For Amanda Safriede, the first day of the set of Peacock's limited series, Long Bright River, was awful. She wore a patrol officer uniform and didn't know how to move or speak during a mock operation at the police morgue.
“Each of the first day of work, I don't know what I'm doing,” she told me later.
Overpreparation of Seyfried for most roles. She is researching. She memorizes. She asks after the question. But suddenly, she is somewhere on the soundstage, the lights blazing, the camera facing her, and fear rushes in.
Safried, 39, spoke on an ice morning in February. We met a late breakfast at a cafe on Manhattan's Upper West Side at a cafe where Safried holds his apartment. (She and her husband, actor Thomas Sadoski, and their two children spent most of their time north of the farm.) She was in town, filming the Paul Feig film The Housemaid, and promoted the moody eight-episode suspense series, Long Bright River, which premiered on March 13th.
Does this sound like a lot? it was. “I think I'm falling apart,” Safried said, looking at the menu. She recently injured her back on “The Housemaid” and was taking muscle relaxants.
“I'm fine now,” she said. “I mean, I'm not. I'm struggling, but I'm walking.”
Seyfried has been in business for over 20 years and gradually moved from comedy (“Mean Girls”) and romance (“Mamma Mia”) to more complicated roles. Her performance as actress Marion Davis in the Netflix film Mank won her an Oscar nomination, and she won Emmy for her portrayal of Elizabeth Holmes, a convicted contestant in the Hulu miniseries The Dropout. Because of their roles and their admiration, she was finally recognized as a talented dramatic actress.
It makes sense that Safried was heavier materials (“Big Lub”, “Les Miserables”) and spent most of the years. She has flexible, wide set eyes, a heart-shaped face and wavy blonde hair. Even on a clearly exhausted corner table wearing a winter coat and a plaid scarf, it seemed she should posed in a scallop shell somewhere. But behind those lovers' appearances are transformative actresses who try to show the world what she can do, especially when she's scared.
“That's part of me that I have to pay my respects,” she said. “Whatever you care about, you'll be afraid.”
A few months ago I saw Sayfried on the set of “Long Bright River.” Safried plays Mickey, Philadelphia beatcop and single mother. Mickey spends a series on finding her sister while investigating the murders of a vulnerable and noisy young woman in her Philadelphia neighborhood, Kensington. That day, Seyfried was wearing a plain cloth doing light exercises in a grey sweater, jeans – as Mickey got home and prepared to discover that his son was missing.
“If you want to be emotional or really intense in the scene, I'll charge,” she said, switching her legs. “There's no cartilage in the knee, but it's worth it.” Not everyone discusses cartilage with reporters, but this was Seyfried.
“Amanda is definitely raw and she's like a magnet,” said Nikkitoscano, the showrunner of “Long Bright River.” “You want to be close to her. You want to hear what she says next.”
The small, slight Safried do not seem to be naturally suited to play a police officer. Again, she was not the obvious choice to play a medical technician (“dropout”) or a principled psychotherapist (“crowded room”). But the savvy actors and producers always know that she can do more.
“She's formidable,” said Akiba Goldman, creator and showrunner of “Crowded Room.” “For a compact person, she has the enormous ability to move the air in the room.”
In “Long Bright River,” Sayfried means a strange fit. This is because Mickey is perfect for a quiet, troubled woman who relaxes by playing English horns. According to Liz Moore, the book's showrunner, Seyfried's slight frame fits the role. “It's a physical representation of the fact that Mickey knows he's not supposed to be doing police work,” Moore said. The presence of Safried helps to overturn the cop's story as a savior or hero.
For years, Safried wanted to play the police officer she designated, not the detective.
“I'm a tiny little baby,” she said. “But even a small baby can play a police officer. I just wanted to prove to myself that I can't feel too foreign.”
Still, she couldn't find the role she worked for. The producer of “Dropout” then suggested that she see “long bright rivers.” There she listened to an audiobook. (Seyfried is an audiobook demon, usually four or five titles at once.) She knew she could play Mickey. She also learned to play English horns afterwards.
Living in the shadow of traumatic upbringing and doing work that she wasn't particularly good at, Mickey was different from her in many ways. However, there were similarities. Seyfried grew up in Allentown less than an hour from Philadelphia. She is close to those affected by the opioid crisis.
“I know the people in this story,” she said. “I was sure I could ground it,” she understood Mickey's dedication to justice. She needed to protect those around her.
To prepare, she met with volunteers and activists working with members of the Kensington community. She also boarded with two Philadelphia police officers. Both are single mothers like Mickey. She noted their compassion, how they refused to save their new mother's car. While performing a wellness check, officers found the body. “And I'm in real life, this is real life here,” she said.
The challenge was to bring that reality into the container of a streaming thriller. Going in, she had some ideas – how she grabs her shoulder, how she might walk. But by the second week, when the fear had eased, she let it all go. Like Mickey, she knew, as she saw, “as a little girl was lost in her uniform,” so she played it as faithfully as possible.
It worked, at least for her co-stars. “I couldn't see Amanda when the camera was lying around,” said Nicholas Pinnock, who plays Mickey's former partner. “There is truth and honesty in what she is doing.
In the conversation, Seyfried gives a fair amount of apologies – rambling, to derail. But she knows who she is, and after the first or two days of a particular shoot, she knows what she is good at doing. “There's a real joy in her work,” said Elizabeth Meriweather, creator and showrunner of “Dropout.”
The restaurant began to play “Honey, Honey,” from the “Mamma Mia” soundtrack, with Safried's 22-year-old voice being issued through the restaurant's speakers. The waitress came, I repented. The song was just part of the regular playlist.
“Listen, I love betting on pop culture,” Safried reassured her. “It's really good.”
With the Emmys win under her belt and subsequent projects wrapped up, Safried finally feels like she has a place in the business she loves, as long as she wants it. That doesn't mean she doesn't want to change, grow or develop herself. And that fear, she's sure she'll always feel it.
But she knows she always works. It took the industry a long time to take her consistently and seriously as a dramatic actress, but now it is. “It felt like it was a long and fleeting until it didn't,” she said.
Despite her fatigue, she's already lined up more projects. It's an erotic thriller via Merriweather, a biopic of Erica John directed by Rebecca Hall. She is not written, produced or direct. She wants to continue giving herself to one after another difficult character, both in and out of her uniform.
“I'm not going anywhere,” she said. “I'm already like the place I want to be.”
