Asked what the biggest misconception is about her, Sydney Sweeney laughs. “Oh, I don’t know. There’s so many out there. That would take the whole article, man.”

During her Saturday Night Live monologue in the spring, she poked fun at the box office failure of her superhero movie Madame Web, the controversy surrounding her mother’s supposedly MAGA-themed 60th birthday party, and even rumors that she and Anyone but You costar Glen Powell had an affair. “Hopefully people realize how silly all the headlines are because, I mean, you know how this works,” she says from North Carolina, where she’s filming a biopic about renowned boxer Christy Martin. “We’re going to have a conversation, we’ll talk for 30 minutes, it’s condensed, then people don’t understand the context behind the conversation, and it’s all clickbait. Unfortunately I don’t get to control my image—my image is in your guys’ hands.”

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It’s a reality that the actor has been grappling with for a few years. Sweeney became a household name thanks to two HBO prestige dramas, Euphoria and The White Lotus. She earned Emmy nominations for both those performances in 2022, then launched her own production company, Fifty-Fifty Films.

With Euphoria season three delayed, she executive produced Anyone but You, which made over $220 million at the global box office, and rescued Immaculate, an indie horror film she’d auditioned for a decade earlier, from development hell. Next up, she’ll play a straightlaced German farm wife in Ron Howard’s Eden; star opposite Julianne Moore in Echo Valley, a thriller from the creator of Mare of Easttown; and—at some point—remake 1968’s Barbarella, which she hopes to collaborate on with Jane Fonda, despite the original star’s skepticism. “I cannot wait to hopefully have her part of the process,” says Sweeney. “We have locked in our writers, there’s a lot of thought going into it.”

We’re thrilled to have Sweeney as part of our 2025 Hollywood Issue. Here are excerpts from a conversation.

Vanity Fair: 2024 was the year that introduced you as a producer. What has having that autonomy over your work taught you?

Sydney Sweeney: I love being able to have a seat at the table, have creative say over decisions that would help benefit the project, whether it be the character or budget or time frame, anything that I can do that can help the project succeed. I love to help brainstorm and problem solve because it’s a puzzle—you’re constantly trying to have all these moving pieces put together.

Anyone but You became a huge financial success after a soft opening weekend, largely through word of mouth.

It was all because of the fans. I loved it. I felt like none of it was forced on the audience. They really fell in love with it themselves and they shared that love with everybody. I love that the marketing came from them.

You and Glen Powell have acknowledged that you leaned into speculation that you were dating as a marketing strategy. It obviously paid off, but would you have revealed the strategy had the film not been a major success?

Once it did become a success, a lot of the interviews were just questions about it, so I don’t know if we necessarily were planning on ever talking about the strategy behind any of it. We just had very specific questions and when you say no to a question, people think that you’re a bitch, so. [Laughs.]

Are there still plans for you and Glen to reunite for another film?

We definitely are very supportive of each other’s careers. We watch and talk about each other’s projects all the time, or even if we’re both debating between projects, we’ll call each other up and ask for advice. I just saw him last week and we were talking through some projects, so we definitely have a really great working relationship. We would absolutely love to work on something else together.

In both Immaculate and Eden you have traumatic birth scenes. Did acting those out impact how you view motherhood?

Well, I’m really hoping that childbirth is not as crazy as both of their experiences are. I’m hoping that I’m a little more prepared. I doubt it. I feel like I’m going to be so crazy. I mean, women are the most powerful individuals. It’s absolutely incredible what we go through. We’re just so strong. I’m so amazed and enamored and also terrified of all of it at the same time.

In Eden, your costar Jude Law shows some skin, which is something you’ve also done. Do you still feel like onscreen nudity is received differently for female versus male actors?

This movie hasn’t been seen by a proper audience yet, so I’m not quite sure what people will say about it. I mean, I know I was cheering. I am always very supportive of nudity, of sexual scenes, if the story of the character warrants it. For Jude’s character, it was such a powerful move for him to do, so I wanted to cheer for that. Whether it’s men or women, if it’s for the character it’s for the character, and it tells a story.

