Summary

Amanda Seyfried and Atom Egoyan — who previously worked together on Chloe — reteam for Seven Veils, a film about an obsessive and traumatized theater director.

Despite playing a director, Seyfried reveals why she has no interest in directing in real life.

Seyfried and Egoyan break down how the film adds to the intimacy coordinator conversation.

Making art about art often leads to an interesting, meta experience. From dramas like Tick, Tick… Boom! to comedies like Theater Camp to satires like Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), many films have tackled the unique challenges and beauty of making theater specifically. Seven Veils follows this tradition, though it leans into psychological thriller elements to do so. The film follows a director named Jeanine (Amanda Seyfried), who grapples with repressed trauma as she mounts a production of the opera Salome.
Director Atom Egoyan is no stranger to the complex themes he tackles in Seven Veils. His resume, which includes films like The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica, and Chloe (which also stars Seyfried), all deal with grief, obsession, and sex in their own ways. Jeanine shows yet another side of Seyfried’s wide range after being nominated for an Oscar for her work in Mank (coincidentally another “art about art” movie), winning an Emmy and Golden Globe for her portrayal of Elizabeth Homes in The Dropout, and starring in classics like Mamma Mia!, Mean Girls, and Jennifer’s Body (which might be getting a sequel!).
Collider got the chance to speak with Seyfried and Egoyan about why people shouldn’t be afraid that this film features opera, why intimacy coordinators “shouldn’t even be a debate,” and why Seyfried has no plans to direct even after playing a director in this film.
Amanda Seyfried Was Never an Opera Fan — Here’s Why She Signed On to Play an Opera Director in ‘Seven Veils’ Anyway

Image via XYZ Films

COLLIDER: Congratulations on this movie. It’s definitely inspired me to walk to the bookstore and pick up a copy of Salome — I’m very interested in reading it now. I’m curious, for both of you, what was your first exposure to and experience with that play? Because it is obviously such an integral part of this movie.
ATOM EGOYAN: I saw an amazing production of it in the late ‘80s in London by this extraordinary actor, Steven Berkoff. He took a very stylized approach to the text, and it was making it musical — making the text musical — through gesture and word, and I just went, “Okay.” Because it is a play by Oscar Wilde. We know Oscar Wilde through these witty comedies — The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windermere’s Fan, An Ideal Husband — but they’re very different from Salmone. Salome is probably his most personal work, and it’s tough to make it work, but it suddenly inspires Richard Strauss, and he writes this radical, insane opera, which kind of changed the whole world of opera for the 20th century. We’re still putting this opera on. Over 100 years, it’s still one of the staples of the opera stage.
I did a production in 1996, and it was really unusual because — for the Dance of the Seven Veils — we kind of use it as a flashback sequence as opposed to a dance. This became super popular, and it’s been remounted lots of times in different places. But then I found it was coming back to Toronto in 2023, and I just wanted to do something else with it. I wanted to kind of reinvestigate and look at the themes of Salome and bring it into our time, and so this character emerged. We had such an amazing experience shooting Chloe so many years ago, but we always wanted to do something else together, and I thought, “Okay, this is Amanda. This is the part that will allow us to work together again.” And I just prayed that she was available — she’s a very busy actress — but it worked. It’s kind of an amazing thing. But I’m glad you’re reading the play because the play is really, really interesting.
AMANDA SEYFRIED: I should probably read the play.
So was this movie your first introduction into this story then?
SEYFRIED: Yeah, and into opera. I’ve never been that fascinated by it. I sang arias when I was 15 and 16 because I was training with a different voice coach at the time, and we were exploring my soprano range, and I loved it. I enjoyed it so much, but I just couldn’t sit through operas. Life’s so short, and you don’t have that much time. So now, here I am. Of course, the movie is not really about the opera — it’s about a certain industry, a certain art form, and it’s about a director and the players and the agendas of people. The backstage life, behind-the-scenes activity of all these people. Like any good story, you get behind the scenes. So I knew that going in, I was like, “I need a little education on how the opera is mounted.” And it is fascinating. Like anything, it has its nuances and it has its excitements, and Salome is an incredible story, and it was a really fun opera. Who knew? It’s a short opera. I’m like, “This is perfect.”
EGOYAN: That’s the main thing. These other operas that I do, they’re three-and-a-half, four hours long, so there’s no way. And they’re really complicated stories, and they’re endurance tests. It’s important: this is not an opera movie. You don’t need to know anything about opera going into it. You don’t have to like opera. It’s just a work environment, and this story is super simple. If I was doing a Wagner opera or a Mozart opera — which I’ve done here — they’re four hours long. I actually hesitate inviting some of my friends because unless you really love the music, it’s a bit of an endurance test. But this one, I have no problem because it’s taut. It’s the same length as a feature film, and it moves really quickly.
SEYFRIED: Yeah, you offered it to me, and I was like, “Whoa.” And you’re like, “It’s not about the opera.” And in the first page or two of the script, Clea is explaining the opera in one paragraph, and you’re like, “Oh. Wow. I want to see that.” [Laughs]
EGOYAN: Yeah. That is the story.
I found it very easy to understand.
EGOYAN: Cool.
Yeah, it’s not something you think of when you think of opera.
Even After Playing a Director in ‘Seven Veils,’ Amanda Seyfried Has No Interest in Directing

