Amanda Seyfried is best known for dancing and singing her way through the sunny world of Mamma Mia!. But her latest project, premiering Monday at the Venice Film Festival, couldn’t be further from the feel-good ABBA musicals.
In The Testament of Ann Lee, Seyfried plays the 18th-century Englishwoman who went from child laborer to celibate leader of the Shakers, a radical Christian sect in America.
“How many times have we seen grand stories about male icons?” Norwegian director Mona Fastball asked reporters. “Why can’t we have one about a woman like this?”
Fastvold said she chose Seyfried for the role because she could capture both the tenderness and intensity the part required. “She’s a little mad,” the director joked. “I knew she could reach the kindness, the gentleness, but also the power and the madness.”
Seyfried described the experience as liberating, especially in scenes where her character enters trance-like states of ecstatic worship. “Anything goes,” she said. “The only risk is not using that freedom to push yourself as far as you can. I’ve never been let loose like this before.”
Still, the actor admitted she initially tried to talk Fastvold out of casting her. “I kept saying, pick someone English because the accent seemed so hard,” Seyfried said. “But I saw the love Mona had for this story. It was her baby, and I didn’t want to mess it up.”
The film isn’t a traditional musical, but it blends choreographed movement with repetitive, hymn-inspired songs rooted in Shaker rituals. The sect, officially called the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, was known for celibacy, gender equality, simple living, and distinctive wooden furniture.
Co-writer Brady Corbet, who is also Fastvold’s husband and last year directed the Venice hit The Brutalist, said financing the project was no easy feat. “The elevator pitch for a Shaker musical was not the easiest thing to get off the ground,” he said, noting the film’s $10 million budget.
The Testament of Ann Lee is Fastvold’s third feature after The Sleepwalker (2014) and The World to Come (2020). It is one of 21 films competing for the Golden Lion, the festival’s top award, to be announced on September 6.
