Page 89 - Allure - November 2016 USA

Two hours north of ambassador for Clé de Peau Beauté or decided not to go to college, her
Manhattan and two worlds away, there’s a
quiet hamlet in the foothills of the Catskill
Mountains called Stone Ridge. The names of the
country roads—Sawkill, Cottekill, Shivertown—seem
to be lifted right out of a Washington Irving story. In fact, the writer’s most famous character, Rip
Van Winkle, set off on his mysterious day trip not far from this spot. When you hear thunder in the distance, it’s hard not to think of it being, as Irving imagined, made by the ghosts of Henry Hudson and his loyal men, those poor lost souls playing ninepins in the mountains. M. Night Shyamalan would be comfortable here; it’s a landscape of supernatural legends.
Today, the deep green hills and sleepy hollows are dotted with aboveground pools, tractor-tire flower planters, whirligigs, and wind chimes. And everywhere you look—along the roadsides, in the pastures and abandoned lots—you see acres of the wildflower Queen Anne’s lace, its slender stalks capped with whorls of antique white and a tiny red dot in the middle, where, the story goes, a needle pricked Her Royal Highness at her sewing table. Listed as a “noxious weed” by the United States Department of Agriculture, it is, to many eyes, including my own, an all-American beauty: deceptively hardy, slightly wild, homespun. Lovely, but the opposite of exotic.
This is one of the places that the actress Amanda Seyfried calls home. We’re meeting at a no-frills roadside café filled with boisterous local folks enjoying the lunchtime rush. A table on the porch outside is a bit more private and quiet, though the rural peace and birdsong are regularly overwhelmed by the roar of big rigs, tanker trucks, and all manner of farm equipment thundering over Route 209 and down the valley. Seyfried drives up on the dot in a black Toyota SUV. She’s wearing denim shorts, Birkenstocks, and a black T-shirt that says “Wakeman Basketball.” Lovely, but the opposite of exotic.
Maybe it’s not where you’d expect to find the star of Mamma Mia!, Les Misérables, Lovelace, and Ted 2, but she’s in her element. It could be because she grew up in the classic Rust Belt city of Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the northern reaches of Appalachia. Perhaps it’s even more surprising to think of her as a brand
the face of Givenchy Very Irrésistible fragrances or a model in Miu Miu’s ad campaign, but her heart seems to be right here. “I love this place so much. I love this town!” she says, picking at a black-bean burger and absorbing farm and gardening tips from the (very chatty) waitress.
Seyfried, who bought a house here a few years ago, begins to tick off its virtues as if she works for the local chamber of commerce: “There’s a little strip mall. But it’s a cute strip mall.
curiosity seems boundless. Like many actresses, she is that familiar combination of autodidact and blank slate. When she talks, she might sometimes contradict herself, circle back to amend an old statement, or shoot off on a tangent. There is a certain wide-eyed wonder to it all.
OK, can we talk about her eyes for a second? She acknowledges that they are “weird” (and most likely inherited: “You should see my dad’s”). When it comes to Seyfried’s eyes, adjectives
Silk top by Dries Van Noten. Details, see Shopping Guide.
When it comes to Seyfried’s eyes, adjectives fail. “Large”
is too small a word.
There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts, a reflexology place. Even the grocery store is special. It’s the classic small-town grocery. There’s a lot of local things happening. And then I go to the farm stand. Everything you get is absolutely local. But I also have a garden. Kale. Romaine. I just planted blueberries last year. Tomatoes aren’t out yet.”
A long conversation about pickling ensues with the waitress, and Seyfried listens intently, studiously, as if there will be a quiz. For a smart woman who
fail. “Large” is too small a word. There’s a running joke in Ted 2 that compares her eyes to those of Gollum, the tortured creature from The Lord of the Rings. A kinder person might say she resembles a Margaret Keane portrait or a Japanese anime character. There’s also a quirkiness there that perhaps emphasizes a quirk or two within, like Seyfried’s penchant for taxidermy or her need to FaceTime with her Australian shepherd, Finn, whenever they’re apart for any length of time.
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