Amanda Seyfried Has One Condition For A Jennifer's Body Sequel

Anyone with an iota of sense knows that "Jennifer's Body," the 2009 film written by Diablo Cody and directed by Karyn Kusama which stars Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried, absolutely rules. Even though the movie flopped when it came out for a variety of (in my opinion, frivolous and stupid) reasons, it's finally getting the re-evaluation it so richly deserves, and even a potential sequel. During an episode of Variety's Actors on Actors series that pairs up Seyfried and Adam Brody — who played a small yet pivotal role in "Jennifer's Body" — talked about the sequel, at which point Seyfried said she has one huge and very understandable condition for her return.

"This was written out for me to say, I'm going to be honest — but you played a villainous pop star in 'Jennifer's Body,'" Seyfried said at the start of the interview, referencing Brody's role as Nikolai Wolf, the lead singer of the fictional indie band Low Shoulder that best friends Jennifer Check (Fox) and Anita "Needy" Lesnicki (Seyfried) go see in the film. Seyfried then asked Brody if he remembered the lyrics to the fictional song "Through the Trees," and though the two changed the subject for a while, they circled back to "Jennifer's Body" before long.

"Everything about that was fun," Seyfried said of "Jennifer's Body." Later in the interview, the two read lines from this cult classic (including "What's up, Vagisil?") Partway through the section that's presented as a celebration of writer Diablo Cody's "poetry," Seyfried simply says, "We're making another one."

"I heard that," Brody responds before Seyfried asks if he'll appear in the sequel. "I certainly wasn't contacted," Brody says. "I died, so..." (Long story, but basically, Jennifer becomes a succubus, is defeated by Needy but bites her in the process, and Needy ultimately kills Nikolai and the rest of Low Shoulder.)

"You did die! But so did Megan!" Seyfried then exclaims. "And I'm not doing it without her," she clarified.

Despite the fact that Brody says he hasn't heard much about this sequel, he did say that, since the movie is about a woman who becomes a succubus, there could be a pathway for him to return. Still, he just doesn't know if his character Nikolai Wolf would merit an inclusion; as he put it, "There's supernatural elements at play, so ... I have to say, as much as I would want to, it feels very tangential."

"Not if you played the Devil. That would be amazing," Seyfried pitched. After Brody clarified the existence of any sort of Satanic figure in a "Jennifer's Body" sequel, Seyfried capitulated: "No. I don't know anything about it. I know [original producer Mason Novick] was like, 'You wanna do this?' And I was like, 'Whatever, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, if you make this, yeah, I'll come."

"Is Karyn gonna direct it?" Brody asked, bringing Karyn Kusama into the conversation — a director who's recently seen a career resurgence thanks to high-profile projects like "Yellowjackets." Apparently, Seyfried would love that: "I don't know, but we've been trying to work together for years."

Ultimately, Seyfried said that she loves hearing from fans of "Jennifer's Body" years after the film came out. "Same as 'Mean Girls' — if someone appreciates it, to make it kind of like a cult classic, it's just cool because there's [conversations] to be had around it, right?" she mused. "It feels like a mini celebration every time someone brings it up."

"'Jennifer's Body 2.' What's the subheading?" Brody said, before Seyfried came up with an immediate and pretty perfect answer: "'Needy's Body.'" After reading a few more lines from the movie together, Seyfried came up with another plan, though I'm not quite sure how this one would work exactly. "You know what we're going to do? We're going to watch it again," Seyfried declared. "To raise money for the next one."

As /Film's own BJ Colangelo wrote in a piece about the cult classic status of "Jennifer's Body" in 2022, "It took almost 10 years for 'Jennifer's Body' to join the ranks of other unfairly maligned horror greats like "Halloween III: Season of the Witch," but it's official — 'Jennifer's Body' is and has always been, an absolute masterpiece." (Colangelo is exactly right, folks.) Megan Fox and Karyn Kusama have also discussed the movie's resurgence over the years, and even though it's likely bittersweet — because the movie was so unfairly maligned back in 2009 — they both seem happy that people are finally appreciating the movie.

During an appearance on "Eli Roth's History of Horror: Uncut" podcast (via IndieWire) in 2020, Fox said that unfortunately, her media image in 2009, which largely centered around her issues with director Michael Bay and his "Transformers" franchise, didn't help the movie's chances of success, but she's happy to see its status now. "It's a nice circle," Fox told Roth. "I didn't expect it to grow like that. But to see it being appreciated now, obviously makes me feel really good. I'm happy for Diablo and I'm happy for Karyn (Kusama, the director) — all these people put in a lot of hard work into making a really quality project that was panned for reasons that had nothing to do with them," she said. "A lot of it was just about my image at the time and who I was in the media at the time and the backlash to that. The movie never really stood a chance."

Before that, in 2019, both Kusama and Fox sat down with Jordan Crucchiola for Vulture — in front of an audience of huge "Jennifer's Body" fans, no less — to re-evaluate the movie's later success. "For me, what's really gratifying about people coming back to the film and just watching it here with you guys, is it's being revisited because it's really f**king good. It's exciting for me. It's like, you know, of course the movie has its flaws and a lot of movies do. Most movies do. But I'm really excited by what survives in it, what remains totally bracing and un-PC."

"I have to say while Megan is up here onstage with me, your performance is so layered, nuanced, and complicated," Kusama continued, praising one of her two stars. "I don't think people understood how hard it is to do that role, and you did it and you made it look easy." Kusama is totally correct, and it just proves that Amanda Seyfried is right too: Fox needs to return for a "Jennifer's Body" sequel.

You can watch "Jennifer's Body" on Peacock now.