Sydney Sweeney appears on our Zoom with nicely curled hair and freshly winged eyes. When she jokes about the muted floral- and crane-littered wallpaper behind her (which she bought on Etsy and installed herself), she appears chill—Zoomer-speak for comfortable, at peace, and easygoing, someone in touch with themselves. Hollywood’s newest It Girl, who is the queen of Gen Z personalities, has decided to relax. It’s astonishing that, at the age of 25, she can keep her cool even as her life increasingly deviates from the usual.
When we speak, she’s been on a series of night shoots for a confidential project, filming until 6 or 7 a.m., and her days off are spent shooting ad campaigns for Armani, Laneige, and Tory Burch. She’s also preparing for awards season, having received two Emmy nods for her roles: Cassie Howard, a self-destructive high schooler who’s still coming into her own on HBO’s Euphoria, and Olivia Mossbacher, the personification of a teenage Twitter troll in Mike White’s The White Lotus.
These days, she rarely gets to be “normal Syd,” as she describes it, working on old vehicles, baking, and going on hikes. However, the pace is what keeps the Spokane, Washingtоn native going. She shot her first two major series, Netflix’s Everything Sucks! in Oregon and Hulu’s Sharp Objects in California, concurrently, flying from set to set as needed. “I learned that I thrived on hectic craziness,” she recalls. “I knew that this was my dream, that my dream was coming true—and I was going to work even harder to make sure that I kept building the career that I wаnted.”
After more than 13 years in the business, she has carved out a profession in which her nаme is on everyone’s lips and her face is frequently plastered all over the internet. However, it is evident that she prefers to reserve viral moments for her characters. “I have terrible stage frigҺt, so I wish someone would’ve told me how much, as Sydney, I would have to speak, because I feel safer in my characters,” she said. When she talks about one of them, whether Olivia or Cassie, her eyes light up. She clearly throws her heart and energy into her parts, and while her outer persona may be laid-back, her work ethic is far from it. What happens next? Marvel’s Madame Web. “I fought for the character,” Sweeney says of her role. “It’s been a really incredible journey that I’m very, very excited to be a part of.”
