Amanda Seyfried was not sure she could pull off tough new role

Amanda Seyfried’s new role is a unique and challenging one and she’s grateful, but she also suffered from self-doubt.

Amanda plays the real-life Lee, a founding leader of religious sect the Shakers in the upcoming The Testament of Ann Lee.

The Mamma Mia! star told writer-director Mona Fastvold to cast somebody English due to the accent, and because she was afraid of fumbling the director’s passion project.

At the premiere of the film at the Venice International Film Festival on Monday, Sept. 1, the actress shared, "I also was like, 'Mona, you don't have to cast me. I kept saying, 'Go with somebody English,' because the accent seemed so hard. That wasn't the hardest part but it was just, I saw the love that Mona had. This was her baby, and I didn't want to F it up. But she believed in me, so I believed in me, and here we are."

She also gushed over the freedom she had with the character, saying, "Basically, I follow Mona into the light and anything goes, because there's so much freedom, and the only threat is to not use that freedom to your advantage as an artist to go as far deep as you can go to make the craziest sounds."

"I've never been let loose in this way," she shared. 

A release date hasn't been announced for The Testament of Ann Lee.