Sydney Sweeney Had A Weird Cameo In An Underrated Andrew Garfield Mystery Movie

In 2018, director David Robert Mitchell followed up his notable low-budget horror movie "It Follows" with a giddily gonzo neo-noir film called "Under the Silver Lake." The title alludes to a particularly fashionable, increasingly gentrified neighborhood in Los Angeles where all the ambitious young filmmakers and angel-headed hipsters tend to end up. Andrew Garfield stars in the movie as Sam, an easily distracted, always-stoned 33-year-old slugabed who is just handsome enough to get away with treating people poorly. Then, one night, Sam is invited into the apartment of his comely neighbor, Sarah (Riley Keough), and the two bond in a distant sort of way.

The next morning, Sarah is not only missing from her apartment, but also everything inside seems to have cleared out overnight, and a mysterious symbol has been painted on the wall. Sam, fond of conspiracy theories, dives into the oddball events and bizarro nightlife of Silver Lake to find out where she might be. He goes to rooftop parties, underground comix publishers, movie premieres, and Hollywood Forever (a cemetery in Hollywood that regularly hosts screenings). There is also a dog killer on the loose, a ghostly nude woman in an owl mask, and hidden codes embedded in old back issues of Nintendo Power Magazine. It's a strange, strange film. Mitchell was clearly very ambitious and accurately captured certain facets of L.A.'s weirdness that don't often make their way into movies.

There are many players involved in the conspiracy in "Under the Silver Lake." Among them are a group of young, up-and-coming actors who, as Sam discovers, also work for an escort service called the Shooting Stars. If one looks carefully enough, they might notice that one of the young Shooting Stars is a 20-year-old Sydney Sweeney, credited only as "Shooting Star #2." She doesn't play a major role in "Silver Lake," but her presence bolsters the themes of "weird fame" that pervade the movie.

The Shooting Stars are only a minor part of "Under the Silver Lake," although not so minor that you wouldn't notice Sweeney. There is a scene in "Under the Silver Lake" wherein the Stars are seen acting in a small indie flick that's being shown at Hollywood Forever. While Sweeney's character is up on the screen, she watches herself from the audience, dressed in a glittery tube top and (sigh) a raspberry beret. She's meant to be a somewhat intimidating, cooler-than-thou, and perhaps even threatening presence for Sam. The fact that Sweeney chose to appear in such an oddball project as "Under the Silver Lake" proves that she has a marvelous instinct for interesting movies.

Sweeney continued to make her way up the ladder after that, appearing in "Big Time Adolescence" the following year, as well as Quentin Tarantino's awards darling "Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood." 2019 also saw the premiere of her hit HBO series "Euphoria," cementing Sweeney's fame. She's been a major Hollywood player ever since and has even begun producing her own projects. She produced the 2024 horror movie "Immaculate" and is overseeing her next starring vehicle: an as-yet untitled biopic of boxer Christy Martin.

"Under the Silver Lake" was a little too weird for most critics (it currently only has a 58% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 159 reviews), but anyone can appreciate its go-for-broke ambition. Indeed, /Film's own B.J. Colangelo previously pointed out the palpable cult appeal of "Under the Silver Lake." Mitchell was born in Michigan and attended school in Florida, so Los Angeles must have felt like an alien entity to him. "Under the Silver Lake" is made with an outsider's eye, but it is completely fair in its depiction of L.A.'s callow, laidback, fame-obsessed surreality.