Amanda Seyfried: 'Filming Mank was the hardest I've ever worked'

Amanda Seyfried was pushed to her limits while filming David Fincher's upcoming biopic Mank.

The historical drama documents the bitter fallout between Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz and actor/director Orson Welles, with Seyfried playing Hollywood legend Marion Davies.

In a recent interview with Collider, the 34-year-old recalled filming with the critically-acclaimed director, and how she was blown away when offered the role of Davies in the movie.

"Honestly, it is the hardest I’ve ever worked. But I am so thrilled with it. First of all, it came out of nowhere," Seyfried explained. "I was pretty sure I was going to do it, but I didn’t know, it was up to him. But I was just also like, how the f**k am I going to play Marion Davies?"

"But I was also like, this is such a get – to work with Fincher he’s one of a kind. And I actually can’t believe we did it," she added, noting that they'd finished filming the biopic on 21 February, just days before the widespread Hollywood shutdown amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mank, set to be released on Netflix later this year, stars Oscar winner Gary Oldman as the titular screenwriter, opposite Tom Burke as Welles, and Lily Collins, who plays Mankiewicz's secretary Rita Alexander.

And Seyfried also confirmed that Fincher lived up to his reputation as a meticulous filmmaker, as she recalled one scene taking days to film.

"...I was part of scenes with tons of people in it and we would do it for an entire week. I can’t tell you how many takes we did, but I would guess 200, maybe I could be wrong and could be way off," she shared. "I could be underestimating by five days of one scene when I didn’t have one line."