Sydney Sweeney

Miu Miu Cloquet Top ($2250), Cloquet Miniskirt ($3750), shirt, and shoes; stylist's own socks

Sydney Sweeney is the ultimate chameleon. Away from the spotlight, the 26-year-old actor and producer is Syd, who likes fixing up vintage cars in overalls and a baggy T-shirt, eating In-n-Out, and slalom skiing back in her hometown of Spokane, Washington. In front of the press, she's someone else entirely—the kind of person who prefers satin to denim and appears confident on camera despite a tendency to get nervous in social situations. And then there are the personas she takes on when her director yells, "Action!" Since she was 12 and scored her first acting role, all Sweeney has ever wanted is to become someone else on-screen and tell her characters' stories as if they were her own. In many ways, they are. Every role she's taken on has become a part of who Sweeney is today. As attached as she is to each character listed on her IMDb page, the actress can switch them off in a second, morphing from one identity to the next. With each new project, she transforms. For our April cover, Sweeney underwent yet another transformation. Better yet, she went through a few of them. The shoot, which took place at the eccentric Paramour Estate in Los Angeles, featured three wig changes, a slew of dramatic makeup looks, and ensembles of varying shapes and silhouettes by the likes of Marc Jacobs, Thom Browne, and Miu Miu. "I always feel like people just put me in either 'girl next door' or super-sexy photo shoots," she tells me following the shoot. "I wanted to do something different." A concept like this one allowed the actress to dress up and morph into somebody else. "[That's] the main reason why I fell in love with acting—you get to play all of these different people and pretend to be all these different characters," she says. "Whenever I get that chance to do it on a more creative, artsy, and extreme level on photo shoots, it's so much fun." When I thank Sweeney for taking the time to chat post-shoot after a long day, she turns around and thanks me instead. "It hasn't felt long at all," she says.

In reality, it's nearly 6 p.m. when I see Sweeney walk into the room where our Zoom call is set to take place, meaning that she's been on set for nine hours in total. When she settles in at the computer, her face is bare, and she's dressed down in a baggy crewneck sweatshirt and matching joggers. Any signs of the day she's just had have been wiped off and packed up, and whoever she became in front of the camera is long gone. The person in front of me now is just Syd. Sweeney is able to seamlessly transition in and out of her on-screen personas using what she refers to as her "books," in which she dives deep into her characters' psyches, editorializing what the script doesn't tell her about their backstories. In this way, she not only plays them but also becomes them. "Basically, I just [craft] their story from the ground up," she says. The second she steps on set, Sweeney's gone. In her place is whatever person whose life story is laid out on the pages of her current handwritten journal.

For her latest project, Immaculate, which came out on March 22, Sweeney made herself into Cecilia, a young American nun whose convent abruptly closes and is forced to relocate to another nunnery in a remote part of the Italian countryside. "Cecilia grew up in a small town, [where] she had a near-death experience, and because of that, she always felt like she needed to repay God or have a bigger purpose in her life," Sweeney says of her character's desire to serve a higher power. According to her analysis, Cecilia never quite understood why she was saved, which is how she ended up dedicating her life to religion. Not long after arriving at the convent, though, her answer is revealed when she turns up pregnant despite an unbroken vow of celibacy (hence the film's name), leading to a string of twists and turns that are guaranteed to leave audiences everywhere entertained and wholly disturbed about the state of the world.

Talent: Sydney Sweeney Photographer: Amber Asaly Stylist: Mindy Le Brock Hairstylist: Glen Coco Makeup Artist: Melissa Hernandez Manicurist: Zola Ganzorigt Creative Director: Alexa Wiley Art Director: Amy Armani Executive Director of Entertainment: Jessica Baker Producer: Nick De Bellis Designer: Joanna Bauer

MONTHLY COVER FEATURES | MARCH 27, 2024 By ELIZA HUBER

The Transformation of Sydney Sweeney

You've never seen the 26-year-old quite like this.

Dauphinette dress; Falke tights; BY FAR shoes

Getting to create characters and stories with such depth was one of the main reasons Sweeney launched her own production company, Fifty-Fifty Films, in 2020. Immaculate and her much-talked-about romantic comedy Anyone But You, which recently grossed $200 million at the box office, were the enterprise's first two completed projects. For Sweeney, venturing into production had a lot to do with taking back control. "I've been really lucky [that] most of the recent projects that I've been in in the last five or six years [were] with filmmakers who were collaborative," she says. But that isn't always the case. "As an actor, you audition for everything, and you just cross your fingers and hope and work hard to get in the room," she explains. For years, she wasn't picky, auditioning for everything she could and taking whatever jobs she got. "Was I proud of all of them [or] super excited about all the characters? No. Did I wish I could make changes and be more a part of the process and be more assertive? Yes. But I was in no position to be able to do so," she says. By taking matters into her own hands, Sweeney is now the person in charge, choosing which stories are brought to life on-screen and who will direct and star in them. "It's a really amazing place to be," she says.

