Amanda Seyfried and Tommy Sadoski (Jojo Magotes photo above + video below)
"I like to talk about the emus.
I like to talk about Halloween.
And you can engage with me
I like to talk about Halloween.
And you can engage with me
if you want to talk about all things
having to do with apple pie and olives
and really good hard ciders."
Here is the full text from my so-called interview with Amanda Seyfried on October 17, 2026 at the Academy Museum Gala in L.A. right after her interview with the Hollywood Reporter.
JOJO MAGOTES: Hi, Amanda! Good to see you again, it's been awhile. I think the last time we spoke in person was the summer of 2017 in Bennington. You and Tommy walked into the gallery with your newborn daughter and bought a couple pieces of art. With a little encouragement on my part you sat down at the old piano with its wonky keys and played a piece of your favorite Billy Joel song. You were super nervous but it was endearing to watch and you did a nice job while Tommy looked at you with adoring eyes and I thought it was a really neat moment in the gallery.
AMANDA: Yeah, I've watched that video over the years, and it's a little embarrassing, but I think you captured the essence of who I am. I'm willing to try anything in the spur of the moment, and I appreciate that you asked me to step out of my comfort zone by playing the piano. I'll always love that Billy Joel song. I've been working on it for the last couple years actually.
JOJO MAGOTES: OK, Amanda, let's get on with this. I caught the end of your interview with the Hollywood Reporter. That was a bit of a head scratcher, huh?
AMANDA: For sure that's one word for it. Head Scratcher.
JOJO MAGOTES: What about that list of things you'd rather talk about instead of why the Internets hates on you right now? I don't quite understand the outrage.
AMANDA: Here's what I said: "I like to talk about the emus. I like to talk about Halloween. And you can engage with me if you want to talk about all things having to do with apple pie and olives and really good hard ciders."
JOJO MAGOTES: So let's do that. No heavy stuff. Just the list which is more interesting than person, woman, man, camera, TV.
AMANDA (laughs): Thank God. Nobody ever actually listens to the list. They hear the list and then they ask about the heavy stuff anyway, but louder. They ask about Elizabeth Holmes anyway, but louder. Or about Billy — Billy what's-his-name, Evans — but louder. Or about Nathan, the director guy, but louder. You're the first person tonight who heard the list and just ... did the list.
JOJO MAGOTES: Let's start with emus?
AMANDA: The emu manages me now. I don't know when that started.
JOJO MAGOTES: So it's just one emu not a pack of emus?
AMANDA: Yes, just one emu, and it just — it books my jobs, it reads my scripts, and it rejected three of them by standing in the doorway until the director left. It takes ten percent of everything I earn and spends it on grapes and silence. I tried to fire it and it said, through its lawyer — it doesn't have a lawyer, I gave it a lawyer, I don't know why I did that — it said you can't fire the thing that's been waiting for you since before you were born. It wrote my eulogy. It's four words long and I'm not allowed to see it. And the thing is, Jojo Magotes, the emu stares at me, and when it stares at me I start talking lower. Like this. Lower. Slower. I don't know why. I don't know. That's not my voice. That's — that's her voice. I didn't used to talk like that. The emu did that. The emu stared me into her voice. I blame the emu. I blame the emu for that.
JOJO MAGOTES: What about Halloween, Amanda?
AMANDA: In years past I've gone as the concept of Tuesday, which nobody understood, including me. This year I'm going as an apology letter. Not a person apologizing — the letter. Four hundred pages. It just says "regarding the incident" over and over, and the incident is never specified, which is the scariest part, because everyone who reads it assumes it's about them. I hand out candy like a normal girl next door, except I run out of candy, so I hand out black olives, and the kids just stare at me, and one of them says "lady, are you okay," and I say "I'm great, I'm having a great Halloween," and I'm crying, but like, in a nice way? In a friendly way? Because I'm still — I'm still the girl next door, I just don't live next door to myself anymore. And the costume won't come off. You can't take off an apology letter, you can only keep writing it. So I'm still writing it. I'm writing it right now. On this carpet. In front of you. Regarding the incident. Regarding the incident. (small laugh, wiping her eyes) Sorry. Halloween's my favorite. It really is.
JOJO MAGOTES: What does the costume for a 400 page apology letter even look like?
AMANDA: Okay, so, it's a dress, but it's not a dress, it's four hundred pages stapled together in the shape of a dress, and every page just says "regarding the incident," and the incident is never specified, so people keep walking up to me going "is this about me," and I have to go "I don't know, is it," and then they cry, and then I cry, and then we're both crying in a pile of pages. And there's a veil, but the veil is the cover page, and the cover page just says "SORRY" in really big letters, and then underneath it, in tiny letters, it says "but not for that," and nobody knows what "that" is, including me. And the train — the train goes on for, like, three blocks, and every page on the train is blank except the last one, which says "see attached," and there is no attachment, there never was an attachment, the attachment is the costume, you're wearing the attachment. And the best part — the best part is the pockets. The pockets are full of extra pages, so if anyone wants a copy, I just hand them a page, and they read it, and they go "this is just the same page," and I go "I know, that's the apology, it's the same apology, four hundred times, because I couldn't think of a new one." And it rustles when I walk. It rustles like a secret. Like a really loud secret.
