Hailing from Allentown, PA, 24-year-old actress Amanda Seyfried rounds out a year of The Yanks Are Coming’s you-know-you-love-it feature “Yankette of the Month.” Seyfried, who began easing her way into American pop culture consciousness with her role as Karen in Tina Fey’s wonderful Mean Girls, has reached the cusp of stardom with her role as Sarah Henrickson on HBO’s controversial hit Big Love. The beautiful Seyfried has capitalized on the Big Love role and while the show’s upcoming fourth season will be her final act as the eldest daughter of Bill (Bill Paxton) and Barb (Jeanne Tripplehorn), she has a blossoming film career which most recently included a sultry lead role alongside former Yankette Megan Fox in Jennifer’s Body. Seyfried will also play a call girl hired by the marvelous Julianne Moore to test the fidelity of her husband Liam Neeson in the upcoming film Chloe, and most recently, the role as “Little Red Riding Hood” in the Leonardo DiCaprio produced Red Riding Hood. Fans of the television and film hit Twilight will surely appreciate this role, as it includes Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke, and although DiCaprio claims the film won’t be (Thankfully, if you ask this writer!!) a Twilight genre reprise—Hardwicke was certainly brought in to assure a large box office demographic. Together, these roles should continue the escalation of Seyfried as a prominent figure in the American pop culture vernacular. It is fitting that Seyfried is our choice for the final in a year of Yankettes, as her talents as a singer in the role of Sophie helped Phyllida Lloyd’s film adaptation of stage hit Mammia Mia become football-crazed England’s highest grossing film of all time a year and a half-ago, and made the young American a darling of Hollywood blogs across the globe.
While there is no shortage of confidence here at The Yanks are Coming that being selected as a Yankette is a huge deal, and there’s no debate that it is fun to be a Hollywood, Perez Hilton darling, we’re willing to bet Seyfried’s role of Red Riding Hood will cast her into a new category, that of icon. Anytime a beautiful and talented young actress can get her name on the top of a film involving Leonardo DiCaprio, it’s a strong indicator that they are moving into the Esquire “Women We Love” category, which for a young actress is that place beyond the thunder that ensures your films will have great box-office allure.
Our selection of Amanda comes at a time when she’s already a fascinating figure in Hollywood, and it comes on the heels of perhaps her greatest exposure to date, her beautiful, bride-on-her-wedding-day Armani Prive white gown she wore to present “Best Original Song” alongside Miley Cyrus at this past Sunday’s Academy Awards.
Most impressive, beyond the elegance of the Oscar dress, was the simple, no frills chignon bun hairstyle that accompanied it, a graceful beauty-next-door look which was a doubtlessly wonderful personality juxtaposition to an actress who has advanced herself primarily by selecting at-times controversial roles (the aforementioned Jennifer’s Body, Chloe, and her HBO role on Big Love) with an astute fearlessness. Seyfried is not afraid to be criticized for utilizing her sexuality, but unlike other actresses who choose those roles because that is what is offered, Seyfried’s talent marginalizes that objectification and she seems to select those roles out of choice. Full credit to her for those choices, as they’ve produced a succession of work she can be proud of and an atmosphere of excitement about what’s to come.
Ironically, Seyfried is also slated to star in an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance, an English countryside drama about a womanizer and his various mistresses. Certainly what’s to come for Amanda will prove the young star, recently named # 4 on People Magazine’s “Most Beautiful 2009-Beautiful at Every Age” list, indicates she will hardly be a Woman of No Importance on the acting map in the future. For these reasons, the young starlet joins Anne Hathaway, Olivia Wilde, Megan Fox, Lady Gaga, Minka Kelly, Audrina Patridge, Blake Lively, Kirsten Dunst, Leighton Meester, Britney Spears and Ke$ha, and Rachel Maddow and rounds out our first year of “Women We Love” as the March Yankette of the Month.
Neil W. Blackmon is a senior writer for The Yanks Are Coming. He can be reached at neil@yanksarecoming.com or @nwb_USMNT.