Amanda Seyfried tapped into one of her worst fears for her latest role.
While attending the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday (September 7), Seyfried explained to People how she navigated portraying a mother's grief in her role as the titular character in The Testament of Ann Lee, who experienced with the deaths of her four children at a young age.
The Mamma Mia! actress, who herself is a mom to two kids with husband Thomas Sadoski, said that when showing that kind of loss "graphically, you have to go all the way with it."
"It's incredibly hard to channel that kind of grief when that is your biggest fear, for sure," she said. "But what I did, what I think really helped ... is that I was honoring everybody who had lost and honoring that grief which made Ann, then brought her to her knees."
According to a synopsis from the festival, per People, the film dives into the story of the real-life religious leader's "traumas that impacted her psychology and shaped her influential religious views."
"I feel lucky that I've never had to go through that, but you've got to portray that stuff, because it's real," Seyfried said. "It happens every day to many people: child loss, stillbirths, miscarriages. It's never going to stop happening. And it happened to Ann Lee."