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Amanda Seyfried was just a teenager when she first ventured into the limelight, beginning her career as a model before deciding to pursue acting at the age of 17.
She started out in soap operas like As the World Turns and All My Children, but got her big break when she was cast as Karen Smith in the 2004 movie Mean Girls.
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Starring alongside Rachel McAdams and Lindsay Lohan, Amanda previously admitted that she “slipped through the cracks” while working on the film as she struggled to build up her self-esteem.
In fact, the actor recently told Jimmy Kimmel that she was so new to the industry when Mean Girls came out that she made a serious fashion faux pas at its premiere.
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Speaking on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Amanda said that she didn’t realize until it was too late that the flashes from the cameras on the red carpet made her black dress see-through, exposing her underwear.
When asked why the movie studio didn’t help her with her premiere look, Amanda explained: “I slipped through the cracks because I didn’t ever ask for anything. Because I thought I was in the way, which is not the way I want to raise my daughter, for sure… But people liked me because I was easy.”
After Mean Girls, Amanda went on to star in movies such as American Gun and Alpha Dog, as well as 11 episodes of Veronica Mars.
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More recently, Amanda earned an Emmy nomination for her performance as Elizabeth Holmes in the Hulu series The Dropout — one year after she received an Academy Award nomination for Mank.
Now 36, the star has reflected on the increased “respect” that she receives at work as she admitted to being much more confident while on set.
In a new interview with Porter, Amanda revealed that when she was first starting out in the industry, she would agree to remove her clothes on camera and film nude scenes so as not to upset anybody.
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In fact, Amanda worried that she would be fired from the job if she expressed her discomfort, but ultimately told the publication that she came out of pre-#MeToo Hollywood “pretty unscathed.”
Discussing her approach when she was a young actor, Amanda said: “Being 19, walking around without my underwear on — like, are you kidding me? How did I let that happen?”
“Oh, I know why,” she added. “I was 19 and I didn’t want to upset anybody, and I wanted to keep my job. That’s why.”
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Amanda did not specify which projects she was referring to, but she was 19 when Mean Girls came out and while filming episodes of All My Children.
Other movies and TV shows that she starred in around that time include Nine Lives, House, American Gun, and Alpha Dog.
Opening up about how her experience has changed over the past 17 years, Amanda told the publication: “There’s a respect level that I have never felt so fully around me. It has nothing to do with any level of fame or recognition or critical acclaim.”
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“Whatever it is, it’s not because of Mank, it’s not because of The Dropout,” she went on. “It’s not about having seen my movies. I’m respected because I’m 36 years old and I know who the fuck I am.”
This isn’t the first time that Amanda has opened up about the early days of her career, and she previously revealed the “gross” reaction that her Mean Girls character prompted from men when she was still a teenager.
In the movie, Karen has a scene where she predicts the weather by groping her breasts. In May, Amanda told Marie Claire that all these years later, men still approach her and ask if it is raining — implying that they are thinking of her touching her breasts.
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“I always feel really grossed out by that,” she explained. “I was like 18 years old. It was just gross.”
Amanda then added: “I think being really famous [young] must really fucking suck. It must make you feel completely unsafe in the world.”
There has been increased discussion about the way that young actors are treated while filming TV shows and movies in recent months, with Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney admitting that sex scenes on other sets made her feel “disgusting.”
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“I’ve had experiences where I want to go home and scrub myself completely raw because I feel disgusting,” Sydney told the Independent. “I didn’t feel comfortable with my castmate or the crew, and I just didn’t feel like my character would be doing it.”
She went on to add that she “didn’t feel like [she] was able to speak up” and voice her concerns at the time.
And British star Kaya Scodelario, who shot to fame at the age of 14 in the gritty TV series Skins, admitted last month that “safeguarding wasn’t really a thing” when she and her costars filmed graphic sex scenes.
“It was a beautiful time but also the deep-rooted cause of a lot of my issues now,” she said of her time on the show in a TikTok post.
Meanwhile, Game of Thrones actor Sean Bean faced backlash earlier this month when he said that intimacy coordinators — people who ensure the well-being of actors and make sure that everyone is comfortable while filming intimate scenes — “spoil the spontaneity” of filming a sex scene.
“I think the natural way lovers behave would be ruined by someone bringing it right down to a technical exercise,” Sean told the Times. “It would inhibit me more because it’s drawing attention to things. Somebody saying, ‘Do this, put your hands there, while you touch his thing…'”
