Amanda Seyfried Reveals She Passed on TV Show Due to Sex Scenes
Amanda Seyfried Reveals She "Passed" on TV Show Role Due to Sex Scenes
Amanda Seyfried is setting new boundaries.
The Housemaid star recently shared that as she’s grown into her career, there are certain role requirements she isn’t interested in anymore.
“Our jobs are weird, and as I get older, it gets weirder,” she told Alec Baldwin at the Hamptons International Film Festival in October, per People. “We have to be romantic with people that we’re not romantic with. Sometimes it’s great. Sometimes it’s really uncomfortable.”
Indeed, while Seyfried says she used to find the fun in onscreen romance with her acting partners, the scenes have lost their allure.
“It used to be so fun,” the Mamma Mia! star continued. “It was a non-thing. It was like, ‘I get to make out with a hot person today. And they’re paying me.’”
Now, the prospect is actually why the 40-year-old might say no to a project.
In fact, she already has.
“I passed on a show where I would have to have sex all the time because of the sex,” she said, noting it doesn’t matter who the scenes would be with. “I don’t wanna do it. I’m uncomfortable with it. I’m not into it right now.”
Though she’ll never say never, noting, “Maybe if it came along again, maybe I’d be in a different space,” these days she can sum up her reticence simply: “I don’t wanna deal with being naked with a stranger.”
Plus, Seyfried—mom to kids Nina, 9, and Thomas, 6, with Thomas Sadoski, from whom she split earlier this year—is acutely aware her children are getting older. And as they get older, they’re nearing the ages where they’ll be more exposed to her work.
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“I have kids now who are paying attention to what I do,” she explained, “so I have to be less of a pushover.”
And that boundary goes beyond what roles the Testament of Ann Lee star takes on—it also holds true for when her celebrity status begins to bleed into everyday life in Manhattan.
“Nina, my daughter, and I were walking across the street and a person on our side of the street asked for a picture,” Seyfried recalled. “And I looked at my daughter, and I said, ‘No, I’m sorry.’ And then we walked across the street and I was like, ‘How was that for you, Nina? Was that okay?’”
To which the 9-year-old responded, “‘I’m very proud of you, mama.’”
And for Seyfried, that put her boundaries into crystal-clear view.
“I’m with my kids, I say no,” she explained. “Whatever [they are] going through is more important than what I’m going through.”
As for filming X-rated scenes, Seyfried isn’t the only one who’s gotten candid about those roles. Read on for more.
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Jennifer Lawrence
When it comes to onscreen nudity, the Silver Linings Playbook actress has found that her mindset has shifted over the years. Indeed, when she filmed her first nude scene in 2018’s Red Sparrow, Lawrence was initially very uncomfortable with the experience.
“Red Sparrow really scared the hell out of me because I get nude,” she told Vanity Fair at the time. “I tried to do the movie without nudity but realized it just wouldn’t be right to put the character through something that I, myself, am not willing to go through.”
But when it came time to film sex scenes opposite Robert Pattinson in 2025’s Die My Love, she was “not sensitive” about baring it all.
"I don't care about nudity,” she shared during a screening of the film. "I wanted [director] Lynne [Ramsay] to have total freedom artistically."
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John Cena
The wrestler-turned-actor shared a behind-the-scenes look into his sex scene with Amy Schumer in 2015's Trainwreck.
"There is nothing intimate about it," he said on an episode of Club Shay Shay in August 2024. "Nothing. So, like, it's really embarrassing."
Luckily, Cena had a very understanding costar.
"Amy is an angel," he continued. "She made the environment so comfortable, and then when I got the part, eventually they were like, 'Yeah, it's a sex scene and we want you to do elaborate and crazy stunt sex, and all those lines you had? We're probably not going to use them, we're just going to do this stunt sex scene.'"
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Jessica Alba
The Fantastic Four alum recalled feeling incredibly uncomfortable when she filmed a scene in the 2005 movie in which her character Sue Storm appeared naked over a bridge.
“I thought that was awful,” Alba shared in 2025. “It was very humiliating in real life."
She added, "I grew up with a pretty conservative family, and I am a pretty modest person. I dreaded that scene for weeks. I have a lot of whiplash from those days.”
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George Clooney
While the Ocean’s Eleven star had his fair share of movie romances, Clooney revealed that after a conversation with wife Amal Clooney he was no longer interested in kissing women on screen.
