A Passion Project

AMANDA SEYFRIED AND MONA FASTVOLD ON THE EPIC MOVIE THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE AND FILMING AT HANCOCK SHAKER VILLAGE 

By Anastasia Stanmeyer 

Holiday 2025

They could feel mother Ann's presence the a cappella singing filled the hallway of the Meetinghouse. It was early dawn; the faint light was starting to spread across Hancock Shaker Village. As the filming continued, they could sense something special. “It was so moving to us all—all of the sudden to hear this hymn song in that specific place,” says Mona Fastvold, director of The Testament of Ann Lee. “You felt something tugging at that little string between the present and the past.” 

A scene from The Testament of Ann Lee, starring Amanda Seyfried.

It is a moment that Fastvold will likely never forget, and an extraordinary movie that many of us who have seen an early screening are still turning over in our minds. Regionally, the film was shown at the Woodstock Film Festival in October. It opens in theaters in the U.S. on December 25 by Searchlight Pictures. 

“Mona wrote an amazing version of Ann Lee’s life,” says Amanda Seyfried, who stars in the epic film. “Some things are surreal, and some things feel like a fever dream, and then some things feel very, very intimate. I don't think I'll ever get this experience again.” 

Seyfried’s film credits include Mean Girls, Mamma Mia!, Les Miserables, and Mank, among others. She is the kind of actor who seeks out roles that challenge her. This one certainly did. The Testament of Ann Lee was one of the most layered characters Seyfried has played. “It was a meal. It was a full Thanksgiving feast,” she says. “I had to fixate on one thing at a time for a long time. I had to fully integrate into this world because I’m in 2025. I can't relate to the 1770s. And that's the gift of Hancock Shaker Village.” 

Seyfried, who grew up on the East Coast, believes that things in her past led her to this movie. She was obsessed with Colonial Williamsburg and everything from that period. To be transported back to the time when Ann Lee, who was called “Mother Ann” by her followers, was a thrill for Seyfried. “Hancock Shaker Village remains so perfectly situated in that time period,” she says. “Who gets to shoot in a museum? It makes the story feel that much more potent. Also, for me, it felt like I was home. Even though I'm in the Catskills and you're in the Berkshires, it's not that far away. It’s very similar. It’s the mountains, it's rural, the land. It’s potent history, and it's so romantic.” 

The movie was shot on 70mm at Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield and in Hungary. Fastvold and her co-writer and partner, Brady Corbet, used the same team in Budapest that they had making the Oscar-winning The Brutalist. 

Hancock Shaker Village grounded the film team in the authenticity of Shaker life from the very first day. For almost a year starting in November 2023, Fastvold and a tiny crew began visiting the historic settlement to film the different seasons, the interpreters and their work, as well as the artwork and the architecture. They not only studied and filmed different parts of the village, they obtained copies of Hancock’s blueprints and recreated the Meetinghouse in Budapest. 

“I walked the grounds at Hancock Shaker Village in the winter and during a snow storm,” says Seyfried. “I met those cows, and I was in that beautiful, round, huge building where we did the first dance. I had that whole experience to bring with me to Budapest. I had a through line already because I was there in a physical space that Ann walked. It’s very rare playing somebody and a place that really existed, and I didn't take it for granted.” She spent time where the Shakers worked and lived and was shown the seed packets, the brooms, the furniture, and other artifacts that they used. Seyfried had what she says was an authentic Shaker experience before she went to Hungary. Then to return to Hancock Shaker Village to finish the movie was like coming home. “It was epic,” she says. 

THE STORYLINE AND THE SCREENING

The movie begins with Ann Lee early in her life. Born in Manchester, England, in 1736, she was the second eldest of eight children. Starting from childhood, she promised her heart to God, yet she was searching for some deeper truth, some deeper expression to connect her fervent soul. She found that when she attended a salon at the home of Jane and James Wardley, founders of The Wardley Society. They had recently been estranged from The Quakers and espoused their own gospel. They believed that the Second Coming would be revealed in a female form, something described in the Book of Revelation as “a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars,” according to the King James Bible. 

This embodiment of the founder of the Shakers is stunningly portrayed by Seyfried. It’s hard to imagine anyone else in that part. At the movie’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 1—the first time Seyfried saw the finished product—she burst into tears watching the scene where Mother Ann was near the end of her life. When the lights went up, Seyfried, who was sitting next to Fastvold, could be seen crying during the 15½-minute standing ovation. 

“I remember how tired I was in that scene. I remember blocking, What do I feel right now?” says Seyfried. “There's a heaviness to her, and I brought every ounce of my own heaviness to it. When in doubt, you cut to the reality of what you're going through, and you blend in yourself with the character. When I was watching it, I felt my own heaviness and Ann’s heaviness at the same time. It was overwhelming.” 

