“The Testament of Ann Lee” star Amanda Seyfried said there was nothing easy about the role. However, the challenges she faced portraying the real-life founder of the Shakers taught her she is able “to do things I didn’t think I could do.”
Directed and co-written by Mona Fastvold and co-starring Lewis Pullman, the film is a musical retelling of the founding of the controversial and often persecuted Christian sect and its colorful leader, with dancing and songs adapted from real life Shaker hymns. And it presented Seyfried with enormous challenges as an actress.
“You name it,” Seyfried told TheWrap’s Steve Pond Monday at the Toronto International Film Festival. “Getting over my own insecurities with playing somebody who had so much power and felt so strong-willed and someone so committed and someone so devoted. That’s it. That’s not me. But there’s so many qualities about her I could relate to.”
“In terms of what I couldn’t relate to, the accent, the technical aspect of the accent,” Seyfried continued. “I had to let go of my own ear when I’m listening to my own singing because it didn’t need to sound good, it just needed to sound devoted. Just needed to sound true, which is a different way of singing … It was just a lot. Choreography is like math to me; I don’t get it. So I had to work extra hard on that. Everything was hard about it. Everything.”
However, Seyfried said once she released herself to the idea that the role was going to be difficult, it ultimately added to her skillset as an actress.
“When you release yourself to the challenge of it, and you commit full-stem ahead, then the gifts are just there,” Seyfried said. “It’s unlimited. I’ve completely shifted my perspective on my own life because I was able to do things I didn’t think I could do. And I’d give Mona [Fastvold] what she deserved.”
Seyfried was joined by Fastvold and Pullman, who plays Ann’s brother William Lee. Fastvold said she discovered the story of Ann Lee through learning about Shakers member Patsy Roberts Williamson, a formerly enslaved Black woman who joined the sectafter they purchased her freedom.
“I stumbled upon a hymn by a woman named Patsy called ‘Pretty Mother’s Home,’ which is in the film a little bit together with the ‘I Love Mother’ hymn, and I thought that was really beautiful,” Fastvold explained. “I tried to figure out the history behind it and I discovered that it was a ‘gift song,’ as they call it, that was received by a woman named Patsy, who was a freed slave and who became a prominent leader within the Shakers.”
Intrigued by Williamson’s story, she dug deeper until she ran into the story of Lee.
“I thought, ‘What is this religion? Where in America where there’s a, in the early 1800s where there’s an African American woman who’s a religious leader … I’ve never heard about this before,” Fastvold said. “I started doing more research and I read about mother Anne and the Shakers. I just thought this is such a fascinating story. My background is in movement, and a lot of music, so I always wanted to bring that into my filmmaking even more so, but in an organic way, and this just felt like the perfect opportunity to do so because the Shakers were musical people … I thought I can ground this in a reality that kind of works within my cinematic language as well.”
Catch up on all of TheWrap’s TIFF coverage here.
Catch up on all of TheWrap’s TIFF coverage here.