“I’ve been trying to go the route Paul Newman did. ‘OK, well, I'm not kissing a girl any more,’” he told the Daily Mail in 2025. “When I turned 60, I had a conversation with my wife. I said, ‘Look, I can still play basketball with the boys. I play with 25-year-old guys.’”
“‘I can still hang, I'm in shape,’” he added. “’But in 25 years, I'm 85 years old. It doesn't matter how many granola bars you eat, that's a real number.’”
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Kate Winslet
The Titanic actress has never shied away when it comes to sharing just how strange shooting sex scenes can be.
“Those scenes are really awkward,” Winslet told E! News in 2017. “It doesn't matter which way you look at it.”
Still, after having filmed many of them over the years, she felt as though she’s become a bit of a pro as she imitated herself on set, “‘Ok, everyone, this is how it's going to be.’”
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Phoebe Dynevor
While Bridgerton is known for its steamy love scenes, according to the show's star, there’s nothing truly sexy about filming the scenes, especially as they utilized an intimacy coordinator.
"It really was like shooting a stunt, it looked real, but we've got padding on," Dynevor told Harper’s Bazaar in 2021. "The angles are very … I mean, I've shot intimacy scenes before in the past without any of that. And I can't believe really how new this all is, because it just changed the game.”
The Fair Play alum added that she and costar Regé-Jean Page “felt super safe” after rehearsals, noting that once they got to set, “We already knew exactly what we're doing. We'd blocked it all so specifically. I knew exactly where his hand was going to go at what point. So it just meant that there wasn't any room for a director to go, ‘Oh, I want to see this now.’”
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Michael Sheen
The Masters of Sex star had a similar approach when it came to sex scenes with co-star Lizzy Caplan.
“Often when it comes to sex scenes, it can be gray area, people feel uncomfortable talking about it directly,” Sheen shared with The Wrap in 2015. “Early on, we were very clear that there couldn’t be any gray areas, that we were going to be doing that so much that everything had to be talked through beforehand.”
He and his costar essentially put together a “checklist” to make sure that nothing was left undiscussed before the day of filming.
“You make sure everyone on paper is clear what will be happening physically—what you’ll be wearing. You talk it through with wardrobe, hair and makeup so on the day nothing is a surprise,” Sheen continued. “And when we shoot, it’s an absolutely closed set. There’s someone ready to give you something to put on immediately as soon as they yell, ‘Cut.’ No one is allowed to wander past the monitors.”
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Penn Badgley
While the You actor was well aware that the show was predicated on him filming a number of more intimate scenes, Badgley admitted that he asked the show’s creator Sera Gamble if he could cut down on the number he was doing.
“This was actually a decision I had made before I took the show,” Penn shared on the Podcrushed podcast in 2023. “I don't think I've ever mentioned it publicly, but one of the main things is, ‘Do I want to put myself back on a career path where I'm always [the] romantic lead?’”
The decision was also tied to his relationship with wife Domino Kirke, with Penn adding, "Fidelity in every relationship—especially in a marriage—is important to me."
"It got to a point where I don't want to do that,” he continued. “So I said to Sera, like, 'My desire would be zero, to go from 100 to zero.’”
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Kirsten Dunst
The Oscar nominee has never been a fan of filming sex scenes, telling E! News in 2017, “I don't like it. To be honest, I'm like, 'Let's get this over with as fast as possible.'"
In fact, one of the reasons Dunst—who is married to Jesse Plemons—has found she prefers working with female directors like Sofia Coppola stems from her experience working with male directors who want “to shoot it from every angle.”
Dunst explained, “At least Sofia's like, 'We're going to get this done quick, we're just gonna shoot it here, we'll do three takes, be done.'"
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Dakota Johnson
The Fifty Shades of Grey alum has admitted to being surprisingly comfortable filming sex scenes, joking that she never has to mentally prepare for them.
“I’m, like, always psyched up for sex,” Johnson shared on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast in 2025, explaining how she approaches them from her character’s point of view. “First, it depends on who the character is and who the character’s supposed to be to the audience.”
“Is she like a super idolized hot girl? Is she a housewife? Is she lonely? Is she scared? Is she conservative?” she mused. “So that’s obviously character work.”
And it helped that her mom Melanie Griffith raised Johnson to “be really proud of my body and love my body.”
“I’ve always felt so grateful for that,” she added, “especially in my work because I can use it and it feels real.”
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