Amanda Seyfried Reuniting with ‘Mamma Mia!’ Costar Meryl Streep Is the Happiness We All Need To See

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 8 January 2024

The Golden Globes last night produced many a heartfelt costar reunion, but one of our favorites was the mother-daughter duo of Meryl Streep (Donna) and Amanda Seyfried (Sophie) from the 2008 film Mamma Mia! (We’ll get to the 2018 sequel later.)

The movie—based on the songs of ABBA—featured an ensemble cast including Streep and Seyfried, as well as Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Christine Baranski, and more. Seyfried’s reaction upon seeing her onscreen mom Streep surprise her on the red carpet was pretty priceless. As Seyfried posed for photos, Streep swooped in to kiss her on the cheek.

Streep was a nominee last night for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role on Television for her work on Only Murders in the Building, while Seyfried was a presenter last night.

Seyfried appeared in both the original 2008 film and its 2018 sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, but (spoiler alert) Streep’s character Donna died between the two films—though she does make a cameo in the sequel. Fans of the movies have been clamoring for a third film for years, Entertainment Weekly reports, and both Seyfried and Streep have repeatedly said they’d be open to it. (Maybe their run-in last night will spark some conversations?)

“I’m up for anything,” Streep told Vogue last year. “I’ll have to schedule a knee scoping before we film, but if there’s an idea that excites me, I’m totally there.”

It seems Streep has even been storyboarding ideas (at least with herself) about how Donna could make a posthumous return. “I told [producer Judy Craymer] if she could figure out a way to reincarnate Donna, I’m into that,” Streep said. “Or it could be like in one of those soap operas where Donna comes back and reveals it was really her twin sister that died.” She added, jokingly, “We may have to call it Grand-Mamma Mia! By the time we make it!”

Seyfried is in, too, it seems, telling Collider in 2020 “Every single person in that movie would say yes in a heartbeat because we want to hang out with each other.” Last May, Craymer told Deadline that a third movie musical is in “earliest stages,” and that she wants to bring Streep back for it. “There is a story there, and I do think Meryl should come back, and if the script is right, she would, I think, because she really loved playing Donna,” Craymer said. “I don’t want to over-egg it, but I know there’s a trilogy there.”

In addition to reuniting with Seyfried, Streep also reunited with her former The Devil Wears Prada costar Emily Blunt, who played Emily Charlton, an assistant to Streep’s iconic Miranda Priestly at the magazine Runway. (Blunt was also nominated last night, for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role for her role in Oppenheimer.)

Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.

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