‘Mean Girls’ Star Amanda Seyfried Reveals How Moving to 1930s Farm in Upstate New York Helped Her Deal With Anxiety and OCD

Amanda Seyfried has lifted the lid on how trading the glare of the Hollywood spotlight for quaint farm life in upstate New York helped to ease her anxiety and OCD symptoms.

The “Mamma Mia” star opened up to the Wall Street Journal about the debilitating nature of her obsessive-compulsive disorder, revealing that she was “barely” able to function.

Seyfried, 39, who hails from Allentown, PA, confessed that she was “relentlessly loud and energetic and needed constant attention” during her childhood. Performing was one of the few things that helped to alleviate her symptoms early on.

“Performing and make-believe eased my anxieties. I was able to step outside of myself,” she said.

However, as her acting career began to take off, Seyfried said the constant attention and “stress” caused her to compare herself to others around her, making her more anxious.

“I was born with obsessive-compulsive disorder. They didn’t figure that out until later, but the signs were there,” she shared.

“If my socks weren’t a certain length, I could barely function. This was true about other things. I’d jump on floor tiles and not be able to continue walking until I was satisfied it was safe.”

After she began modeling, she quickly developed body insecurities, she said. “Modeling was performing, but I had braces and noticed I was chubbier than everybody else, creating new anxieties. To be 11, 12, and 13 just sucked.”

Seyfried landed the role of Karen Smith in the hit 2004 movie “Mean Girls” after auditioning for the lead part, Regina George.

However, it wasn’t until she secured the lead role of Sophie in the musical film “Mamma Mia” that she truly became a household name, taking center stage in her first major lead role.

Thankfully, despite having more eyes on her, Seyfried discovered how she could calm her OCD symptoms, one of which involved setting up a full-time residence far away from the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles.

In 2013, nine years after “Mean Girls” was released, the actress moved to a 1930s farmhouse, where she and her husband, Thomas Sadoski, now live with their two children—and a host of rescue animals.

“Today, I live with my husband, actor Thomas Sadoski, and our two children on a 1930s farm in upstate New York. I fell in love with the main house’s rustic stonework and the trellis between the house and stand-alone garage,” she told the Journal.

While seeking calm and quiet away from Los Angeles has been integral for Seyfried maintaining her mental health, she said that caring for the animals they house on the property has been the best thing for her.

“The house was small, so we built onto it to add a kitchen. We use the barns as a sanctuary for rescued horses, ducks, chickens, peacocks, goats, and other animals,” she went on.

“I still have anxieties, but tending to the aging animals keeps me from obsessing over things that don’t matter. My pony, Cliff, is 38. Every day I have with him is a gift. It’s grounding.”

Further in the interview, Seyfried revealed that the home’s interior is “very farmhouse.” Her favorite area of the property is a “little window-box area that extends off my living room, giving me office space. It’s like a cozy den,” she said.

“On the weekends, I’ll wake up with the kids on Saturday mornings, I make them breakfast, and then I sit in the window box while the kids watch ‘Bluey,’” she previously told House Beautiful. “I’ll crochet there or just sit there—that’s me decompressing. It’s everything. It’s my happy place.” 

She admitted that she is very particular about the kitchen and noted that she doesn’t want people touching her cabinets.

“There’s one thing that makes me want to cry: If [the kids] scratch the cabinets or people touch them with their dirty hands. I’m like, ‘Get your filthy hands off my cabinets.’

“If you drip spaghetti sauce on it or even water or coffee, you got to clean it up right away. But nobody is as focused on the cabinets as I am. And that’s OK. I do not fault that, to each their own,” she confessed to House Beautiful.

The adjoining barn on the property was transformed into a guesthouse, and Seyfried has focused on passing on her love for animals to her two children: Nina, 7, and Thomas, 4.

“I can see them learning what a responsibility and treat it is to care for pets, even at their young ages. I think all pets give us purpose,” she told the outlet.

Seyfried previously told Vogue it took her “10 months” to renovate the home, adding that she kept its “rustic charm.”

The actress sold her Manhattan condo for $3.25 million in 2022, having purchased the property for $1.9 million in 2010.

The couple still own a home in New York City, however. It’s a stunning apartment on the Upper West Side that she purchased the same year that she offloaded her former city abode.