Sydney Sweeney is coming off some pretty big wins lately and she’s ready to do more, which she finds somewhat problematic in a way. Just because her name is huge at the moment doesn’t mean she can just get any role she wants and she finds that very surprising.
Despite the fact that she began acting in 2009 as Lisa in ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction and went on to play Sarah Detzer in 2010’s The Opium Eater as well as Emily in 2013’s Spiders and Emma Hudson in 2015’s Stolen from Suburbia, she actually didn’t really start to dominate Hollywood until 2018 when she landed the role of Emaline in Everything Sucks!. Cast as Eden Spencer in The Handmaid’s Tale and Alice in Sharp Objects, 2018 was a busy year for the actress, who constantly displays her wide acting range as she gives her soul to the camera.
Her role as Cassie Howard in Euphoria was so good that she finds herself being sent roles similar to that and she has to fight for the roles she actually wants that are nothing like Cassie. In an interview with Variety she reveals, “There’s always people who see me as Cassie or see me as Olivia. They send me scripts that are just like that. It’s the ones I have to fight for that usually are the ones that I want that are different, like Reality. I had to audition for it. I had to put myself on tape and send in my audition just like everybody else.”
Sydney Sweeney as Reality
Sweeney actually met in person with Reality Winner, the whistleblower who was given the longest prison sentence for leaking government information to the press. Her story was turned into a screenplay and the Euphoria actress went for it with wild abandon because she saw the value in what Winner did, which was to confirm that Russia had indeed interfered with the 2016 Presidential election.
In her exclusive interview with Variety, she went on to explain, “It was the same for White Lotus. They didn’t think that I was right for White Lotus, because I did Euphoria. So I put myself on tape, I auditioned for White Lotus just like everybody else and had a call back like everybody else. I could get offered roles that are similar to the ones that I’ve played, but the ones that are different, the ones that surprise people that I do, are the ones that I usually have to fight for.”
It has happened to many stars in Hollywood’s history that they get typecast, and when they get strongly identified with a particular character or role, it’s hard for them to break free from it. Sydney Sweeney could have an easy ride if she simply accepted the roles that were offered to her and basically played the same character movie after movie. However, it appears she has a much greater career path in mind and for that, she’s going to have to fight.
