Amanda Seyfried: David Fincher’s Perfectionism On The ‘Mank’ Set Was As Intense As Advertised

David Fincher comes by his reputation for intense perfectionism honestly. Brad Pitt swears that the director’s also a funny dude, but Fincher’s body of work — Seven, Zodiac, Gone Girl, Mindhunter, Fight Club, and so on — more than suggests that he at least projects a certain air on set. Amanda Seyfried, who stars in the upcoming Fincher-directed Netflix movie, Mank, is revealing that working with The Social Network helmer is definitely a process, one that sounds both exhausting and invigorating.

During an interview with Collider, Seyfried discussed how Mank, in which she portrays actress Marion Davies (the movie is about the clashes between screenwriter Herman J Mankiewicz and Orson Welles during the making of Citizen Kane), was the hardest job she’s done. She also describes the experience as extremely rewarding, but it’s miraculous that the film wrapped just prior to pandemic shutdowns because Seyfried says that she filmed one scene 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. Um, I could be underestimating by five days of one scene when I didn’t have one line… ‘You think I can just relax’ No, because there are probably about nine or 10 different camera angles that had been on me at one point.

Mank is projected to arrive on Netflix this fall and will hopefully stir up some Oscar fuss. The tussles between the streaming giant and Academy are also growing more intense with every passing year (The Irishman was profusely nominated in 2020 but still ultimately shut out from wins), and given that theaters will have taken a six-month-or-so forced break, and Spike Lee’s latest joint will also be a contender, the delayed ceremony should be a memorable one.