Sydney Sweeney just cleared the 13.5 million followers number on her Instagram account. She appears to be that typical rising star – beautiful, very talented, and very much in demand. She has built her young career by being fearless in front of the camera and headstrong, but willing to learn, off-screen. Let’s take a look at what got her here, what she’s been doing lately, and what’s to come for the talented actress.
Sydney Sweeney is a Washington state girl at heart. Born in Spokane, Washington, she was the first born to Lisa Sweeney, a lawyer, and her father Scott, who is in the medical field. She has a younger brother, Trent.
Although Sydney was big into athletics as a kid (soccer, baseball, snow slalom, wakeboarding), she knew from a young age that she wanted to be an actor. “I had a crazy imagination growing up. My parents always wanted me outside, so I had all these imaginary worlds,” she once said to Coveteur. “I grew up in a town where there wasn’t any sort of entertainment industry, so acting was a fairy tale.”
If it wasn’t for an indie film that showed up in her town for filming, her introduction to Hollywood may have taken a different path. But she knew convincing her parents to let her audition was going to take some work. Sydney was, after all, only 12 years old at the time. “They were holding auditions, so I begged my parents to let me audition by putting together a five-year business plan presentation,” she laughs. “My mom is a lawyer, and my dad is in the medical field, so school has always been really important. I’ve always known how to communicate to them through that way.” And how did it go? Well, she was able to finally convince her parents to agree to her five-year business plan and she nailed the audition.
Apparently, Sydney Sweeney’s positive audition was enough to convince her parents that maybe Sydney was on to something with her potential acting career. So, Lisa took her daughter to Los Angeles during the pilot season to see if Sydney could act her way onto a pilot or two. More success followed which prompted Sydney and her mom to move to Los Angeles.
Sydney went to work. Audition after audition, some positive, others negative. But as a 12-year-old, she grabbed bit parts on TV series like Heroes and Criminal Minds. As Sydney recalls, “I built a lot of relationships and experience from those sets.” There would be plenty more of that to come for the young actress.
Sydney Sweeney grabbed her first feature film in John Carpenter’s The Ward, which coincidentally starred another actress who has been making a bunch of headlines lately – Amber Heard. From that, Sweeney hit numerous TV series such as Chase, 90210, Kickin’ It, Grey’s Anatomy, and The Middle. She also saw her fair share of features in films like The Opium Eater, Spiders, The Martial Arts Kid, Stolen from Suburbia, Cassidy Way, and Angels in Stardust.
It may be that Sydney Sweeny had more than one big break. It could also be simply that her talent was beginning to shine through. Everything began to change for Sydney Sweeney in 2017. Her roles began to carry a little more heft to them, starting with a guest shot on Pretty Little Liars. She quickly moved on to two more forgettable projects (Vikes and Dead Ant) before business began to pick up for Sydney. The first came when she starred in a seven-episode arc on In the Vault. She then turned that into 10 episodes on Everything Sucks! Sydney was just getting started.
Two more feature films, Along Came the Devil and The Wrong Daughter, led Sydney to The Handmaid’s Tale. Her work on that series began to bring her Hollywood notice and led her to the mini-series Sharp Objects. She grabbed a small role in Quentin Tarantino’s Hollywood fairy tale, Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood, while keeping her 2019 busy by also starring in Big Time Adolescence and Clementine.
The role of Cassie Howard was handed over to Sydney Sweeney in 2019. It was the role she was meant to play and one she had zero reservations about doing. It was also a role she was required to take all her clothes off, but nudity wasn’t an issue for Sydney. The only issue she ever had with disrobing was when it simply made no sense in the scene she was filming. In fact, she didn’t have, and still doesn’t have, any issue speaking her mind when it comes to her nudity.
The actress recently revealed that she has spoken on occasion with Euphoria’s creator, Sam Levinson, about what she feels is unnecessary nudity. “There are moments where Cassie was supposed to be shirtless and I would tell Sam, ‘I don’t really think that’s necessary here,’” she explained to the Independent. “He was like, ‘Okay, we don’t need it.’ I’ve never felt like Sam has pushed it on me or was trying to get a nude scene into an HBO show. When I didn’t want to do it, he didn’t make me.”
Nevertheless, Sweeney has taken her clothes off enough in films or on TV to finally understand the Hollywood double-standard, though how it will affect her future nudity decisions is not known. “I’m so disconnected from it. When I get tagged in Cassie’s or Pippa from The Voyeurs’ nudes, it feels like me looking at their nudes, not Sydney’s nudes,” said Sydney Sweeney to PEOPLE. “When you film one of these scenes, it is so technical and so not romantic. There are people staring at you, there’s pads between you, there are nipple covers and weird sticker thongs all up in your butt.”
“I researched celebrities who have done nude scenes, trying to make myself feel better,” she continued to PEOPLE. “There are hour-long compilations of world-famous male actors with nude scenes who win Oscars and get praised for that work. But the moment a woman does it, it degrades them.” Then she concluded, “They’re not actresses. They just take off their tops so they can get a role,” she said. “There’s such a double standard and I really hope I can have a little part in changing that.”
