Summary
Making art about art often leads to an interesting, meta experience.
DirectorAtom Egoyanis no stranger to the complex themes he tackles inSeven Veils.
Because it is obviously such an integral part of this movie.
Image via XYZ Films
Because it is a play by Oscar Wilde.
We’re still putting this opera on.
Over 100 years, it’s still one of the staples of the opera stage.
Image via XYZ Films
This became super popular, and it’s been remounted lots of times in different places.
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.
Image via Amanda Matlovich
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.
Seven Veils is a drama film by writer-director Atom Egoyan and premiered in September of 2023 at the Toronto International Film Festival before a 2025 theatrical release. Amanda Seyfried stars as Jeanine, a young theater director who inherits the much-revered production of Salome after her mentor dies. Forced to reconcile with her past to manage her current tumultuous present, Jeanine reorganizes her life as the lives of others in the production experience their own troubles - on and off the stage.
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 enjoyed it so much, butI just couldn’t sit through operas.
Life’s so short, and you don’t have that much time.
So now, here I am.
The backstage life, behind-the-scenes activity of all these people.
Like any good story, you get behind the scenes.
And it is fascinating.
It’s a short opera.
I’m like, This is perfect.
EGOYAN: That’s the main thing.
And they’re really complicated stories, and they’re endurance tests.
You don’t have to like opera.
It’s just a work environment, and this story is super simple.
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.
I want to see that.
[Laughs]
EGOYAN: Yeah.
That is the story.
I found it very easy to understand.
Yeah, it’s not something you think of when you think of opera.
SEYFRIEND: Me too.
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.
But otherwise, the technical stuff, the lighting, the shooting aspects is just not interesting to me.
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.
EGOYAN: Well, look,it shouldn’t be a debate.
I’ve heard too many horror stories coming from sets.
You have to do that.You cannot just kind of go into a situation and see what happens.
Its not fair, and it could be really brutal and traumatizing and awful for people.
It kind of creates this madness in her.
But the problem is the institutional one.
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.
Thats what it comes down to.
SEYFRIED: The intimacy coordinator, in this instance,represents the institution taking away control.
Its less about what the intimacy coordinator is actually doing.
SEYFRIED: But they are great.
She didn’t bristle at it because there is something kind of like…I find that scene incredible.
SEYFRIED: I love that scene.
Its one of my favorite scenes.
It’s a really lonely place.
SEYFRIEND: That would frustrate the fuck out of me.
EGOYAN: Its really crazy.
To me, it’s like that moment on stage when…it doesn’t really matter.
Andthere’s a lot of self-torture in this character.
Seven Veilsis in theaters now.