Seyfried’s voice falters over the phone, reliving that moment. 

“You cry because you're happy, you cry because you're devastated, and you cry because, for me, personally, I cried because I was exhausted, and it was just a whole mess of feelings that I was having. The lights go up, and it's over. My life experience is never going to be separated from what I saw on screen. That was a beautiful chaos of my life and Ann's life and Mona's life and the story. You become one with each other. I can't really articulate it in any other way right now. We communed with Ann Lee.” 

Film stills from scenes that were done at Hancock Shaker Village. 

Seyfried was perhaps even more nervous at the Woodstock Film Festival screening six weeks later. It was the film’s Upstate premiere and the closest to where Mother Ann settled. In the audience were Seyfried’s friends and family, and she really wanted them to like it. Before the film, she mingled outside of the movie theater, all smiles as she was hugging familiar people. This was her neighborhood. 

“I wanted them to be able to experience what I do, and I wanted them to love it and appreciate it as much as I do,” she says. “I was just scared that they wouldn't like. It's unconventional and very radical, the way Mona shot it, and the storytelling is so special and unique. It can't really fit into any box or category. It was also the first time my husband and my mom were seeing it, as well.” 

The team from Hancock Shaker Village also was there, which added to the joy and anxiety for Seyfried. She really wanted them to like it, too. 

She had nothing to worry about. 

“I really loved it,” says Carrie Holland, director/CEO of Hancock Shaker Village. “That’s a hard story to tell. You get a sense of what it felt to be Ann Lee, or to be around Ann Lee, or to have that jump of faith and such conviction against all this adversity. It was so effective in drawing you in and imagining what it would have felt like to have been in that time. You can read all the histories, and you can read all the scholarly work around it, but that doesn't always create the sense of how it must have felt. This film does that so powerfully.”

IN THE BEGINNING

Fastvold is no stranger to this region. She shot her first film in Sturbridge (The Sleepwalker) and has spent a lot of time in Western Massachusetts and Upstate New York. She feels a kinship to the area. Being from Norway and now living in Brooklyn, she needs time in the woods and time with her friends who live in the area, like Seyfried. Fastvold didn’t know much beyond Shaker architecture, furniture, and boxes until she started looking for a hymn song from colonial times from the area when she was filming The World to Come. She came upon “Pretty Mother’s Home” and was drawn to it. Although she didn’t end up using the hymn song in The World to Come, she wanted to know more about the person who wrote it. The author was Patsy Williamson, who was enslaved until the Shakers purchased her legal freedom in 1812, and she subsequently became an integral member of Pleasant Hill Shaker community in Kentucky. 

Fastvold started reading about the Shakers and realized how little people knew about the founder’s story. “I thought that perhaps Ann Lee was the first American feminist who fought for equality of others between gender and race at the time,” says Fastvold. “She had this dream of a different kind of society where all human beings were equal—adults, children, everyone treated with love and respect.” The Shaker community grew to close to 6,000 believers at its peak in the mid-1800s. Fastvold was hooked on the Shaker’s history and Mother Ann’s story and made visits to the Hancock and New Lebanon Shaker villages, as well as doing extensive library research. 

One obvious thing was that because there was no birth control during that time, it wasn’t unusual for women to have 14 children. Ann Lee thought that to create autonomy for women, childbirth had to be removed, establishing a different family and societal structure. Fastvold also wanted to explore this immense trauma that Ann Lee went through that made it necessary for her to reject sexuality altogether to survive. Fastvold wanted the audience to understand what she went through. 

Outside the Laundry & Machine Shop during filming of The Testament of Ann Lee. (Carrie Holland)

Even though the movie is based on a real person, the story is fiction. At some point, Fastvold and Corbet had to decide what story to tell and why they wanted to tell it now. 

“It becomes personal at some point,” says Fastvold. “What we know about her life is all hearsay. She didn't write anything down herself. She was illiterate. It’s from her followers. It's a story told to one person, told to another, told to a third. We know certain things were true. We know the age when she died. We know where she was born. We know roughly how many family members she had. 

“All the stories about her, they are their interpretations. And then here comes my interpretation, as well. We wanted to treat Mother Ann and the Shakers with a lot of respect. I wanted to take her seriously. Even though I'm not a Shaker and I don't subscribe their religion, I really thought that there was so much in her philosophy that was progressive and exciting. I wanted to give her a grand story that I felt that she deserved. At the same time, there are moments that are funny, because there's absurdity to miracles and fantastical things. I thought, well, how can I lean into that without making fun of them? We wanted to stay really close to the characters and hopefully take the audience on the journey with them, where they're kind of laughing with them instead of at them.”