Sweeney has wanted to tell Cecilia's story for close to a decade now after auditioning for the role when she was just 16. "They never made the movie, and I never could stop thinking about it," she tells me. It wasn't until she was on the set of The Handmaid's Tale years later—in which she played Eden Spencer during the Hulu series's second season—that she began thinking about the script again. "I could see the whole movie in my head," she says. "I called my agents, and I said, 'Did they ever make this movie? What's going on with the script?' They [somehow] tracked it down." From there, she learned how to pull a script out of "turnaround," an industry term for production limbo, and set her sights on rewriting it in her vision. The boundless nature of horror is what drew Sweeney to the genre and this movie in particular. "I love the risks that you can take," she says. "It's one of those genres where you can mess with the audience's brain and your own as well." But it's not all gore and thrill. Part of what makes Immaculate so timely is the theme of misogyny, both in the church and larger society, that's braided into the fabric of the story. "That was just there," Sweeney says. "I never told any of the actors that this is what the message is supposed to be. It was, 'We're making a horror movie.'" Yet the ways in which Cecilia is disrespected and abused by men in positions of power throughout the film, for me, was a key takeaway. "I think different people will find different parts of that," she says, pausing for a moment before finishing her thought. "I'm glad that you as a young female picked up on it."

It was around the last time she slipped into the character of Cassie that Sweeney appeared on her first Who What Wear cover. It was back in August of 2021, The White Lotus had just premiered, and Sweeney's performance was garnering a lot of attention. Much about her life shifted as a result of these two projects, but she's adamant that who she's always been at the core remains intact. "I feel that me as Syd hasn't really changed. I still hang out with my dog, Tank; eat candy; [and] go home and ski or hang out with my cousins," she says. "I'm just busier." Plus, she adds, "there are more eyes on [her]." The fame aspect of her job was never part of the dream. "The aspiration that I had was to be a working actor on a set," she says. "That's kind of all I knew." Growing up in Spokane, she didn't have Instagram or even a cell phone, and when she did get one, it wasn't connected to the internet or apps like iPhones are today. "It wasn't even a part of my knowledge," she says of social media and paparazzi. "I just knew that I could be in a movie and play different characters." Everything else, both good and bad, she's still getting used to. "I'm learning every single day and figuring it out," she says. "It's crazy—it's really, really crazy."

Luckily, she's built a strong support system in her work and personal life. "My team is my family," she says. "They are my best friends." It's because of them and their honesty that Sweeney's able to stay grounded in this industry, no matter how crazy things get. "I want them to feel like they can tell me no, that they can tell me, 'This is not the decision,' 'This isn't the move,' or 'This is not the dress,'" she says. "I don't want yes men around me." At the same time, she explains that having people around her who put her on a pedestal and care about her opinions is just as important, which is why she finds working alongside her fiancé, Jonathan Davino, who she co-produced Anyone But You with, so fulfilling. "I think it's really important to be surrounded by people that you want to work with," she says.

As for her actual family, Sweeney expresses that things were difficult at times, especially when she was first starting out in Hollywood. When she was a teenager, Sweeney came to her parents with a PowerPoint presentation to convince them to pick up everything and move from Spokane to Los Angeles so she could pursue her dreams—and they said yes. "It was hard because L.A. is very different from Spokane," she says. "The cost of a big city versus a small city is vastly different and challenging as well." Though she found success at a relatively young age, there were still plenty of years when things didn't come quite so easily for the Sweeneys. "My quote, unquote success didn't come until I was in my 20s," she says. "So my parents didn't really get to [experience it with me]." Had her career taken off earlier when her family was all still together, she thinks that maybe the adjustment would've been smoother for the foursome.

SHOP THE LOOK

The Symmetry Smooth Leather Bag $1190

Fitted T-Shirt $8

H&M

Capri Leggings $40

MANGO

56mm Oval Sunglasses $517

PRADA

Rhinestone-Embellished Jeans $80

h&m

Oversized Metallic-Ball Stud Earrings $40

J.Crew

Raja Metallic Tweed Jacket $1633

LIBEROWE

Denim Shirt $30

h&m

Thom Browne shirt, jacket, blazer, skirt, Check-Jacquard Cotton Socks ($120), shoes, and Check Pebble Grain Hector Bag ($2690)

Marc Jacobs dress and boots; Clyde Lambskin Bonnet ($288), and Tipless Moonlight Gloves ($172)

