Amanda Seyfried stars alongside screen icons Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan in Mamma Mia! but the up-and-coming actress was probably the most comfortable person on set.
While Streep, Brosnan and co-star Colin Firth have admitted to being terrified by the prospect of dancing and singing ABBA songs, the 22-year-old said she was born to do it.
Seyfried studied singing for six years and was considering a career as a classical singer before she got her first acting role on US soap All My Children.
“It’s just something I was born to do,” Seyfried said.
“I know that sounds lame, but for as long as I can remember I was just performing. I started acting when I was 15, and singing when I was 11, and dancing in high school.
“It’s not really unbelievable to see (myself doing all three) because it’s always been in me anyway, whereas with Pierce, he never expected to see himself singing and dancing.”
Seyfried plays bride-to-be Sophie, in the movie adaptation of the hugely successful stage show based on the songs of ABBA. Director Phyllida Lloyd said she knew she had found the perfect actor to play Sophie when Seyfried auditioned.
“Amanda has that completely winning, radiant warmth and an almost childlike youthfulness,” she said.
“She walked in and, from the first note she sang, you could feel everybody in the room go - this is it.”
Seyfried said she was thrilled to be cast alongside Brosnan and Firth, but she was most excited to work with Streep, who plays her mother in the film.
“I knew my life would change, or part of me would change, because I would get to work with her,” Seyfried said.
“When I heard that she signed on to play Donna, I screamed and jumped up and down, and was like, wow, that’s amazing.
“Now it’s completely put me on another level. People respect me more now because I’ve worked with her.”
Seyfried is best known for playing one of the “Plastics” in the 2004 movie Mean Girls, which also starred Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams.
The former model hasn’t kept in touch with Lohan, and is determined not to play out her career in the tabloids.
“I haven’t really dealt with fame very much,” she said.
“After this movie comes out I know I’ll have to deal with it to a certain extent, but there is a way - and I know people don’t agree with me - but there is a way to control it a little bit.
“Fame is not real, it’s not your real life, it’s not who you are.
“A lot of people think the attention and the money makes them who they are, but that’s not true.”
