Sydney Sweeney is building an empire

Sweeney doesn't share these stories with a sense of anger or injustice. It's just their lived experiences. “I’m never one to hold a grudge,” she says. “I don't believe that the perception of the world can change through hate. Hate solves nothing.”

It was all a lot for a young girl, Sweeney admits, but she can look back with a sense of gratitude for how it shaped her. “For 20 years I was that person,” she says. “It’s only in the last five years that my life has changed and grown. For most of my life I was a completely normal person. You didn’t see it because I wasn’t famous.”

She may feel Inside she's still the same as ever, but to the outside world it seemed a little like Sydney Sweeney had come out of nowhere in 2018. She got memorable roles in The Handmaid's Tale And Sharp objects This was soon followed by an appearance with Quentin Tarantino Once upon a time in Hollywood. That alone would have been a major achievement for an actor who has been featured as “Little Girl” on IMDB more than once. But within three years, she became a household name thanks to the one-two punch in two hit HBO series: euphoria And White lotus, Both earned her Emmy nominations.

While success has been great, this year in particular has seen Sweeney go from a rising It girl to a stardom found only among the stars whose signed photos now surround us in her office. She began the year 2024 and celebrated the theatrical success of Everyone but you, a romantic riff Much ado about nothing in which she starred alongside Powell. The film was the first she executive produced under her production company Fifty-Fifty Films. It did so well at the box office that it became the most successful Shakespeare adaptation of all time, displacing popular classics such as West Side Story And 10 things I hate about you. Next she was hosting Saturday Night Live, starred in the big-budget superhero film Madam Web with Dakota Johnson, and followed with Immaculate, a gory and well shot horror film.

It's the latter project that gave Sweeney the opportunity to truly flex her newfound power: the script lay in purgatory (pun intended) for a decade before the actor, eager to add a spooky flick to the cast of Fifty-Fifty, remembered from a past audition and nailed it.

“It's a weird feeling when people say, 'Oh, you're successful,' or say, 'You did it,'” Sweeney says. “It doesn’t feel like it because I have so much more I want to accomplish and achieve. I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of what I want to do in my life.”

Two more exciting thrillers will follow in the next few months alone: Eden, a Ron Howard-directed survival epic; And Echo Valley, a drama written by Easttown mare Creator Brad Ingelsby. Meanwhile, Sweeney has started boxing training for a Christy Martin biopic, and there's one further down the line Barbarella remake, which she says will be in the realm of “really big, world-building science fiction.” In her free time, she was the face of Miu Miu, Armani Beauty, Kérastase and Laneige.

“She knew what she wanted from the start,” said Jennifer Millar, who has represented Sweeney for more than a decade. “She knew how to get there and she did it.”

Sweeney wouldn't argue. “I definitely think through everything I do and every move I make,” she says. “Nothing happens that I do by chance, but I am also very flexible about the steps that need to be taken. It is important. This industry is like playing chess.”

At times the game frustrated her. She was recently at Disney World when her team informed her that an online tabloid had dug into court records and found her parents' bankruptcy filings. It was difficult for Sweeney to open up about this part of her past, and it was like salt in the wound when she was accused of making it up to appear more relatable. But the story was published without much fanfare. “The truth was revealed against my will, but then no one cares,” she says. “Suddenly I thought, 'Oh wait, she actually had this experience,' and it wasn't interesting anymore.”