Amanda Seyfried and Adam Brody on Making ‘Jennifer’s Body,’ Surviving ‘O.C.’ Fame and ‘Mean Girls’: ‘Paramount Still Owes Me Money for the Likeness’

It’s fun­ny how the mem­o­ry of a demon­ic teenage girl who feasts on human flesh can spark nos­tal­gia. But that’s how it works with Aman­da Seyfried and Adam Brody.

The stars of two of this season’s buzzi­est shows — the har­row­ing cop dra­ma “Long Bright Riv­er” for Seyfried and the hit roman­tic com­e­dy “Nobody Wants This” for Brody — met almost 20 years ago on the set of Karyn Kusama’s cult hor­ror clas­sic “Jennifer’s Body.” Seyfried played the nerdy and devout best friend of Jen­nifer, the afore­men­tioned demon, played by Megan Fox, while Brody was cast as a douchey aspir­ing rock star who per­forms a satan­ic rit­u­al meant to bring fame, and winds up cre­at­ing a mon­ster.

Con­sid­ered a flop at the time, the film found new life and cross-gen­er­a­tional fans in sub­se­quent years. It also pro­vid­ed the per­fect occa­sion for a reunion for the actors, who have even more in com­mon than “Jennifer’s Body.” Seyfried bought Brody’s Hol­ly­wood home, and the two also shared a bed­room in “Lovelace,” the 2013 film about the trail­blaz­ing ’70s porn star Lin­da Lovelace. Here they rem­i­nisce about try­ing to get Har­vey Weinstein’s atten­tion for their ear­ly indies, par­ent­ing in show busi­ness and the over­whelm­ing fame they gained as teens with “Mean Girls” and “The O.C.” 

Aman­da Seyfried: Did you play that video game “Gui­tar Hero” with us on [the set of “Jennifer’s Body”]? 

Adam Brody: No. But I think you had a rental car, and we drove to a beach

Seyfried: Yep. We got high.

Brody: I don’t remem­ber that. I was too high to remem­ber that.

Seyfried: I don’t know if I could do pot again. I think I’m aller­gic to it. I had some bad expe­ri­ences. But I remem­ber that being the most peace­ful. That was prob­a­bly the last time. I might have also got­ten stoned with you at your house that I now own.

Brody: What a host.

Seyfried: You have an effect on peo­ple. Look at what’s hap­pen­ing: You’re in a hit show, and peo­ple are gasp­ing, “Adam Brody.”

Brody: I don’t think it’s pot-relat­ed. 

Seyfried: It’s just that you make peo­ple feel at ease. 

Brody: I real­ly appre­ci­ate that. I’m pret­ty attuned to people’s dis­com­fort.

Seyfried: Every­body watched “Nobody Wants This.” But with our shows, we’re talk­ing about oppo­sites when it comes to genre and tone. 

Brody: Yours is sad and drea­ry. And you’re in almost every frame. Was it a lot of heavy lift­ing? 

Seyfried: It was the first time I had been away from my kids five days a week. Our days were so long, I’d stay in the city and then I’d go home on the week­ends. That was a lot of “I’m here for you, kids. If I end up tak­ing a nap acci­den­tal­ly, you can cud­dle with me.”

Brody: You were a pro­duc­er on this as well. What did that mean? 

Seyfried: I was the kind of pro­duc­er whose agent just nego­ti­at­ed a cred­it. But I did have the lead­er­ship role on set. I was No. 1 on the call sheet, which was nice because you set the tone. If you’re a No. 2 or 3 and you have an ass­hole No. 1? The show can just be [awful]. 

Brody: I haven’t been a lead on a series in a while, and I enjoy say­ing, “OK, we’re all going to be here for a minute. This is the fam­i­ly; let’s get into a groove.” 

Seyfried: My friend Kather­ine Pope, who works with Liz Meri­wether and pro­duced “The Dropout,” sent me this beau­ti­ful book, “Long Bright Riv­er.” I thought, “OK, I’m ready for this.” The strike had just end­ed. 

What about you?

Brody: Kris­ten Bell and I are con­nect­ed in a few ways. I heard through the grapevine she was doing this and was real­ly rec­om­mend­ing me for it. I knew I had a job at the oth­er end of the strikes, and it did afford me some time do research. 