Image via XYZ Films

I love the fact that, obviously, Amanda, you play a director in this.
SEYFRIEND: Me too.
You’ve started producing more in recent years in your real life, so I’m curious if this role — and just your experience in Hollywood — has inspired you to maybe want to direct anytime soon and if there’s a project you would want to do.
SEYFRIED: I don’t want to direct. I just don’t. I would love to direct actors — like help a director. The thing I think I would excel at is — I like to talk shop with actors. If I was working with someone kind of green or someone uncomfortable, I would probably really enjoy directing them and helping them get to where they need to go in a scene. But otherwise, the technical stuff, the lighting, the shooting aspects is just not interesting to me. I don’t think I’d be good at it, and I don’t have that drive, but I do have opinions about things, and I do love to collaborate. I love when my mind has changed learning about their perspectives. It’s just really, really, really fun. Producing is better — when people let me put on a producing hat.
Well, from what I’ve seen, you’re an amazing producer as well.
SEYFRIEND: Thanks.
Amanda Seyfried and Atom Egoyan Discuss How ‘Seven Veils’ Adds to the Intimacy Coordinator Conversation

Image via Amanda Matlovich

Atom, I love how you talked about taking this story sort of into the modern day because it does feel really timely for a lot of reasons — I feel like especially with this intimacy coordinator conversation that’s always happening and that becoming more mainstream. I’m curious how you think this film engages with that particular debate or conversation because it feels very ‘of the moment’ right now.
EGOYAN: Well, look, it shouldn’t be a debate. I’ve heard too many horror stories coming from sets. I’ve directed a lot of erotic scenes without an intimacy coordinator, but I wouldn’t have had an issue having an intimacy coordinator on set if the actors needed that. I remember when we did Chloe, I went to the effort — [to Amanda] I don’t know if you remember this — but I had two actors showing Julianne Moore and Amanda what was going to happen. And then just making sure everyone is on the same page and that we understand what the parameters are and that this is what’s good. You have to do that. You cannot just kind of go into a situation and see what happens. It’s not fair, and it could be really brutal and traumatizing and awful for people.
I hope the film doesn’t reflect my attitude to intimacy coordinators. What it reflects is Jeanine’s frustration that she’s not getting something from this person, and it’s driving her crazy. I don’t think she’s gonna be any more successful than the intimacy coordinator or anyone else — it lives in her mind in such a way that it’s not real. It kind of creates this madness in her. The intimacy coordinator in the film is almost this weird figure that — like many other figures — is providing some sort of resistance to a way she’s seeing things. But the problem is the institutional one. There’s so many adverse pressures in that opera house working against her, and not until the very end when she renounces that all by not going on stage does she understand that the real change is gonna happen somewhere way more intimate than some place which is quite public and observed.
The thing about directing — Amanda has seen lots of other people direct. I know what I do, but I don’t see how other people direct. I hear stories, and some of them are horrifying. I go, “Wow, if I was an actor, I wouldn’t want to be alone with that person on a set.” So I understand that — anything that makes an actor feel safe. You’re not gonna get a good performance if the actor doesn’t feel safe.
SEYFRIED: Yeah.
EGOYAN: Right? That’s what it comes down to.
SEYFRIED: The intimacy coordinator, in this instance, represents the institution taking away control. It’s less about what the intimacy coordinator is actually doing.
EGOYAN: Exactly.
SEYFRIED: But they are great.
EGOYAN: Yeah, and actually, the intimacy coordinator in the film is played by the actual intimacy coordinator we had for the opera.
Oh, wow!
EGOYAN: Yeah, it’s the same person, and she’s great. She got the humor of it, and she got what we were [doing]. She didn’t bristle at it because there is something kind of like…I find that scene incredible.
SEYFRIED: I love that scene. It’s one of my favorite scenes. [Laughs]
EGOYAN: [Laughs] To me, it’s about a lot of things, but you get so desperate when someone is not understanding your direction. It’s a really lonely place.
SEYFRIEND: That would frustrate the fuck out of me.
EGOYAN: It’s really crazy. To me, it’s like that moment on stage when…it doesn’t really matter. But it’s like she’s tormented by this idea that there was this perfect version of this opera that she experienced, but it might just be because she was at a particular time in her life. And the idea of her watching this archival tape over and over again and obsessing over it and thinking that she’s going to reconstruct that is self-torture, right? And there’s a lot of self-torture in this character.
Seven Veils is in theaters now.

Seven Veils

Release Date

March 7, 2025

Runtime

107 Minutes

Director

Atom Egoyan

Writers

Atom Egoyan

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