Mean Girls Fame Led To Amanda Seyfried Suffering So Much It Felt Like 'Life Or Death'

Summary

• Mean Girls made Amanda Seyfried famous, but also caused her to suffer from severe anxiety and panic attacks.
• Seyfried feels the pressure to prove that she is a "normal" person despite her fame and success.
• Despite the negative effects, Seyfried still has a lot of love for Mean Girls.

Arguably one of the best teen movies of all time, Mean Girls is so beloved that fans want to know what the cast is up to now and what they think of the remake. One of the biggest keys to Mean Girls' success was its stellar cast, which is why the movie could have been completely different with another actor.

Thanks to Mean Girls' stellar legacy, the movie changed the careers of many of its stars. While Amanda Seyfried obviously was lucky to enjoy that kind of success, the movie also made her life a lot worse in a way that felt like "life and death".

Mean Girls Made Amanda Seyfried Feel Like She Might Be Dying

In 2004, Mean Girls came out and became a huge hit even though nobody saw that coming. As a result of that success, most of the main stars of Mean Girls went on to enjoy a lot of success. Despite that, Amanda Seyfried later revealed how Mean Girls led to her suffering a lot.

Now that it has been roughly two decades since Mean Girls was released, it can be difficult to remember certain facts about the movie. A perfect example of that is the fact that most fans don't realize that Mean Girls was Seyfried's debut movie.

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Before starring in Mean Girls, Seyfried had starred in As the World Turns for a while and made appearances in the soap opera, All My Children. As a result, of her limited filmography at the time, there is no doubt that Mean Girls is the project that made Seyfried famous.

Since Mean Girls first made Seyfried famous, she has enjoyed an extremely successful acting career. According to Celebrity Net Worth, all of her success has allowed Seyfried to accumulate an impressive $16 million fortune.

Considering how wealthy Seyfried is, there is no doubt that she is very fortunate. On top of that, there are millions of people all over the world who want to be actors and can only dream of enjoying a small fraction of Seyfried's success.

What many of those people fail to consider, however, is that fame isn't all it's cracked up to be in some important ways. Unfortunately for Seyfried, in 2021 she told Today about a couple of ways her fame has affected her profoundly negatively.

As Seyfried explained while being interviewed by Willie Geist, she feels a lot of anxiety and has serious panic attacks because of being in the spotlight. Seyfried went on to elaborate that her panic attacks are so severe that they feel "like life or death".

People who've never gone through a panic attack may struggle to understand the gravity of Seyfried's panic attacks. Fortunately, Seyfried went on to further explain how impactful her panic attacks are.

"That's what a panic attack is, really. Your body just goes into fight or flight. The endorphin rush and the dump that happens after the panic attack is so extraordinary. You just feel so relieved and your body is just kind of recovered in a way. It's so bizarre because it's physiological, but it starts in your head."

Based on what Seyfried said about her panic attacks, she suffers them due to the pressures of fame. As a result, there is no doubt that Mean Girls directly led to the situation that caused Seyfried to go through serious panic attacks.

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As Seyfried's Today interview continued, the actor revealed another way that the fame she got from Mean Girls haunts her. According to Seyfried, the beloved actor constantly feels compelled to prove that she isn't an out-of-touch celebrity with a giant ego.

Seyfried began talking about wanting to be seen for who she is by saying that she really wants people to recognize how "normal" she is. Seyfried then brought up some examples of what her life is like. "I do not have someone waking me up with breakfast in bed, and I'm not chauffeured around."

From there, Seyfried elaborated on how important being perceived as normal is to her.

"And every time I meet someone new, I'm just so desperate for them to understand that you can talk to me. I wanna connect like everybody else, because I am like everybody else."

Amanda Seyfried Still Embraces Mean Girls

Given that Mean Girls ultimately led to some problems in Amanda Seyfried's life, it would be understandable if she had hard feelings about the movie. Failing that, it would make sense if Seyfried at least had mixed feelings about the beloved teen comedy.

Based on what Seyfried has said about Mean Girls over the years, however, she seems to have a lot of love for the film. One example of that is in 2023 when Seyfried spoke to Vanity Fair about how perfectly she and her co-stars mixed from the start.

"There was just a vibe, they cast it right."

In 2022, Seyfried spoke to Interview Magazine about her Mean Girls co-stars again. In that case, Seyfried told the publication how much she would cherish getting to work with her former co-stars again portraying the same characters.

"I would kill just to do one week, all of us playing our own roles on 'Mean Girls' on Broadway."

On top of Seyfried's comments about her former co-stars, she has embraced Mean Girls' legacy in another way. In January 2023, Seyfried told Teen Vogue what she thought about the idea of appearing in the 2024 musical remake.

"I'm very open to it."