Was Amanda Seyfried surprised when the offer came to star in “Seven Veils,” a movie about the Biblical teen temptress Salome who had John the Baptist beheaded — and she was not going to be doing the notorious Dance of the Seven Veils, much less be naked?
“I wasn’t surprised about any of it,” a smiling Seyfried answered during a video interview, “because Atom Egoyan and I have been trying to find something to do since ‘Chloe’ ” – their 2009 thriller.
“Seven Veils” follows Seyfried’s Jeanine as she directs a Toronto revival of Richard Strauss’s classic opera “Salome” while confronting the repressed trauma she carries from the original operatic production’s director.
“This is an incredible script about the world inside the opera world,” Seyfried, 39, said. “But nothing really surprises me with Atom. I’m just always curious about what character I’m going to play and what world I’m going to jump into with him.
“Because I’ll jump in with my eyes closed. I trust him so much! He’s never going to waste his time telling the story he doesn’t want to tell.
“I was surprised,” she added jokingly, “I didn’t take the decision to dance naked.”
A key challenge playing Jeanine is expressing what repressed trauma looks like.
“Yes, when you read a script like this you understand the journey that this person is on. And there’s a little bit of therapy happening for all of us, for most actors but artists in general.
“But Jeanine’s circumstances are very unique, and what she’s going through, the relationship she has to all these people in her life and how haunted she feels is something that everybody can relate to.
“On one level it’s fun to bring that to life. To embody somebody who’s going through so much is completely like being thrashed around in her life emotionally and looking for more ways to shake up her life.”
When Seyfried scored as silent screen legend Marion Davies in “The Mank” (2020), with an Oscar nomination, Golden Globe Awards’ recognition, does that shake things up career-wise? Either in what she wants to do or how she is perceived?
“It just shakes up the opportunities that we’re given. Because it’s all about where you are on ‘the list’ and it’s fleeting, it’s ever-changing.
“I’m very used to that. People start knocking at your door a little more often for a time. So I just have better opportunities. And I always make decisions based on what opportunities are given.
“Basically, I want to be working. I want to be with my kids” — a daughter, 8, and four-year-old son with husband Thomas Sadoski. “It always comes down to, How do I make it work?”
With or without those veils.
“Seven Veils” is in theaters March 7