Versace Contrasto Tweed Hourglass Jacket ($3425), Contrasto Tweed Pencil Skirt ($990), and Medusa Coin Patent Leather Slingback Pumps ($1195); H&M socks

Amber Healey top and skirt; BY FAR Stevie 42 Leather Boots ($750)

From the beginning, the mission for Fifty-Fifty Films has been to give a platform to first-time female storytellers who have otherwise been overlooked. For Sweeney, it's always been a priority to take chances on people in the same way that someone took a chance on her. For example, one project currently in the pipeline is the TV adaptation of Jessica Goodman's debut novel, They Wish They Were Us, which is set to be titled The Players Table. "[Jessica] was a first-time novelist [when I met her], and she now has multiple things she wrote that got bought," she says. It's stories like this that keep the already-busy Sweeney going, reading new scripts in her trailer between takes and hopping on countless Zoom calls to explore potential leads. "I wanted a seat at the table and [to be] a part of the conversation and to build these projects and these ideas in these worlds," she says. With Fifty-Fifty, she can have all of that. Sweeney admits to being "very, very deep in the trenches with a lot of projects," one of which is a modern take on the 1968 science-fiction cult classic Barbarella that she's expected to star in and produce, but she'd drop anything for the character that made her a household name. "It's going to be very, very wild," she says of Cassie's story arc in Euphoria's third season, which, according to the actress, will start filming relatively soon. Though any and all details about the much-anticipated comeback for the series are under lock and key, Sweeney does share that the significant gap in time between seasons two and three hasn't left her feeling disconnected from the show or her character in the slightest. "I actually like it because there's so much room for growth for both me as a person and also Cassie as a character," she says.

Now that she is in a position to thank them, however, it's something Sweeney takes very seriously. "I recently paid off my mom's mortgage," she says with pride. "As a kid, I always dreamt of being able to take care of my parents, so that was a really big thing for me to be able to do." In turn, her family provides her with a sense of calm and regularity between long stretches of filming followed by press. "I try to incorporate them into my life as much as possible, whether it's talking with my cousins every other day or going home," she says. Even if she has 24 hours off, Sweeney says she'll drop everything and fly back to Washington to spend time with her grandma, ski, or go out to the lake. Returning to such a natural and stable environment allows her to reset and get back to being Syd.

As physically and mentally demanding a career like hers can be for a self-proclaimed homebody "with a bit of social anxiety," Sweeney can't see a future where she's doing anything else. She's sacrificed a lot—privacy and time being two examples that immediately come to mind—but for her, succeeding at the thing she loves most makes up for anything she's lost. "I couldn't imagine doing something that I don't love," she says. "And I love it."

One thing she'll never compromise on is the ability to keep her on-screen and private lives separate. There really is no other option for someone who gives every role their undivided attention to the point of actually disassociating to get into character. When I ask her why she's always held her relationships and family so close to her chest, she's quick to respond: "Because they're mine." At the age of 12, Sweeney dropped everything to move to Hollywood and pursue her dream, and never once has she wavered in her pursuit of success. "I signed up to be an actress so I could give people characters and stories," she says. "I didn't sign up to give them Sydney Sweeney." Given how protective she is of her private life, it's no wonder that the 26-year-old is such a skillful shapeshifter—she's had to be. That way, when the cameras turn on, she can effortlessly transform into whoever viewers need her to be, allowing her truest self to remain just hers.

Asymmetrical Printed Blouse $60

mango

Pierced Mule $398

Tory Burch

SAVETTE

H&M Fitted T-Shirt ($8), Denim Shirt ($30), and Rhinestone-Embellished Jeans ($80)

Dauphinette dress; Falke tights; BY FAR shoes

MONTHLY COVER FEATURES | march 15, 2024 By who what wear

Image Credit: Amber Asaly; Styling: Dauphinette dress; Falke tights; By FAR shoes

SHOP THE LOOK

MANGO

Miu Miu Cloquet Top ($2250), Cloquet Miniskirt ($3750), shirt, and shoes; stylist's own socks

Thom Browne shirt, jacket, blazer, skirt, Check-Jacquard Cotton Socks ($120), shoes, and Check Pebble Grain Hector Bag ($2690)

Marc Jacobs dress and boots; Clyde Lambskin Bonnet ($288), and Tipless Moonlight Gloves ($172)

Miu Miu Cloquet Top ($2250), Cloquet Miniskirt shirt ($3750), and shoes; stylist's own socks

Thom Browne shirt, jacket, blazer, skirt, Check-Jacquard Cotton Socks ($120), shoes, and Check Pebble Grain Hector Bag ($2690)

Marc Jacobs dress and boots; Clyde Lambskin Bonnet ($288), and Tipless Moonlight Gloves ($172)