SYDNEY SWEENEY’s parents believed her childhood acting dream was as fanciful as becoming a princess.
But the online hate and disturbing private messages the Euphoria star now receives are anything but a fairytale.
Sydney faced intense backlash this month over her new American Eagle denims campaign[/caption]
Sydney got her big break as Cassie Howard in Euphoria[/caption]
In fact, she admits that her inbox is “not a safe space” and has told how being targeted by trolls left her battling “anxiety” whenever she shares images on social media.
Sydney faced intense backlash last month over her new American Eagle denims campaign, featuring the pun, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans”.
The star, who smoulders across the bonnet of a classic car in the ad, stares into the camera and whispers: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality and even eye colour. My jeans are blue.”
Critics quickly began hurling accusations of racial insensitivity, even linking the “great jeans” tagline to eugenics.
A columnist on the New Yorker magazine described the blonde bombshell as a kind of “Aryan princess” and keyboard warriors even suggested her SS initials were linked to the Nazi paramilitary organisation.
Newly-single Sydney, 27, has also been swamped with messages from Premier League footballers hoping to score a date with her.
We revealed that players from Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal had propositioned the Hollywood star, though she declined.
A source said around 100 admirers, from celebs to millionaires, or rich people from the Middle East and Asia, contact Sydney every month.
‘There is no respect’
But they revealed not all approaches are polite, adding: “The ones who cross the line of respect are quickly blocked.”
Sydney, who deals with her own social media, says: “My DMs are not a safe space. There is no respect in those.”
And of strangers who bombard her with unwanted messages, she adds: “It’s a tricky one because I understand that I am playing a character, that they feel close to me where I don’t know this person.
“So, like, they might have a relationship with me that I don’t have with them.
“And so it’s just something that I have to navigate, and I’m still trying to figure out.”
The disturbing saga is in sharp contrast to how Sydney’s lawyer mum Lisa and pharmaceutical rep dad Steven imagined her showbiz ambitions would pan out.
Their lack of knowledge about the industry made them believe she would grow out of her acting dream, according to Sydney herself.
The star explains: “I came from a small town — Spokane, Washington — which has nothing to do with this world, and my parents had nothing to do with this world either, and they thought that acting was like wanting to be a princess.
“It was unattainable, it was just a far-fetched dream, ‘She’ll come out of it one day’.”
My parents realised I was pretty serious about my dream.
Sydney Sweeney
In fact, the actress first set her sights on film stardom at the age of ten, and made a “five-year business plan presentation” in a bid to convince her parents to let her audition for a movie.
She recalls: “It had, like, ‘If I audition and I book it, then I’ll meet people on this set that will then introduce me to an agent, and then the agent can get me auditions for commercials and short films, and then maybe I’ll have a resume.
“We could go to LA for pilot season’.
“So my parents realised I was pretty serious about my dream.” The family did indeed move to Los Angeles when Sydney was 13 to give her a better chance, but the cost led to her parents going bankrupt and the breakdown of their marriage and they divorced in 2016.
But Sydney wasn’t about to give up and took jobs cleaning bathrooms and babysitting to pay the rent.
Her breakthrough year came in 2018, when she landed recurring roles in three big TV shows — The Handmaid’s Tale, Sharp Objects and Everything Sucks!, followed by Euphoria in 2019.
But it’s not been plain sailing since, and there is even a fear that left wing audiences boycotted Sydney’s new movie Americana in the United States because of her jeans advert.
The online trolling is the worst side of her recent success, which included two Emmy nominations and producing the hit rom-com Anyone But You.
Sydney as former female super welterweight boxer Christy Martin[/caption]
This year, Sydney has become the most talked about actress, with even the US President Donald Trump weighing in to comment that her jeans advert “is fantastic.”
And the fascination with her is only set to grow.
She is a breath of fresh air in an industry which has lost touch with its audience.
Most movie stars will claim they took on a project for artistic reasons, but not Sydney.
Talking ahead of the release of Americana, she says: “I am a business. Every actor is their own company.
“And it’s really important to know how to run that company.”
At the moment, no actress in Hollywood is running their business as well as Sydney.
Her American Eagle campaign added £300million to the value of the clothing brand in just one day.
Soap bars infused with her bathwater, which sold out in seconds, are now worth £1,100 each.
And she is rumoured to have struck a megabucks deal with Amazon owner Jeff Bezos to launch a lingerie line.
‘Hectic schedule’
She also endorses the Miu Miu fashion brand, generating headlines whenever she wears their dresses.
Sydney says: “I love all their work, and they create the most beautiful custom dresses for me that fit my body and my body shape.”
She is so in demand that there is more work than she can fit into her already hectic schedule.
Last week, she told the Wall Street Journal: “If I wanna book four years of work now, I could.
Fans are eagerly awaiting the release of Sydney’s upcoming movie, Christy, for which she bulked up to play ex-female super welterweight boxer Christy Martin.
Later this year, she stars in a thriller called The Housemaid alongside Amanda Seyfried.
It comes after she co-starred with Julianne Moore in the Apple TV+ film Echo Valley earlier this year.
Sydney told the Wall Street Journal: ‘If I wanna book four years of work now, I could’[/caption]
Sydney modelling Ford’s workwear collection inspired by her own 1965 vintage Mustang[/caption]
She is currently filming the third series of Euphoria and will then start making Scandalous, about the relationship between singer Sammy Davis Jr and actress Kim Novak.
Sydney now has enough star power to get deals done in Tinseltown.
She has not denied starring in 2024 superhero movie Madame Web with Dakota Johnson as part of a deal to get Anyone But You greenlit.
While Madame Web flopped at the box office, Anyone But You earned £160million worldwide from an £18million budget.
Sydney had again gone against the grain by making the kind of fun, romantic comedy that audiences love, but which had gone out of fashion in Hollywood.
She explains: “I wanted to bring back those early 2000 rom-coms that people went to watch and they left wanting to fall in love.
I don’t want to be thinking about my own personal things because then what makes me sad might not be portraying the same sadness that the character would be portraying.
Sydney Sweeney
“And they left wanting to sing and dance in the rain and have big romantic gestures.”
In her own love life, Sydney started dating businessman Jonathan Davino in 2018 and, in 2022, the couple got engaged.
They formed a production company together, making two movies — Immaculate and Anyone But You.
There were rumours that Sydney had fallen for Anyone But You co-star Glen Powell, but she denied those stories.
Instead, she insisted that Jonathan was “the man of my dreams and we’re still together and stronger than ever”.
However, the pressures of showbusiness appear to have been too much because, earlier this year, it was confirmed that the wedding was off and the pair had split up.
Unlike some actresses, though, Sydney will not be pouring her heartache into her work.
Sydney endorses the Miu Miu fashion brand and is frequently dressed by them[/caption]
A young Sydney and her brother Trent[/caption]
When she portrays a character, she does not use her own real life experiences as a reference point.
She reveals: “I create character books, and it’s a book that is basically this entire character’s life from the day they’re born to the first page of the script.
“And it’s all of their memories, their relationships, their childhood bedroom, their school locker.
“I’m not putting anything of myself into a role.
“I don’t want to be thinking about my own personal things because then what makes me sad might not be portraying the same sadness that the character would be portraying.”
Anyone looking at her movies or adverts and thinking they are watching the real Sydney should think again.
Jacob Elordi and Sydney in Euphoria[/caption]
Sydney in 2023’s Americana[/caption]
