Back in April, we were briefly obsessed with the idea that Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell cheated on their respective partners while filming a romance in Australia. Glen’s three-year relationship with Gigi Paris ended the moment people noticed how flirty Glen and Sydney were together. Sydney’s fiance Jonathan Davino didn’t seem to go away, although he definitely gave off the vibe of someone who would stick around, even if his fiance cheated on him. Anyway, that was months ago and the rumors died down. Now Sydney is addressing some of it in her Variety cover story, which she did pre-strike as part of her Emmy Award campaign (for Reality). Some highlights:

All of the gossip about her life: “Sometimes I feel beat up by it,” Sweeney says pensively. “It’s hard to sit back and watch, and not be able to stand up for yourself.” Her study of the industry has yielded crucial insights: Never respond to the rumors, and always find a connection back to the project. “I’ll see my uncle comment on things and I’m like, ‘You gotta stop.’ But it’s so hard, because I grew up in a small town, and they don’t get the business of it all. Just like Reality, it was all these tabloids and headlines, but no one knew the actual story.”

She never had a plan B: “I was going to five to 10 auditions a week, and not getting a single callback. I always believed that if you have a plan B, you’re prepared to fail. No matter how hard or how long it was going to take, I was just going to keep working at it.”

Just as she found work, her parents divorced and filed for bankruptcy. “My parents sacrificed so much to support my dream, and they lost so much during it. I just felt a responsibility to show them that it was worth it,” she says. Did the sacrifices her parents made contribute to these crises? “I’ll never know,” she says. “I think as a kid, as the eldest, I feel a responsibility. They’ll say no, or they’ll say yes, depending on what fight it is. But I’ll always feel responsible. But that’s OK.”

Her mother’s infamous birthday party: Photos of the celebration showed guests in what appeared to be Blue Lives Matter garb and MAGA-styled red caps later revealed to read “Make Sixty Great Again.” “There were so many misinterpretations. The people in the pictures weren’t even my family. The people who brought the things that people were upset about were actually my mom’s friends from L.A. who have kids that are walking outside in the Pride parade, and they thought it would be funny to wear because they were coming to Idaho.”

The rumors that she had an affair with Glen Powell: “It’s a rom-com. That’s what people want! Glen and I don’t really care. We have so much fun together, and we respect each other so much; he’s such a hard worker, and I’m a hard worker. We’re excited for the press tour, and I literally just left ADR with him. We talk all the time like, ‘That’s really funny.’” In a media environment that’s outside even a gifted actor’s control, there can be a certain pleasure in leaning into the narrative. “They want it. It’s fun to give it to ’em.”

She wants to find a balance between her career & family: “I always thought I’d have a kid by now. I always wanted to be a young mom. I love acting, I love the business, I love producing, I love all of it. But what’s the point if I’m not getting to share it with a family? The time will come, and I’ll have four kids. And they will come with me everywhere and be my best friends.”

On Madame Web: “I think it’s different from what people expect a superhero movie to be. Quote that! That’s a quote, because the tabloids will pick up everything else we talk about.”

[From Variety]

Much has been made about the fact that Sydney is the rare hot Hollywood commodity who is NOT a nepo baby, and I think you can see that here – Sydney is very much about the grind, the hustle, what’s next, how do I leverage my power, will I have time to have a family, all of the stuff that nepo babies don’t even think about, frankly. As for what she says about Glen Powell – I learned in this piece that Sydney put the film (Anyone But You) together and she produced it. Meaning, even if Glen and Sydney are not boning, they’re going to play up those rumors throughout the promotion to help sell the movie. (And I do think they were boning.)

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images, Instagram. Cover courtesy of Variety.