so I had a lot of baby fat and I just couldn’t stop eating all the free food because it was all free. And they had made made me wear what is now called Spanx or, you know, skims. It was back then called a girdle. And at that point, I wasn’t wearing thongs yet. I had this girdle that had a was a thong. So, I was wearing the my underwear with the girl over it. So, just what a look. Lindsay was definitely more involved with what she was wearing. And I think she had a lot of fun with that because once she became part of the plastic, she was getting to wear the really fun stuff, too. It felt like a collaborative effort. But I I also believe that the costume designer just knew what she was doing. It was I don’t know. It was just It was a dream. I just don’t remember any any kind of negative moments ever on that set. It was just we were all just having so much fun and no one ever knew what that movie was going to do. The fact that it’s it’s like a staple movie for anybody in their adolescence is just such a dream because it was such an a beautiful experience as my first film and I was I was so green. Clothing on M. It was some of it was just vintage archival stuff. Some of it was built. I got pregnant on that movie, so some of the things needed to be altered towards the end, which was really interesting and fun to try to hide Tiny Growing Bump. But everything was so specific and so ornate and so over the top at times, and you you could just never go wrong. I mean, I felt like a true movie star. It was very specific and again, very transformative. It’s one of those important parts of the of playing of being an actor is being able to physically transform and has such an impact. Especially at M. I looked in the mirror, I didn’t even see myself. I saw somebody. I saw who I was playing. And it was just so luxurious. When the costume designer takes that much care and and has that much research and knows what they’re doing, it it really can change your life as an artist. It’s funny what color does when it’s in black and white. It still has a depth to it. It still has a richness, a texture, and you don’t know how it’s going to turn out. So, everything we did for makeup tests, we would take the pictures in black and white the way David Fincher wanted, you know, the way he was going to shoot it. You could really see what colors did what that they transformed and there’s dimension to everything still. That’s I mean it’s just it’s beautiful. I mean that hat it was so tall but it wasn’t that heavy and I had to wear it for a week straight. Love Lace. It was the first time I was playing somebody who was real. It was really daunting. And I think the other aspect of playing Linda Love Lace was that I knew I was going to have to be naked. And I felt like this kind of like one of my costumes in it was my body. And um I had to really come to terms with that and feel comfortable in it in a way that I never had to like really face that. And it felt really liberating. And you know the the costumes in that were pretty absurd. It was the ‘7s and she put on a show. So, like having like no clothes under this kind of see-through dress. There’s a really cool shot where there’s it’s back lit and from behind when she’s on stage and you can see my body. Costumes on that were really stunning. The thing I’ve always tried to do with my career is to keep people guessing and play characters that are not only like one of a kind, but fully feeling, relatable characters that have something kind of unique and that aren’t necessarily glamorous because it’s really easy to get pigeon holes when you’re younger getting into the business. You constantly audition for things like hot girlfriend or girl in bikini, you name it. And I was blonde, so it was really whatever that is. I had to work really hard to show people my my own dimensions. And Needy Lesniki from Jennifer’s Body was the first time that I got to kind of be a nerdy, naive young girl who’s just kind of like all in, you know, with her world and she loves her best friend and her boyfriend and she’s just a good kid. and wearing glasses and and having these like kind of dorky outfits and and because I always have hair that just always curls here and it’s frizzy and I got to like really lean into like what is real and the relatability of this character is just like so yummy because people just really love her. they can see themselves in her and she’s, you know, again, not pretty and glamorous and uh that was really fun and we had some really great looks in that. That pink dress was so wrong. It was so right. And and it really sticks in people’s minds. And that dress was also the dress I wore when I was in the pool trying to save my boyfriend, Johnny Simmons. So, it was heavy and wet. I was cold. Oh my god, I was so cold all the time. It was so horrible. Even the pool was warm, but I was freezing and I was blood and that black stuff all over me like blood coming down. I hate being wet. I hate being wet. I think I think every actor hates being wet because you’re not just wet for 5 minutes, you’re wet for an entire day. Annie, the testament of Annie, the thing I was most excited about was getting back into those layers and those corsets like I did with Lay Miz. So that was just very, very exciting and very exhilarating. a lot of rich textures, a lot of rich colors, a lot of thick material, and and Gosha, our costume designer, is is oh, she’s just I don’t know what it is. Her her she’s just so talented, and it was so fun playing around with things. I I felt like it was a true collaboration. She just brought me into it. It was so wonderful. I just had so much fun in the fittings. And then I’d have baby bumps and I get to try things with the baby bumps and then I feel how they moved with me when we were dancing. I got to play the, you know, the formative years of her life and the costumes like went along. We we went on a journey together. It was so it was so wonderful. And the shoes were so comfortable. Like they’re just like loafers. That’s why loafers are the best. It hasn’t changed. Oh my god. Yeah. So Ann Roth, who does the costumes, she she’s it’s like she has the foresight to know what’s going to like fly off the racks when when movies come out. I wore a one piece and Annne Roth agreed that Sophie would wear a one piece and that one piece like you could everybody has been wanting that one piece. She’s able to capture this this island essence and that wedding dress. Oh, it was so lacy and I mean I got on a donkey with that dress. It was so hideously dirty by the end. And of course, when we do anything that’s an homage to what Abby used to wear, which we do on in which we did in both movies and we will again on the third, those big boots and those fun iconic outfits at the end. It’s just getting into that just so rare to get an opportunity to put those costumes on and dance and sing to ABBA. We are the only ones that really get to do it for for work, it seems. Unless you’re an ABBA rock band. Oh, the housemate. Yeah, I was wearing a lot of Kashmir. Nah Winchester is the most put together woman you’ll ever meet in the beginning of this film. And she always wears beige or white. And at first I was like, I’m going to wear beige or white and dye my hair like a white blonde and wear pearls. Okay, do it. Transform me. Make me feel like someone else. Put a a put a shoe a ballet flat on a Chanel ballet flat on or a Chanel knockoff. But you wouldn’t know the difference. It was really cool. It’s a genre bending movie. Like any Paul Fee movie, the costumes are just as important as the settings and the characters themselves. So Easy Miyaki had this turtleneck that Steve Jobs just loved. And then Elizabeth Holmes loved Steve Jobs and so Elizabeth Holmes wore the same turtleneck. She felt empowered by that. It was her costume. It was her her uniform. I just think it’s so funny that she she blatantly stole it from another very powerful inventor. Like what? But she put red lipstick on. I think the most important piece of that puzzle in terms of fashion and costumes were the shoes that she wore at every point because she walks a little differently. And I used that walk to help me get into character. And I used the shoes and the shoes felt off. They didn’t feel like they ever fit perfectly. And that kind of helped. It was so fun to play that. It’s unforgettable. That red lipstick, my eyeliner. You go, girl.

Amanda Seyfried goes #BehindtheLooks to revisit the costumes that defined her most memorable roles. From Mean Girls to The Testament of Ann Lee, she breaks down the good, the bad, and the unexpected, revealing the behind-the-scenes moments that shaped each look.

Films featured in this episode, in order:
Les Misérables (2012)
Dear John (2010)
Mean Girls (2004)
Mank (2020)
Lovelace (2013)
Jennifer’s Body (2009)
The Testament of Ann Lee (2025)
Mamma Mia! (2008)
The Housemaid (2025)
The Dropout (2022)

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