Seyfried: The show was orig­i­nal­ly called “Shik­sa.” 

Brody: It was. 

Seyfried: That’s a genius title. We need romance. 

Brody: That’s some­thing that I love doing. It doesn’t come your way that often, and if it does, it’s not good. They make [few­er romances] now. Romance and com­e­dy are a pure dopamine hit and were sore­ly need­ed in 2024. They’re going to be sore­ly need­ed in ’25. 

In terms of the inter­faith rela­tion­ship, I think it’s been relat­able. So many peo­ple have come up to me and said, “My wife is a shik­sa.” We’re a great stand-in for any dif­fer­ences between two peo­ple, philo­soph­i­cal or cul­tur­al. When you merge two indi­vid­u­als, growth and com­pro­mise is what you have to nav­i­gate. 

Seyfried: And it’s about what your fam­i­lies want. It’s “Romeo and Juli­et.” 

Brody: On “Long Bright Riv­er,” the kid who plays your son is so good. We’re par­ents of sim­i­lar-age kids, and I haven’t por­trayed a par­ent yet. Had you done that before?

Seyfried: As soon as the peo­ple of Hol­ly­wood under­stood that I popped some­thing out of my body, they’re like, “You’re a mom now.” And it comes with a lot of ben­e­fits. The roles are rich­er. Are you more col­lab­o­ra­tive now that you’re in the sec­ond sea­son of “Nobody Wants This”? Are you bring­ing your own ideas? 

Brody: It’s a very col­lab­o­ra­tive set, but I would say the first sea­son was so in flux that we were find­ing the show togeth­er. Now we know what we’re doing, so the die is cast and there’s a lit­tle less to dis­cuss.

Seyfried: Remem­ber when you played an icon­ic teenage char­ac­ter on “The O.C.”?

Brody: In my 20s. You were younger when you did “Mean Girls,” right? 

Seyfried: I was 17, the per­fect age for that. Except my mom had to live with me.

Brody: I was that Steve Busce­mi meme of the old man say­ing, “Hel­lo, fel­low kids.”

Seyfried: You weren’t that old. Are you kid­ding? The peo­ple from “90210” were in their 30s. 

Brody: Have you rewatched “Mean Girls”?

Seyfried: No. It’s on often enough though. I love it. I real­ly love see­ing my face on people’s T‑shirts. I’m a lit­tle resent­ful because Para­mount still owes me some mon­ey for the like­ness. Every store sells “Mean Girls” T‑shirts with our faces. Don’t I [get some­thing from that]? Even the girl at TSA tells me it’s her favorite movie. Oh my God, remem­ber when we did “Lovelace,” and I gave you a blow job?

Brody: An icon­ic blow job. The deep throat — the tit­u­lar deep throat. How do you feel about that movie now?

Seyfried: I had a great expe­ri­ence. It was a move towards attract­ing a lev­el of respect for skill as opposed to … I didn’t care about the recep­tion as much as just chang­ing the idea peo­ple had of me in the busi­ness. It’s just so easy to get pigeon­holed. 

Brody: I remem­ber Har­vey Wein­stein bought it. 

Seyfried: I had heard a few rumors about him, but not to the extent that it became. I invit­ed him to the screen­ing [at Sun­dance]. He showed up and said, “I bought it,” and I gave him the biggest hug. The whole room was buzzing. He was the big papa of the room — we all need­ed him to want our project if it was an indie, because that meant it was going to go some­where.

So 2003 was the year I grad­u­at­ed and did “Mean Girls,” and the year you start­ed “The O.C.” We both had these piv­otal career moments, and you became a pop star overnight. I can’t imag­ine that was easy.

Brody: It was. We were in a bub­ble. It was pre-social media. I can’t imag­ine it now. Now it seems like an incred­i­ble respon­si­bil­i­ty, where you could fuck your whole life up in one sec­ond. I’m real­ly impressed with some of these kids who have this awe­some respon­si­bil­i­ty of huge plat­forms, and some of them are brave and do what’s right.

Seyfried: I think doing what’s right is just hid­ing in a bunker. 

We’re mak­ing anoth­er [“Jennifer’s Body”]. Are you going to do it? 

Brody: I heard. I wasn’t con­tact­ed. I died [in the first one]. 

Seyfried: So did Megan Fox, and I’m not doing it with­out her.