The Testament of Ann Lee, Amanda Seyfried interview

"I think it just brings me deeper into myself when I'm, when I'm moving and, and vocalizing—not just singing, you know, just using my body to make sounds that I've never made or at least haven't made on screen before in front of people. I think it's like, it's, it's just... you know, people dance to feel alive, to feel closer to themselves.

Just connecting with dialogue and connecting as human beings speaking to each other is one thing and it's beautifully... um, it's profound and it's effective, beautifully effective, but it's also like to have another way, another medium, another way of expressing yourself is just so... um, it's impossible not to enhance the experience that you're having on earth, you know, connecting.

And so it's like, you know, people sing to feel better, people dance to feel better, and it's just—and you feel closer to yourself. That's just what happens. So yeah, I don't know, I, I, I will always look for some kind of musical aspect to a character to express myself in that way. And I'm lucky enough with this, this specific story that this woman expressed herself and her, and her prayer was based in, in vocalizing and movement. It's just like, it couldn't have been a more important project for me as an artist... so, as a human too, yeah.

It was gentle. The collaboration was gentle and it was slow and there was—it was consistent and there was, I was able to be patient with myself in a way that I haven't in a long time. Um, it... the whole process lacked judgment from anybody. We were all trying to make this crazy thing that seemed almost impossible. So it just felt like we were all on the same page.

It was, Mona was leading the ship for sure, but I know that, you know, as clear as her vision was, she also understood that it was going to be a challenge and it was going to be a challenge for everyone involved. And she collected a group of people that were ready for that challenge and completely, you know, game to go as far as we needed to go in order to make it.

And when you have that kind of equality, like Ann Lee strived for, you can do magical things. You can do a lot more when you're all on the same page and when you all believe in the, in the task, or the belief in the, the journey, I guess.

And so, yeah, it was—I had a lot of time. I mean, we all were working on other things, but we'd all come together in the most natural, organic ways to come back together. Like, to meet—I would meet Daniel on FaceTime and I would go into the studio and, like, throw—like, sing some things, and he would work with that, and he would send me demos of things that he was working on. And everybody was sharing all this information all the time because we were excited about it, not because we had to, because we wanted to.

And that also creates a, a really nice atmosphere. And then by the time you're on set, you have all you need. You just now get to bring it to life in a different way."