Amanda Seyfried Opens Up: Why Are Mother Roles Surging After Her Baby's Arrival?

 Amanda Seyfried reflected on being cast as a mother at the Berlin Film Festival press conference for her new film “Seven Veils,” saying that “it seems like once I popped out a baby, I was just playing mothers.” However, the mom of two does feel the roles she’s been given have “become way richer.”

In “Seven Veils,” Seyfried plays Jeanine, a theater director who is forced to deal with repressed trauma as she prepares a production of the opera “Salome.” When asked if she related to the character, Seyfried said she sympathized with Jeanine’s struggles as a mother.

“In my career, it’s still a bit new to play a mother. It seems like once I popped out a baby, I was just playing mothers, and that’s Hollywood for you. But I do think that the roles have become way richer and definitely challenging in ways that I didn’t have earlier in my career,” Seyfried said. 

“I felt like Jeanine, specifically as a mother, trying to figure out where she stands in her life as a parent and as a wife who is so on the precipice of separating from her husband — she’s kind of hanging on a thread everywhere and not being taken as seriously as she’d like to in her career, just wanting more.”

Seyfried continued, “With every really good script and really fleshed-out character, I always am able to reflect on my own life. That’s just a side effect of my job, which I kind of love.”

She added that the character of Jeanine is “very human, and she’s dealing with things as they come and she’s not a perfect person.”

“I loved showing sides of her that weren’t attractive,” Seyfried said. “I think that’s really necessary in any story, because none of us are perfect.”

Directed and written by Atom Egoyan, “Seven Veils” also stars Rebecca Liddiard, Douglas Smith, Ambur Braid, Mark O’Brien, Vinessa Antoine, Michael Kupfer-Radecky and Maia Jae Bastidas. Egoyan, Smith and Braid were also on hand for the press conference.

“Seven Veils” world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. The film is holding its international premiere at the Berlinale on Thursday night in its Special Gala section.