Read

Sweeney is the latest in a long line of Hollywood sex symbols – but there does seem to be something different about her. She’s been compared to Dakota Johnson as a more fully formed sex symbol. Both women are unafraid to take roles that involve nudity or sex scenes, whereas a number of other actresses fear being pigeon holed or ostracised for this type of role, while both have also leveraged their mainstream appeal to shine in critically acclaimed, intellectual material. Reminiscent of the top sex symbol of the 00s, Megan Fox, Sweeney is also boldly outspoken in interviews and isn’t afraid to say things off the cuff that may be controversial. She made headlines for speaking very openly about how Hollywood today doesn’t pay young stars the way we might expect or the way it perhaps used to.

Both Fox and Sweeney also happen to be into cool cars. Sweeney in her spare time fixes up vintage rides. It’s also possible to draw parallels between Sweeney and iconic sex symbols from history, too. The combination of her talent, onscreen vulnerability, and extraordinary face and physique that capture 21st century beauty ideals might remind us of Marilyn Monroe. Like Monroe, Sweeney sees herself as an actress first. She told NME magazine, “Cassie is a sexualised character, and that became a mold that was then [forced] onto me as a human instead of just Cassie. I was seeing people say, ‘Oh, she only got this because she showed her boobs.’ I had multiple shows and movies before I even did Euphoria.” Prior to Euphoria, Sweeney appeared in some really big projects, as pious, innocent Eden in A Handmaid’s Tale, or as a member of the Manson family in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, but her chameleon-like ability as an actress that meant many people overlooked her in those roles. She went on to say, “I look very different in everything I do because I want to become the character individually, and I don’t want people to associate Sydney Sweeney with a character – I want them to fully feel like they’re experiencing another world and another person.”

Meanwhile, people who know her just as Cassie may be reacting to her through the old adage of ‘sex sells’, without realising how much more complicated she is. She’s spoken out about the phenomenon of the ‘one dimensional sex symbol’ character, saying “Sometimes I’ll read a script and all there is to the character is her being a sex symbol or her being sexualized and there’s nothing else to her.” So she brings more to her characters – getting to the core of their motivations, and pushing back against nudity when she feels it doesn’t benefit the narrative. What is even more interesting about Sydney’s sexy scenes, though, is the way that they have surprisingly benefited her personally. In an interview with Good Morning America, she revealed that she has long standing body dysmorphia, and that playing Cassie had helped her to feel more comfortable in her own skin.
These days, Sweeney is paying forward her own empowerment. In 2020, she set up her production company, Fifty-Fifty Films, with the aim of bringing more women’s stories to the screen. She told Teen Vogue that her aim is to encourage women to ‘never put a limit to what their capabilities are because they’re female, or their age, or their background.” And rather than going to acting school, she decided to go to college to study business. Ultimately, that level of empowerment is the brand new aspect that Sweeney brings to the sex symbol. For example, despite the comparisons, Dakota Johnson – who is less than a decade older than her – has described her feelings of disempowerment on the 50 Shades of Grey set. Meanwhile, Sweeney has been watching actresses her entire life, and she’s lining everything up for success. She knows that sex sells, sure; but she also knows that to achieve longevity she needs to have control over what sex she sells – and that she needs to weigh up which roles she takes, in order to achieve variety and range. It’s this combination of bombshell beauty and business smarts that really defines her as this generation’s sex symbol.