Amanda Seyfried never thought the Hollywood lifestyle was right for her.
In a recent interview with Vogue for their January cover issue, the 40-year-old “Veronica Mars” actress discussed her career, and how Hollywood life wasn’t for her, saying, “I never had many famous friends.”
As opposed to other young stars who were coming up at the time, Seyfried didn’t lead a very public life, and was dealing with “really extreme” obsessive-compulsive disorder, which she said she was diagnosed with at 19.
“I was living in Marina del Rey at the time, shooting ‘Big Love’ and my mom had to take a sabbatical from work in Pennsylvania to live with me for a month. I got my brain scans, and that’s when I got on medication—which to this day, I’m on every night.”
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She explained that her OCD made it riskier for her to do things that might trigger her, including “drinking too much alcohol, or doing any drugs at all, or staying out too late.”
“I would make plans and then just not go. I guess I did make choices,” she said. “I didn’t enter that realm of nightclubs. I gotta give credit to my OCD.”
When speaking about her priorities, Seyfried explained, “I’ve always stayed close to my family.” And now that she’s a mom, spending time with her family while filming is paramount.
“It’s the privilege I have at this point in my career,” she said. “I can say, ‘Listen, I’ll make this work, but…I have to sleep with my kids Friday night, Saturday, Sunday—I have to go to bed with them.’ That’s my only rule. And it does fuel me. I mean, it probably helps them, but it definitely helps me.”
Seyfried got her start when she was 10, starring in TV commercials, before getting her big break in her feature film debut, in the 2004 movie “Mean Girls.” She went on to have a role in “Veronica Mars” and later showed off her singing voice in the movie musical, “Mamma Mia.”
She received an Academy Award nomination for her supporting role in the movie “Mank,” and later won the Golden Globe, Critics Choice and Emmy Award for her role as Elizabeth Holmes in the miniseries, “The Dropout.”
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Despite her success in Hollywood, the actress chose to leave the city life behind her and live on a ranch in upstate New York early on in her career, and now lives there with her husband, Thomas Sadoski, and their two children, Nina, 8, and Thomas, 5.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in March 2025, she said moving to the farmhouse was the best decision for her and was a big help when it came to dealing with some of her mental health struggles.
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“The house was small, so we built onto it to add a kitchen. We use the barns as a sanctuary for rescued horses, ducks, chickens, peacocks, goats and other animals.”
“I still have anxieties, but tending to the aging animals keeps me from obsessing over things that don’t matter. My pony, Cliff, is 38. Every day I have with him is a gift. It’s grounding,” Seyfried said.
During an appearance on “CBS Sunday Morning” in December 2025, Seyfried explained her decision to move to upstate New York stemmed from the realization that Hollywood is a “tricky” place and that “there are a lot of people that are working in a way that doesn’t necessarily make it feel like a safe place.”
