Sydney Sweeney is in her letting-loose era.
The “Euphoria” and “White Lotus” Emmy nominee told IndieWire that upcoming rom-com “Anyone but You” unlocked a new level of comedy in her career. Sweeney marks her first foray into the romantic comedy genre alongside “Top Gun: Maverick” breakout and “Set It Up” leading man Glen Powell for the rated-R comedy, co-starring Dermot Mulroney, Rachel Griffiths, Alexandra Shipp, Michelle Hurd, Darren Barnett, Hadley Robinson, Bryan Brown, and Gata.
“I feel like I learned from everybody. I worked with Dermot, Rachel, [director] Will Gluck. Everybody on set were just comedy legends,” Sweeney said while on the red carpet for HBO’s New York screening of her upcoming “Reality.” “I feel like we just laughed every day.”
She added, “That’s what I learned, which was to have fun and be crazy and let loose and not be self-conscious about anything.”
“Anyone but You” is helmed by Will Gluck (“Easy A,” “Friends with Benefits”) from a script co-written by Ilana Wolpert. The film is billed as a modern retelling of William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” with Sweeney and Powell starring as two college arch-nemeses who reunite years after graduation for a destination wedding and pretend to be a couple for their own personal reasons. Sweeney is executive producing for her Fifty-Fifty banner.
Sweeney will soon be seen in HBO Films’ true crime drama “Reality,” centered on ex-Air Force member and NSA translator Reality Winner who was imprisoned for the unauthorized release of government information to the media — leading to FBI director James Comey being fired for the investigation into how Russian interference affected the 2016 election.
“I actually wasn’t familiar with ‘Reality’s’ story,” Sweeney said of received director Tina Satter’s script, which uses dialogue from Reality Winner’s real interrogation by the FBI. “I was completely blown away by the fact that it was a real transcript. You can’t write dialogue like this. Once I realized this was the real conversation, I knew I had to dig even deeper and figure out what it was.”
Sweeney called the performance “claustrophobic,” adding, “You have your space being invaded and as the minutes go on, the walls just feel like they’re shrinking in and her world is fully closing in on her. I can’t imagine watching and reliving that moment. She definitely supports the film and her mom and sister have watched it with us but it would be hard to watch it back in real time.”
