In an interview with GQ, Amanda Seyfried broke down her most iconic characters—including her leading role in the Diablo Cody-written Jennifer’s Body opposite Megan Fox. The film, directed by Karyn Kusama, wasn’t an instant hit but over the years since its 2009 release has built up a solid cult fandom that’s propelling talk of a sequel.
In the interview, Seyfried expressed her love for the film and its universe.
“I can’t critique this movie. It’s a perfect movie. It’s got balls. Diablo Cody was outspoken and beautiful and smart and funny. And we were expressing a certain angst in a very, very specific comedic way in a very specific genre. God, the special effects were so incredible,” she remembered. “There [were] stunts. There was like everything that you could want and girl on girl action.”
Jennifer’s Body wasn’t exactly marketed to its correct audience—angsty teen girls—and Seyfried is well aware of how that worked against the film back in 2009.
“If the critics criticized anything, it would be the marketing. The marketing sucked. It just did and we all agree. Karyn is like a fierce advocate of women in storytelling,” Seyfried said. “She is able to enhance the relationships between women on film and TV. She’s able to mine everything she can and she’s very, very human and she’s very sensitive. But I felt like she cared deeply about this story underneath all of it. She just got it all and she put it together so beautifully and the marketing team cheapened it like it was just, you know, a romp, a gory romp. I think they ruined it and I think that Karyn and Diablo were a really good team. And Megan and I are a really good team.”
Thankfully the film was revisited and found innocent of the film crimes movie bros accused it of, and has since gained a cult following. It deserved its welcome as that era’s entry into the pantheon of “puberty as a monster” genre films like Ginger Snaps before it. Could a sequel offer Jennifer’s Body the ultimate redemption? Seyfried hopes so.
“I’m looking forward to the sequel,” she said. “They’re working on it. I already said thumbs up. I was like, whenever you’re ready, I’m ready. Because I want to play [an adult version of my character] Needy. I love Needy. It also was the first time I got to play really nerdy, and Megan got to turn into a fucking demon. And it was awesome. We all just had a lot of fun. So I want to celebrate it by doing the sequel.”
Seyfried riffed on where she thought Needy might’ve ended up. “I just want to see Needy in a power position. Not necessarily in a power suit but in a power position. You know, maybe she runs her branch at Planned Parenthood or something. She’s a badass.”
But how can you have a Jennifer’s Body sequel without Megan Fox’s Jennifer? After all, Needy stabbed her in the tit, er, heart at the end of the film. To that end, Seyfried teased, “And I don’t know, where would Megan be? She’s probably like somebody’s chief of staff. But she’s kind of dead, right? But is she? I don’t think she is.”
If Needy ended up being an unreliable narrator of the events of the film and turned out to be the Will Graham to Jennifer’s Hannibal, we would be so dead. It would perfectly fit into the theories that abound the unspoken tension between them in their toxic relationship, and we could see that being fascinating to explore now that they’re long out of high school. Disney needs to make this happen and have Jennifer return as the Devil’s Kettle local haunt legend.
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