Amanda Seyfried explains reason she'd pass up on a role now

Amanda Seyfried says she recently passed on a TV series because it would have required constant sex scenes.

The 40-year-old actress made the revelation during a panel hosted by Alec Baldwin at the Hamptons International Film Festival in New York on October 4. 

“I passed on a show where I would have to have sex all the time because of the sex,” she said. “I’m uncomfortable with it. I’m not into it right now.” She added that she might feel differently if a project came along again later, but she doesn’t want to deal with “being naked with a stranger.”

She said her feelings about on-screen romance have changed over the years. “Our jobs are weird, and as I get older, it gets weirder,” she said, adding that sometimes it is great, and sometimes it is uncomfortable. 

She also laughed about how fun it used to feel. “It was like, ‘I get to make out with a hot person today ... and they’re paying me.’”

Seyfried noted that she is getting better at saying no. Her kids, daughter Nina, 9, and son Thomas, 6, are watching what she does, so she wants to be “less of a pushover.” 

She shared a story about turning down photo requests from strangers while out with Nina in Manhattan. Afterward, Nina told her, “I’m very proud of you, mama.” Her rule now is that when she is with her kids, she says no, because what they are going through matters more.

Seyfried is starring in “The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd,” directed by Tim Blake Nelson. She plays a teacher in an abusive relationship who takes a job at a maximum-security prison and falls for an inmate, played by Scoot McNairy. It premiered at Toronto and then the Hamptons festival. However, it has no theatrical release date yet.