The most anticipated TV shows of 2025
USA TODAY TV critic Kelly Lawler shares her top 5 TV shows she is most excited for this year
For Amanda Seyfried, making a cop show set in Philadelphia was more than just a job. It was her civic duty.
The actress grew up about an hour north of the city in Allentown, Pennsylvania, but some of her most “magical experiences as a kid” were in Philly. So when she got the call about Peacock’s “Long Bright River” (all episodes now streaming), she was “overwhelmed” with a desire to get it right. After all, the series would shoot in Brooklyn, and it was up to her to determine how much or how little she’d lean into a regional dialect.
“I felt like I owed it to Philly, and I trusted that my own Philly pride would show through,” Seyfried says, sipping rosé and eating whole-grain Cheez-Its as she chats over Zoom. Her fears were quickly assuaged after going on a ride-along with local police: “They were like, ‘You’re one of ours!’ I was like, ‘I’m not, but thank you.’ And they said, ‘Nah, it’s close enough!’”
‘Long Bright River’ was ‘eye-opening’ for Emmy winner Amanda Seyfried
“Long Bright River” follows Mickey (Seyfried), an empathetic officer who patrols the low-income neighborhood of Kensington and strives to raise her young son, Thomas (Callum Vinson), as a single mom. But when several sex workers turn up dead, Mickey begins to suspect it’s not just drugs but a serial killer befalling these women.
The show continues a dramatic streak of roles for Seyfried, 39, who made her movie debut in 2004’s “Mean Girls” and endeared herself to audiences in comedies and musicals such as “Jennifer’s Body,” “Les Misérables” and the “Mamma Mia!” franchise. In 2021, she earned her first Oscar nomination for David Fincher’s Old Hollywood throwback “Mank,” and a year later, she picked up an Emmy Award for playing disgraced biotech star Elizabeth Holmes in the Hulu series “The Dropout.”
Seyfried always vaguely recognized Kensington as an “epicenter of the opioid epidemic.” However, in the leadup to filming “Long Bright River,” she met with volunteer programs and harm-reduction services in the neighborhood and discovered “a community that supports each other and is incredibly resilient.” As someone who lost an uncle to addiction, she hopes the series can help “breed compassion” for those struggling with substance abuse.
“If I was going to leave my family five nights a week, it was going to be for something that was really important,” says Seyfried, who has two kids ‒ Nina, 7, and Thomas, 4 ‒ with actor husband Thomas Sadoski. “Would I rather do comedy? Of course. The levity and challenge of that is really fun. But this strikes so close to home for so many people with the addiction storyline, including me.”
After two decades in Hollywood, the ‘Dropout’ star knows her worth
Seyfried recently reunited with filmmaker Atom Egoyan for the haunting thriller “Seven Veils” (now in theaters), portraying an opera director who wrestles with repressed trauma. The duo previously collaborated on 2009’s “Chloe,” which Seyfried considers the first time she truly had a say on set.
“I remember Atom asking me questions and really creating a rapport that made me feel like I was a peer at that age,” recalls Seyfried, who was 24 at the time. “I look back and I didn’t feel like a kid on that film; I felt like I had an opinion that mattered.”
Seyfried has continued to use her voice as an executive producer on “The Dropout,” “Long Bright River” and the upcoming “The Housemaid” with Sydney Sweeney. She’s also never shied away from speaking up about inequity: While promoting 2018’s “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again,” the actress called out the studio for playing hard to get in negotiating a new contract and suggesting they could simply recast her for the sequel.
“The ‘Mamma Mia!’ thing felt very personal because it was someone I had worked with for years,” Seyfried says. “It felt dirty because I don’t work that way; what you see is what you get with me. But for the most part, I try not to go into situations where I think it’s even possible to be undermined. Life’s too short. I can see it from a mile away and I don’t need to be part of it.”
Now, “I definitely know my value, and what space I want to fill and hang out in. At the end of the day, it’s all about principle, and I feel very respected at this moment.”
What’s next for Seyfried? ‘Mamma Mia 3’ and a Target birthday party
In conversation, Seyfried is drolly funny and easygoing. She muses about what ABBA tune she’d like to hear in the long-gestating “Mamma Mia 3” (“The joke was always to crowbar something crazy in, like ‘King Kong Song’”). She’s continually shocked by how many people love her early aughts rom-coms (“I meet ‘Letters to Juliet’ fans more than you could possibly imagine”). And while she’s flattered by all the raves for her viral “Tonight Show” performance of Joni Mitchell’s “California,” she handwaves away any notion of portraying the folk icon in a biopic (“That’s immense pressure on an actor”).
The actress, who lives on a farm in upstate New York, already has big plans for her 40th birthday in December, which include brunching with friends and wandering around Target. “I have it all mapped out,” she jokes. “Get drunk, grab a double espresso, stand around Spot’s Corner (discount aisle), don’t put anything in the cart, and move on to the crafts section.”
As she goes into her 40s, “I’m excited about knowing as much as I can about menopause before it hits me. I want to know everything,” she says. “I want to build more trails on the land, and I just want to be around for my kids. It’s hard to think about the future ‒ I’m where I want to be, truly. I’ve got a lot of balls in the air, but that’s never going to change.”
The other night, she had a dream she was in Budapest again, shooting a project “that wasn’t very good. Then I was like, ‘I don’t want to be away from my kids for this! Seems dumb!’ So I had to tell everybody I was leaving and they’d have to recast me, but I stood by my decision.
“That shows you where you are in life when you’re dreaming about it!”
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