Amanda Seyfried Cries as “The Testament of Ann Lee” Earns 15-Minute Standing Ovation at Venice Film Festival
- - Amanda Seyfried Cries as “The Testament of Ann Lee” Earns 15-Minute Standing Ovation at Venice Film Festival
Jen JuneauSeptember 2, 2025 at 4:09 AM
Venice Film Festival
Amanda Seyfried in The Testament of Ann Lee (2025) -
Amanda Seyfried's The Testament of Ann Lee received a 15-minute standing ovation at the Venice International Film Festival, the longest so far of any movie at the event
The actress was seen tearing up at the reception as she stood among her fellow cast and crew, including director/co-writer Mona Fastvold
The premiere came hours after Seyfried opened up at a press conference about her unique experience playing the film's titular religious leader, saying there were "no tethers"
The first reactions to Amanda Seyfried's latest movie hit her right in the feels.
Following the world premiere of The Testament of Ann Lee during the Venice International Film Festival on Monday, Sept. 1, the Mona Fastvold-directed historical musical drama earned a 15-minute standing ovation — the longest so far of any film at this year's event, surpassing the 13 minutes of applause given to Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein over the weekend.
Seyfried, 39, was captured getting emotional at the ovation in video footage shared by Variety that showed her crying as she gazed around in awe at her colleagues, including director/co-writer Fastvold, while they took in the reception.
Per a synopsis from the festival, The Testament of Ann Lee is "an epic fable inspired by the life of Ann Lee, the founder of the Shakers, a radical religious movement that began in the late 1700s."
As Fastvold described in a statement shared with the festival, in part, "Our film is a speculative retelling of the life of Ann Lee, one of the few female religious leaders of the 18th century. She and her followers, known as the Shakers, worshipped through ecstatic song and movement — trembling, exuberant and physically expressive acts of devotion."
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Pascal Le Segretain/Getty
Amanda Seyfried at the world premiere of The Testament of Ann Lee during the Venice International Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Sept. 1, 2025
Ahead of the premiere on Monday, Seyfried opened up at a press conference about her unique experience playing the film's titular religious leader.
"This did feel like an opportunity where there were just no tethers to anything," she said. "Basically, I follow Mona into the light and anything goes, because there's so much freedom, and the only threat is to not use that freedom to your advantage as an artist to go as far deep as you can go to make the craziest sounds. I've never been let loose in this way."
Asked why she cast Seyfried in the lead role, Fastvold said during the Venice press conference, "Amanda has a lot of power. She's really strong. She is a wonderful mother. She is a little mad. And so I knew that she could access those things — she could access the kindness, the gentleness, the tenderness. And she could also access this power and this madness."
Added the director, 39, "And I think that, at our age, there is something really exciting about exploring the combination of all of that. And I saw that Amanda has all of that, and that she was ready to go full force into that."
Daniele Venturelli/WireImage
Amanda Seyfried at the Venice International Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Sept. 1, 2025
Seyfried, who also sings in The Testament of Ann Lee, said during the press conference that making the film was an "incredible," experience, but noted that "it's also really hard playing somebody who's a leader."
"Like yes, I relate to the mother instincts, I relate to the need for community and kindness and compassion and the quality. And I love Mona's intentions and Ann Lee's intentions behind everything they did, and it was just so attractive," the Emmy Award winner explained.
But at the same time, "I also was like, 'Mona, you don't have to cast me,' " Seyfried admitted. "I kept saying, 'Go with somebody English,' because the accent seemed so hard. That wasn't the hardest part but it was just, I saw the love that Mona had. This was her baby, and I didn't want to F it up. But she believed in me, so I believed in me, and here we are."
Aside from Seyfried, The Testament of Ann Lee's cast includes Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Stacy Martin, Tim Blake Nelson, Christopher Abbott, Matthew Beard, Scott Handy, Jamie Bogyo, Viola Prettejohn and David Cale.
Fastvold penned the movie's screenplay alongside husband Brady Corbet, with whom she also wrote Oscar favorite The Brutalist (2024). That film was up for 10 Academy Awards and won three, including Best Actor for Adrien Brody.
The Venice International Film Festival runs through Saturday, Sept. 6. An official release date for The Testament of Ann Lee has not yet been announced.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