JOJO MAGOTES: I'm almost afraid to ask about apple pie.
AMANDA (smirking): Apple pie is safe because apple pie has never been asked about its personal life. Apple pie doesn't have a documentary. Apple pie gets baked, it gets eaten, it gets to leave. Nobody stands apple pie on a carpet for forty-five minutes asking it to explain itself while cameras click in its face. But the pie — the pie told me things. The pie said I was honest, and then the pie's lawyer, Crust, said I couldn't say it was good, because the pie disputes that, and then the pie died, natural causes, meaning someone ate it while crying, and we held a funeral, and the ice cream came in a black veil and melted during the eulogy. And I cried at the funeral. I cried as Amanda. I think I cried as Amanda. The pie made me cry as Amanda, and then the pie made me cry as — no. Stop. The pie is to blame for that. I blame the apple pie.
JOJO MAGOTES: So tell us about the green olives. Or is that black olives? Or is it a combination of olives? Is it an olive medley? Are they martini olives?
AMANDA: Not green. Black. Green olives are young, they still believe in things, black olives have seen things. They're not just a decoration in a martini glass, you know? People think they are, and they're not. The olive is preserved. That's the whole thing. It doesn't rot. It just sits in the brine and waits. And the brine is — the brine is where you figure out who you are, except the brine figured me out wrong, because I went in as Amanda and I came out as — no. No, I'm Amanda. I'm Amanda right now. Mostly.
CAMERA: (click click click click)
AMANDA: See? That's the sound of my feelings being documented. Next. Cider.
JOJO MAGOTES: Moving along now ... what are your thoughts on hard cider, Amanda?
AMANDA: Hard cider is what you drink when you want to be somewhere else but your feet have to stay here. It's apples that gave up on being solid, and I respect that, because I want to give up on being solid. I want to become a feeling and evaporate over the hedge. But I can't, because I'm standing here, and I'm solid, and everyone can see me being solid. The cider wrote a memoir about me, and then it got sober, and a sober cider remembers everything, and now it just sits in my fridge, not saying anything, just existing at me. And the cider is to blame too. The cider told me to keep going. The cider said, "you're doing great," in a low voice, in her voice, and I believed it, because the cider was right there, and I was right there, and she was right there, and I don't know where she ends anymore. I don't know. I blame the cider.
JOJO MAGOTES: Okay, I have to ask this, because everyone watching is thinking it. Amanda — why do you keep blinking so much at me? You keep closing your eyes for seconds at a time. Like, full seconds. What's happening there? Is this another Elizabeth Holmes moment? Do you think I'm Nathan Fielder in this cosplay interview? I'm not Canadian if that's what you're implying.
AMANDA: You don't strike me as Canadian. But to answer the question, every time I close my eyes, I'm somewhere else for a second. I'm home. I'm in a field. I'm nowhere near a carpet. The blink is the only door out of here that nobody can block. They can block the actual doors — trust me, I've checked, there's a velvet rope situation — but they cannot block the blink. So I take long ones. I take the longest ones I can take without someone asking if I'm okay, and then someone always asks if I'm okay, and then I have to open my eyes and be here again, where the cameras are, and the emu is, and the olive is, and you are, asking me about the blinking, which is the one thing that was working. And when my eyes are closed, I'm Amanda. I know I'm Amanda when my eyes are closed. It's when I open them that I get confused. Because she's there. In the cameras. Looking back at me.
JOJO MAGOTES: So the blinks are... escapes.
AMANDA: (another long blink, even longer) The blinks are vacations. Tiny ones. All-inclusive. No cameras. No her.
JOJO MAGOTES: I see. Looks like you're being herded to the next interview but before you go — what did you name the emu?
AMANDA: Ambassador Doctor Cornelius Q. Featherstonehaugh-Waddlesworth the Third, Esquire, Grand Vizier of the Gravel Lot and Rightful Heir to the Concept of Waiting.
JOJO MAGOTES: Why such an absurd name?
AMANDA: Because the emu eats short names. I tried Kevin. Gone. Steve. Gone. So I gave it a name too long to swallow in one sitting. It's been chewing on it for three years and still hasn't finished. The name is the only thing in my life the emu can't finish, and that's why I sleep at night. And now I've said it twice, which means he's heard me, which means he's coming, which means this interview is actually over. (already turning toward the doors) When I open my eyes I will be inside, and you will be out here, and the emu will be standing exactly where I was, and nobody will be able to tell the difference. Nobody ever can.
JOJO MAGOTES: One last question, Amanda, I swear — what did you do with the Emmy you won for playing Elizabeth Holmes?
AMANDA: The man from Mars ate it. Along with the bars and guitars and Cadillacs and Subarus.
JOJO MAGOTES: The man from Mars ate your Emmy?
AMANDA: He eats cars, Jojo Magotes! What did you think was going to happen to it?
JOJO MAGOTES: Is that a hint about your next role? Are you going to play Blondie?
AMANDA blinked a few times, started laughing as she walked away, turned her head toward me, and with her trademark devilish smile began singing ...
Toe to toe
Dancing very close
Barely breathing
Almost comatose
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