Why Amanda Seyfried Was 'In Awe' During Tom Holland Scenes in New TV Show

Amanda Seyfried told Newsweek she was left "in awe" of her co-star Tom Holland as the pair shared "tough" scenes for their new Apple TV+ show The Crowded Room.

Holland plays Danny Sullivan, a troubled young man accused of several violent crimes as episode 1 of The Crowded Room begins. Throughout the 10-part series, he's interrogated by Seyfried's Rya Goodwin, and the pair reflect back on Danny's upbringing, which we see via flashbacks.

Emmy Rossum stars as Danny Sullivan's mom, Candy, and Sasha Lane as his childhood friend Ariana.

The quartet spoke to Newsweek ahead of the show's launch on Friday, June 9, 2023, on Apple TV+.

Holland vs. Seyfried

The Crowded Room marks Holland's first TV role since he became internationally famous as the MCU's Spider-Man. He's executive-producing the psychological thriller set in 1979, and starring as the series lead.

"There's definitely a lot of prep that goes into bringing a character like Danny to life," Holland told Newsweek ahead of the show's launch. "He is obviously so volatile. The highs and the lows are sort of at the extremes of what a human is capable of."

The Crowded Room time-hops between a present-day conversation involving Seyfried's Rya and Holland's Danny, and flashbacks to his teenage years.

The interrogation scenes between Seyfried and Holland gave both a fresh challenge, as they had to shoot over 100 pages of dialogue.

"A lot happens in that room. There is an amazing progression in that room between those two characters," Seyfried told Newsweek. The series creator Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind) calls her performance "impossibly good," which she in turn credits Holland with helping her achieve.

"In order for one person to feel that present, the other person has to be present, too. I feel like we feed off of each other. It's a give-and-take the whole time," Seyfried said. "I was sincerely in awe of what I was seeing across the table. Without giving too much away, what comes out of this guy, what is released in that room, is physically and emotionally incredible, and almost unbelievable. So it wasn't hard to find that sense of compassion and that curiosity and that shock for my character."

Seyfried is known to many for roles in film comedies and musicals such as Mean Girls, Mamma Mia! and Les Misérables. She compared those energetic roles with what's required of her in The Crowded Room.

"They're different muscles that you're flexing in each genre or structure," Seyfried said. "This was very quiet and still, and there was a lot of patience needed from me as the human and the actor. I love just sitting and having that silent space between the two of us.

"One of my favorite things to do is just speak, to have dialogue with another person. Dancing and singing is fun, it's exhausting, but this is emotionally exhausting. It's super-indulgent. It's all about human connection, and I love relationship stories." Seyfried added, dropping in a nod to her recent award-winning role in The Dropout: "I also love dancing awkwardly to Lil Wayne, but this was something I really loved doing. I also just love being off my feet, you know?"

Holland also relished the chance to perform the extended dialogue scenes with Seyfried. "It was a very unique experience. And I'm not just talking about within The Crowded Room. I've never really in my career had a relationship with an actress, and with a scene and a set like we had with those scenes.

"It was really tough. It meant that we had to constantly be on our toes, ready to pivot, bring in new ideas to the table so that it didn't feel stagnant," Holland said.

Holland was also full of praise for his co-star Seyfried. "I was so lucky that Amanda was the perfect scene partner," he said. "When you're committing to that kind of material, you're really rolling the dice. Sometimes, you have actors and actresses that you get on well with and you work really well with... and sometimes you have people that you just don't. I'm delighted that Amanda and I really hit it off and had a good time because I think it really comes through in the show."

Hugs From Tom Holland on the Porch

Shameless star Emmy Rossum, despite being just 10 years older than Holland, plays his character's mom, Candy. This makes more sense in the scenes where Holland is playing high-school Danny.

Their mother and son relationship is loving but complicated due to a number of external factors. Rossum discussed what it was like to act opposite her co-star and, technically, since Holland is executive producer, her boss.

"He's incredibly open, he's unafraid to be vulnerable. And getting to be around an actor who is also kind of your boss as the producer as well, it's nice to feel that fearlessness in them," Rossum told Newsweek.

She added: "I remember after one particularly challenging scene, that we had on a porch, it was deeply emotional for both of us. He just kind of looked at me afterwards and came over and threw his arms around me, and we just kind of stood there for a while quietly. And getting to feel that you're in it with your teammate, you guys are playing together on the same team, it really makes you able to go home and shake it off at the end of the day."

Rossum said she could see parallels between her breakout role in Shameless, a dark comedy, and this, an at-times bleak psychological thriller, which she said contains a "Shakespearean level of devastation."

"The thing that feels similar to me, with the characters as I was drawn to them, was they are both young women who are trying their best and ultimately mess up in huge ways that have big ramifications on their families." Rossum said.

"I'm very drawn to characters who are pure but raw and messy and who have huge consequences to their actions," Rossum added, "huge mamma bear-types, who are straddling childishness themselves, but also needing to be responsible and grown up."

There are upsetting scenes and themes included within The Crowded Room—so much so that each episode ends with a link to a helpline for those who may have been affected. As an actress on set, Sasha Lane said it wasn't the easiest thing to shake off.

"There are some scenes were it's really hard to just cut your brain off and be like, 'I'm having a great day now. Let's eat some Popsicles.' But, at the same time, because it felt very safe and we were all there for a purpose, we all really lifted each other up. So it was easier to crack a joke and carry on," Lane told Newsweek.

"Because you felt like you worked hard for something, you felt rewarded within yourself. You walked away feeling really good, so we could have high-fives and then a little snack," Lane added.

The first three episodes of The Crowded Room launch on Friday, June 9, 2023, with new episodes dropping every Friday afterwards.