Amanda Seyfriedis loving every moment of her biggest role yet: mom.
The actress, 33, sharesher 2-year-old daughter(whose name she prefers to keep private) with her husband, fellow actorThomas Sadoski, whom she married in March 2017 while she was nine months along with their first child.
“I just happened to get pregnant,” Seyfried tells PEOPLE of their happy surprise in this week’s issue, on newsstands Friday. “If it happens to you, you just make it work.”
Though Seyfried would love to expand her family, she’s keeping that same open attitude when it comes to trying for more kids with Sadoski, 43.
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Amanda Seyfried, Thomas Sadoski and their daughter.Amanda Seyfried/Instagram
Seyfried and her family recently moved from California to New York, where she splits her time between the city and relaxing at her renovated farmhouse in the Catskills. On the farm, Seyfried’s daughterand their rescue animals, includinga white donkey named Gus, roam free.
“She’s a little person,” the star continues of her child. “She’s her own thing. She doesn’t look exactly like me. She doesn’t look exactly like Tommy. She looks like her. She’san individual with individual thoughts andindividual dreams and nightmares. Making people is a very big responsibility, and it’s so worth it.”
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Seyfried admits it “would be so amazing” for her older sister Jennifer, who is pregnant, and her husband to also move inwith them on the farm. But she’s doubtful that’ll actually happen, saying, “They’re not going to do that.”
Since becoming a mom,theMean Girlsstar’spriorities have also shifted.
“I used to sometimes be like, ‘That script’s good enough. I like the director, and the actor in it is good. We should do it, right? I mean, we’re not doing anything else,’ ” she says. “No longer. I will no longer take roles because it’s good enough. I will take roles and projects that work for me and my family.”
Thomas Sadoski and his daughter.Amanda Seyfried/Instagram
Amanda Seyfried (L) and Thomas Sadoski.Walter McBride/WireImage
Sadoski being an actor also presents an added struggle, but they make it work. “You just have to go one foot in front of the other and talk as a family if it works for you guys because [our daughter] is still young,” Seyfried says. “She’s not in school yet. We are more flexible, but it’s going to be different as she gets olderand the more kids we have.”
“I think it’s more important that we have a roundtable about it as opposed to me just being, with my agent, ‘What do you think?’ ‘Yeah, I guess I could do it,’ ” theLes Misérablesactress tells PEOPLE. “I’ve done a lot of jobs that haven’t deserved me and jumped injust because.”
That’s why Seyfried’s latest turn playingMilo Ventimiglia‘s wife in their new filmThe Art of Racing in the Rain, which is told through the eyes of the family dog, was a perfect fit.
“This job, very specifically, I was like, ‘This is what I want to do. I love this book,’ ” she says. “I read it when it came out. I was obsessed with it. It changed my life. The whole family came with me to Vancouver to shoot [the film].”
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There are also movies in Seyfried’s 15-year catalog that she can’t wait to watch with her daughter one day when she’s older.
“I want her to seeLetters to Julietbecause so many young girls — girls of all ages, really — come up to me and say, ‘I lovedLetters to Juliet. It was so beautiful,’ ” she says.
“It is people who really love love, who love that movie for some reason,” Seyfried continues. “And it means a lot to me because my friend [Gary Winick], who has passed, directed it, and he was a very special man.”
“So I’d be really excited to see it with her,” she adds. “I haven’t watched it, like, since it came out. AndMamma Mia!when she’s older. But now I’m excited to show her all the Disney movies I grew up with.”
Hoping to be a role model to her daughter, whom she calls a “three-nager” and says is “really stubborn, just like me,” Seyfried is determined to continue making smart choices.
“I really don’t have any excuses anymore to be lazy about who I am or who I want to be,” she tells PEOPLE. “I’ve learned that there are some ways that I was raised that I don’t want to raise her. Just little things here and there. And I’ve learned that presence is everything.”
So far, herparenting and professional methodsseem to be working out well. “It’s heaven,” Seyfried says of where she has found herself. “I love what we’ve created.”
The Art of Racing in the Rainis in theaters Friday.
For much more on Amanda Seyfried’s life now, pick up the latest issue ofPEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.
source: people.com