In 2020, something wonderful happened in Sydney Sweeney’s blossoming career. It had nothing to do with acting or anything to do with the entertainment business at all. But it was something that made her more nervous than being on a movie set. She was getting ready to speak in from of 30 students at Mountainside Middle School in Spokane, Washington.
“I had a little girl write me a letter and ask me to speak at her school and now I’m here,” Sweeney said to The Spokesman-Review. “She said I’m a role model.” And that was all it took. Sweeney booked the “gig” after reading the letter from 13-year-old Grace Marcel, who wrote the letter as part of a class assignment. After reading the letter, Sweeney not only responded to Marcel’s pouring out her heart, but she also told Marcel that she would love to come to speak at her school. “I wanted to cry. I was so happy,” Merrel said.
It was during this conversation with 30 odd students that Sydney explained she was nervous to stand in front of the class, talking about herself. “I have horrible stage fright, which is so funny,” Sweeney said. “I get more nervous having to be myself than the character because when you’re a character you kind of let go of everything.”
Sydney admitted to the class that most of the characters she has portrayed up this that point were not middle-school-age appropriate, but she also hoped that parents could see the difference between Sydney’s characters and Sydney the person. “I know it might be hard for some parents because of the roles I do take on,” Sweeney said. “I think that I can show them that education is important no matter what you do, that coming home and visiting your family when you can is important, and staying humble is a good thing to be.”
It’s not like any of us had a chance, though by Sydney’s own words, “I don’t date actors or musicians or anyone in entertainment because I can just be normal Syd that way and it’s easiest.” Wait, so you ARE saying there’s still a chance? Well, unfortunately, that apparent chance has gone by the wayside. Sydney Sweeney is not only in a relationship, but as it was just recently discovered, Sydney is also an engaged woman.
That’s right. Sydney broke the hearts of millions of men (and women as well) who thought that maybe, just maybe, they stood a chance. But since 2018, right before the Sydney Sweeney train to stardom took off, she has been linked to Jonathan Davino, a businessman whose family owns 14th Round and Final Bell, two vaporizer design packaging companies.
Davino, who is 13 years Sydney’s senior at 37 years of age, apparently asked, and she said yes, sometime before the pair were photographed out in Los Angeles on February 28, 2022, with Sydney sporting a huge engagement ring. Davino prefers to remain out of the spotlight but as the couple’s relationship progresses, along with Sydney’s rising star, that may be easier said than done. Congrats to both, though.
Speaking of nudity, Sydney has plans to tackle that issue by becoming a more active partner in filmmaking. The White Lotus star decided to take advantage of the COVID Hollywood shutdown time and created her own production company, Fifty-Fifty Films. She took to Twitter to make her announcement.
Sydney didn’t waste any time as she has already picked up her first project under her Fifty-Fifty Films banner called The Players Table. The story is based on the Jessica Goodman suspense novel, They Wish They Were Us, and will see Sydney star in it alongside pal, singer Halsey. Sydney’s Fifty-Fifty Films will also be teaming up with Jean-Marc Vallée and Nathan Ross’ Crazyrose and Endeavor Content to make the project come to life.
Of course, Sydney Sweeney will continue her work in front of the camera as well with the third season of Euphoria recently being announced. Sweeney will also be seen in the upcoming film National Anthem and it was just announced that she will be joining Dakota Johnson, Isabela Merced, and Emma Roberts in Sony and Marvel’s feature, Madame Web. At 24, Sydney Sweeney has already accomplished so much. Now that she is running her own production company, expect to hear a lot more from this rising star.
When it comes to Sydney Sweeney and social media, she is much like her Euphoria’s Cassie Howard character – she isn’t shy. Sydney is very active on Instagram and often times she leaves little to the imagination with some of her posts. As of this writing, Sydney Sweeney has 13.5 million followers on the social platform. It’s easy to see why. The actress isn’t shy about modeling a number of different styles, ones that often include more skin than clothing. One of her latest was a series of four pictures of Sydney in a blue and white checkered but barely there bikini.
Sydney Sweeney also took a series of photos for famed German photographer Ellen Von Unwerth. In fact, the pics landed Sweeney the coveted cover of Unwerth’s Von magazine. Sweeney took to her Instagram to post a couple of pictures from the photo shoot.
While Sydney has no problem posting bikini pictures, or cover shots such as the Von’s photo or her Vogue cover, she also likes to have fun and show off her athletic side as well. Back in February, Sydney gave the world a peek at her Mixed Martial Arts training (yes, she loves to train in MMA). She began training at the age of 14 and actually competed in her first competition at 18.
“It was a grappling competition against all guys a weight category above me, and I got first place,” she told Marie Claire. “Those guys were probably saying, ‘Oh, we didn’t want to hurt her,’ but they were definitely trying. Everyone broke a sweat!”
Not only that, but Sydney loves water sports. She recently posted on her Instagram a little bit of water skiing. She appears to be good at that as well.
Although you won’t see Sydney Sweeney posting much, if anything, about her personal relationship with Davino, she has no issue with sharing everything else in her life. Family outings to Universal Studios, vacations with friends, and even fun photos with her Euphoria castmates. Sydney Sweeney will share it all.