As sweet as Sweeney

The American actress describes her experience on set of her latest film Immaculate, a tale with a plot that kicks in when Sweeney’s character Cecelia, a novice nun, discovers she’s pregnant despite never having slept with a man. The 26 year old explains her love of horror films much like Immaculate but also how she won’t let the gore core of the film affect her desire to become a mother...

Image via @kerastase_official

Immaculate must have been one of the most fun films to shoot in your career?
It was a lot of fun! One of my big requests was by the end of this film I want to be drenched in blood. However I get there, I want it to be fun and exciting and gory. I am very glad that I got to experience all of that.

Did you have to detox after the film?
I was fully energised. I didn’t want it to end. It was so much fun.

Did the film deter you from having kids one day?
No, I have always wanted kids. I love a big family. I am not afraid. Motherhood is the most powerful strength that you can have.

To what extent could you connect with the spiritual themes of the film?
The main thing that I related to was Cecilia’s journey for a purpose. That was the whole reason she was going to a convent, because she was looking for meaning in her life and her place amongst others, and as a woman in mid-20s, you are constantly searching for what I am supposed to be, who am I supposed to be with and what can I give to the world. That was my biggest relation to her.

Image via @sydney_sweeney

When was the first time you figured out the meaning of life?
I am 26 years old. I don’t know the meaning of life.

You found your vocation in acting...
This is my passion and my love, but I don’t know if that’s my meaning.

Do you have any interest in religion personally?
No.

How was it working with the team on this film?
It’s really important to work together with people that listen to you and support you and want to make sure that your voice and opinion is heard. So I love surrounding myself with friends and people that I love working with. I’ve worked with [Director] Michael Mohan on projects before, I started working with him when I was 19. Our line producer is also a line producer from Euphoria. I brought him over to Immaculate. Our DP and production designer are also from Everything Sucks! and Voyeurs. I like to be able from Everything Sucks! and Voyeurs. I like to be able to surround myself with people you know you like to work with and spend time with. When you are on set for 10, 12 hours a day when the crew call wraps. You are with this group of people months before hand, prepping, location scouting, and then you are working together night, day, morning, you don’t sleep working on shot-listing and rewriting scenes and changing everything and figuring out the elements and then promoting.

Image via @sydney_sweeney

Do you like horror films in general?
My dad is a big horror fan. So I grew up watching movies with him.

What kind of movies stand out?
You have The Shining, Nightmare on Elm Street, Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, Jordan Peele’s Us – I love those. Silence of the Lambs, the list is endless, anything by John Carpenter!

What are your fears?
I have a phobia of needles. I don’t know where it comes from. I have had it since I was little and it is not like ‘I’m scared, I am screaming’. It’s like a real phobia, and I have not been able to figure out how to solve it.

You apparently had a serious accident when you were younger...
I wonder what you read...

Image via @sydney_sweeney

I can read it to you...
Please, I am really interested in this serious accident [laughs] what serious accident?

It says, “She had a wakeboarding accident as a child where the edge of her board propelled backwards...”

Oh [laughs] to me, that’s like getting a bruise on your knee. I have a scar here, you can see it. I got 19 stitches, I jumped the wake and when I landed, the tip of my board caught the water and it flipped me the wrong way, and my face was sliced with the board. I had to get stitches. That was it. I thought you meant a life-changing injury, but that was just being a kid and having fun!

Are you an optimist?
I see things always with a glass half full.

Have you always had this point-of-view or did you train yourself to see things like this?
It’s important to share happiness and try and make everybody’s days a little bit better.

What has made you happy today?
I had a really good oatmeal raisin cookie this morning – that made me happy.

Your life is being judged and under observation... How are you dealing with being propelled into the spotlight?
I just have to keep being myself, that’s it.

Is it hard?
No. I am just me.

Image via @sydney_sweeney

There was a bit of judgement and criticism after you acted in the Rolling Stones new music video. You said you felt empowered. Does it feel silly having people judging you?
I can’t control what people think, what people say, what people write about me. So I just keep doing what I like to do and finding things that excite me, make me feel good and challenge me in new ways. It starts a conversation, that’s social media.

In what ways has making Immaculate helped you to grow as a person and contributed to your personal development?
I have learned so much. It was like my first baby in a sense of being able to go after a script, put an entire team together, go into production and learn the entire mechanics of making a film from the ground up. It was a great one-on-one class of moviemaking.

Were you scared to put it out into the world?
No, because I know everybody has their own opinions about things. I can’t force people to love something or not. The same thing about Anyone But You. It was also my baby, I produced that and put the whole team together. Critics didn’t love it, but the audience did. The audience showed what they are looking for.

How do you feel about style and dressing for big red carpet events?
It’s fun to express yourself in different ways. I look at fashion as a way of finding different versions of yourself and bringing out different personalities, and I am having
fun with it. It’s cool to try new things and wear things that you can imagine. It’s cool.

Did you want to show your Marilyn Monroe side of style at the Vanity Fair Oscar party this year (which even CNN commented on)?
It’s funny. I just cut my hair. I was not really trying to do anything, just cut my hair. It was a nice little trim. 

Image via @sydney_sweeney

Can you protect yourself from all these judgements and live a regular life?
Yeah, I am a homebody. I just keep doing me.

What does being a homebody mean to you?
Cooking at home, hanging out with my dog, having my friends and family over, reading.

What’s been the most interesting book in the last couple of months?
I was filming a movie in Australia, it was about the Galapagos islands, so I started reading a bunch of Darwin, that was quite intensive. This book is 800 something pages long... you learn a lot about life and theories.

Is there a question about life where you’d like to have the answer for?
I am actually interested to know if people are seeing the same colors. That’s interesting to me. What I call blue, someone else might call blue, but it might be my purple.