Amanda Seyfried didn’t ever think she would play a cop.
The star of Peacock police thriller Long Bright River broke out in hit movies like Mean Girls, Mamma Mia! and Jennifer’s Body, but she says she “put limits on myself” until receiving a crucial note from Broadway director Leigh Silverman several years back.
“I never thought that I was going to get the opportunity to play a cop,” she told Deadline, shortly after the launch of Long Bright River and on the eve of its Series Mania competition premiere.
“I think there are certain limits that we all have as actors and I think I put these limits on myself. The industry sees you in a certain way through the years and I saw myself as someone who would not be able to have some kind of authority. I am slight and I was young for so long, until I wasn’t, and I think I just didn’t see it, and now I feel like I can play anything.”
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Seyfried traces this shift to the note from Tony Award-nominee Silverman, who she says told her to “get on my front foot because I was just playing this all back footed.” “It completely turned me around,” added Seyfried. “It made me look for these new characters.”
Seyfried was therefore attracted to the three-dimensional nature of Long Bright River lead Mickey Fitzpatrick, a Philadelphia police officer with shades of Kate Winslet’s Mare of Easttown lead working in a high crime neighborhood who takes it upon herself to investigate the murder of three women and disappearance of her sister. The Liz Moore adaptation comes from The Offer showrunner Nikki Toscano and stars Nicholas Pinnock, Ashleigh Cummings and John Doman alongside Seyfried.
“When I found out about this I went straight to the audiobook and finished it in less than two days,” added Seyfried. “And then when the scripts started coming in I just thought, ‘How have they managed to take the best of the book and create more of a real, three dimensional portrayal of this?’.”
Concurring with Seyfried, Toscano said the film and TV biz is too keen to put actors and creatives in boxes.
“We need to look and find opportunities where we break out of that box,” she added. “Anytime somebody tries to say, ‘Oh you’re this kind of writer’ I’ll be like, ‘No I’m going to do something totally over here now’ in a way to combat that.”
Opioid crisis
Long Bright River touches upon numerous societal themes including the opioid crisis, and Seyfried said doing the show taught her a lot about one of America’s most devastating modern struggles.
“Most of us have been touched by addiction but to really see it with this viewpoint, to really talk to the people and understand the people who are living in Kensington [where Long Bright River is set], and to see the lack of space for them to able to find their way,” she added. “We don’t allow enough space for them to recover. And they need to be respected.”
Toscano praised the book’s author Moore for embedding herself in the community and developing a true understanding of their plight. “For us it was all about education and continuing to educate ourselves about not only the crisis but the people who work in the neighborhood,” she added. “We were making sure we were portraying them the way that Mickey saw the neighborhood, which was with compassion and humanity and not horror.”
Long Bright River is on Peacock now. The series is in international competition at Series Mania and will air Tuesday, with Seyfried making the trip to Lille.
The post Amanda Seyfried Never Thought She Would Play A Cop: “The Industry Sees You In A Certain Way Through The Years” appeared first on Deadline.