You hosted SNL this year, and in your monologue you focused on some of the headlines about you. What was it like to address everything and reclaim it in a comedic way?

I loved it. I actually had to push for a lot of it. Some people were a little nervous about it, but in real life, I’d like to say I’m a funny person. And sometimes I wish that I could address more [things with] my “Syd” self, but I find that with social media there’s such a lapse in how things are communicated. It’s hard to get things across in the way that you intend to—they can be misconstrued. So being able to do it onstage in very Syd fashion, I loved it. I felt like I was taking the power back.

This spring, your team fought back when a producer called your looks and talent into question. Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence have discussed the tendency to knock women performers down when they’re at their professional peak. Why do you think that is?

It’s very disheartening to see women tear other women down, especially when women who are successful in other avenues of their industry see younger talent working really hard—hoping to achieve whatever dreams that they may have—and then trying to bash and discredit any work that they’ve done. This entire industry, all people say is “Women empowering other women.” None of it’s happening. All of it is fake and a front for all the other shit that they say behind everyone’s back.

I mean, there’s so many studies and different opinions on the reasoning behind it. I’ve read that our entire lives, we were raised—and it’s a generational problem—to believe only one woman can be at the top. There’s one woman who can get the man. There’s one woman who can be, I don’t know, anything. So then all the others feel like they have to fight each other or take that one woman down instead of being like, Let’s all lift each other up. I’m still trying to figure it out. I’m just trying my best over here. Why am I getting attacked?

Euphoria will resume production in January. You’ve had a lot of success since you were last on set, but you also had a sizable loss when Angus Cloud passed away. Do you feel like you’ll be able to tune out the world and just focus on the work?

I mean, that’s my job. I have to go to work and become my character. Especially with Euphoria—Cassie is such a deep, meaningful character for me. I think that, through her, I’ll be able to also grieve in a way as well. Cassie is the longest character I’ve ever had in my life. I feel like she’ll always have such a special place in my heart, so I know that I’ll be able to just jump right in.

Given the delays, some wondered how realistic it was that the cast would return. How much has awaiting a third season of Euphoria realistically impacted your career?

There were definitely a few projects that I had to pass on because I was supposed to be going back to Euphoria. But because I am producing now, I was able to say, “You know what? I don’t think this is happening. I’m going to put some of my own projects on the slate.” That’s how Anyone but You happened. Euphoria was supposed to start filming, and I had another film that I was supposed to do, but we couldn’t get cleared and after a few weeks, I realized, This is not happening. So I put in full gear to make Anyone but You.

Many scenes from Euphoria go viral, but perhaps none more than Cassie’s claim that she has “never, ever been happier.” The idea of putting on a brave face at your lowest point really resonated with people. How do you deal with the pressure to do that yourself?

That’s something I’m still trying to learn how to process and get better at. It’s hard. I put so much of myself out there, but I’m still emulating a little bit of my character as well. I look at everything as a job, so I want to make sure that I’m doing my job to the fullest extent that I can, and I can’t let outside forces affect that. But there’s definitely some really good shower cries in there. [Laughs.]

Now that you have experienced life as a public person, what advice would you offer your younger self before giving one of your first big interviews?

I actually think about this often. I go back and forth. One way is, “Sydney, don’t give them any part of you, only talk work.” Then there’s another part of me where I wish that I could have started off and been so openly me that there’s no questioning things that I say. I just tried to hide who I was for so long because I wanted a little bit of myself for myself. I didn’t want to give it all away.

You want to share who you are, but that makes you vulnerable and open to criticism.

Then when you just talk about work, people are annoyed or bored or—what I’ve noticed the most—they just create their own idea of who you are. I see that all the time with me.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. For fashion and beauty details, go to VF.com/credits.