Reuniting with ex on Mamma Mia! sequel 'wasn't weird' for Seyfried

About 10 years ago, US actress Amanda Seyfried and English actor Dominic Cooper fell in love during the shoot of musical romcom Mamma Mia!, based on the musical of the same name using the music of Swedish pop group Abba, but then broke up a few years after.

Now, the former couple are back to playing on-screen lovers Sophie and Sky in the sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

And Seyfried said there was no awkwardness.

The 32-year-old said during our interview at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden: "We were together for three years. But after we split, we became really close friends.

"We would all hang out. My girlfriends from the first movie, we were all living together at one point when Dom and I were still together in Los Angeles.

"The last time I had hung out with Dom was my birthday when I turned 30. So it wasn't weird."

Seyfried married US actor Thomas Sadowski in March 2017, just before the birth of their daughter.

She said: "I think he has the same kind of issues that I would have if we were hanging out with his ex-girlfriend from long ago.

"I think it is always like, 'I'm so in love with this person, that person must be so in love with her too.' And I would guess that he probably assumed that Dominic is in love with me the way he is in love with me. And it is just not the case."

"I would rather he be jealous than like completely fine with it," she continued, laughing.

"He is very supportive and he loves this movie, and they got along absolutely fine when we were shooting.

"It is funny though how personal Mamma Mia! became... how much of my life fused with it and how much I got lost in it.

"My best friends are my best friends in the movie, and I think it did the same for all the younger kids (of) the new cast. They are all going to be best friends like we are. I know they are."

Opening here tomorrow, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is both a prequel and a sequel.

Sophie (Seyfried) is planning the grand opening of a hotel in her late mother Donna's (Meryl Streep) memory, but the storyline intermittently flashes back to the 70s, with young Donna's (Lily James) arrival on the Greek island of Kalokairi and the circumstances of her pregnancy.

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When Seyfried was approached for the sequel, she thought it was "crazy" because "What the hell would we do? What songs would be used?"

But once she read the script, she quickly warmed to the idea of Donna's backstory.

"I think to go from the beginning and get some context was really smart. And where do I fit in? What is happening with Sophie? And they created a great story out of it. I had just had a baby and Sophie's pregnant. This was the perfect timing for this to happen.

"Ten years is a long time. I don't think we could wait that long for Mamma Mia! 3 if we did one. That would just be ridiculous," she said.

Not surprisingly, Seyfried's favourite Abba song is Mamma Mia.

She said: "I would listen to it over and over again to get me excited for my audition. And because I needed that drive, I really wanted it, but I was so, so nervous, I would just listen to it on repeat and lay on the floor of my apartment, just belting it because it was just uplifting."

Though the women recorded it separately, the tear-jerking track she duets with Streep, My Love, My Life, has a special place in her heart.

She said: "It means so much more to me now that I am a mother. The scene perfectly captures their relationship and meant a lot when we were shooting it.

"They (even) rewrote some of the lyrics to match what was going on in the story more."

She added: "Having 10 years in between and getting back into her space, in our space, as Donna and Sophie, it was just really surreal. It is really beautiful that I got to do that as a person, as an actor, as Sophie, but also as Amanda and Meryl, getting back to the root of what Mamma Mia! is about.

"It was short, but it was profound. That day was spectacular. There was a lot of fusion of Amanda and Sophie going on, so I can't ever say it was 100 per cent Sophie."