MOTHER AMANDA

Shortly after finishing the script, Fastvold and Corbet turned to Seyfried for the lead role. “She’s an incredible singer,” Fastvold says. “She doesn't hold anything back. She has such an incredible ability to just completely give herself over to her collaborators, to her director, to her scene partner. It's easy to fall on your face with this role, and there’s a fine balancing act between a lot of things, including humor and drama. She had to be a very brave performer who would trust me enough to fall into my arms and know that I have her.”

Filming at Hancock Shaker Village for The Testament of Ann Lee. (Carrie Holland)

At first, it seemed an odd thing to think that someone wanted to make a musical about the Shakers. But it is actually quite fitting. Shakers differentiated themselves with their erratic movements, song, and dance while praying (hence the name “Shakers”). Seyfried was a perfect tool for the way Fastvold wanted to interpret the story. When she first approached Seyfried about the film, Fastvold made it clear that it was a passion project she’d been working on for years and was devoted to telling the story of Mother Ann. She deserved an epic tale, Fastvold told Seyfried.

“When you feel that kind of passion from somebody and clarity from somebody, it's a little intimidating because you're new to the idea,” Seyfried says. “The trust that she had in me filled me with optimism. I understood technically that it was going to be a lot of work, but spiritually it was going to be incredibly fulfilling. Emotionally, it was going to be incredibly challenging, possibly harder than most things that I've had to do before. I also trusted that there was something we could create together, because Mona is very mothering and maternal. She leads with a very gentle hand. It felt like a one-of-a-kind experience as an artist and as friend of hers. I wanted to help bring this to life.” 

Although it was easy for Seyfried to fall in love with Mother Ann, she had to learn so much to become her. And a lot of this musical movie was technical. They started working with dialect designer Tanera Marshall, building and creating their interpretation of how they sounded at the time period. Seyfried had to become familiar with the cadence, the rhythm, and the thought around the language. She worked on her accent for six grueling months, re-contextualizing words and her understanding of them and how they were used.

Fastvold started sharing her research with Seyfried, having endless conversations about who Mother Ann was. What does female leadership mean? What does it mean to lead from a place of mothering?

Behind-the-scenes in the Sisters' Dairy at Hancock Shaker Village. (Carrie Holland)

“She believed that she was a reincarnation of Christ, a vessel for Christ, and Christ channeled through her for the greater good,” says Seyfried. “She was a powerful woman and brought these people together in fellowship and community, and they built the largest utopian society in American history. I’m just so in awe of her with all she created and the space she gave people to thrive. They didn't want for anything; they were all equals. She worked as hard as everybody else, and her message is clear, and it's beautiful. You have to believe in someone in order to play them. That's how I connected to her.”

Seyfried spent a year learning the part and working with choreographer Celia Ralston Hall, who also lives Upstate. They worked closely together to find her movements in an organic way—to dance from a place of prayer, to move with intent and not for show. Seyfried also challenged herself in the singing. “I am a singer, yes, but I had to ‘un-sing.’ I had to be primal. I accessed sounds in me that I never felt I could make, and I’m better for it.” 

“It's so rewarding once you get there. Once you get to the other side of it, your body remembers these things,” Seyfried continues. “You can really embody somebody who may move differently, talk differently, walk differently. My character ages from 20 to 48. There was just so many physical shifts that I needed to do and that I needed to map out. It was a little sad when I was done because I didn't feel like I had enough time with her.”

ON THE GROUND

After years of researching, Fastvold was ready to put together a concept reel to help engage with the fundraising. She reached out to Hancock Shaker Village in November 2023. “We weren't familiar with all the players at the time, so I had a few phone calls with Mona,” says Holland. “You could just tell very, very quickly that she was enamored with Ann Lee as a character—this unsung leader in American history. Mona loved that the values that came out of Ann’s story lasted for two centuries beyond her. We could see that the certainty, the passion, and the conviction were there.” 

Left, director Mona Fastvold in the Brethren's Shop. (Carrie Holland) Right, Hancock Shaker Village Director/CEO Carrie Holland with her parents, Jane and Terry Holland, who were extras in the film. (Michael Crotty) 

Because of the historic nature of the location, Holland had to decide what could be allowed in each of the spaces, which is the reason why it also was shot on a set in Hungary. Filming began in January 2024 at Hancock Shaker Village—good timing, with the village closed for the season. It was also bitter cold. Fastvold and Corbet brought their daughter and a small crew. They had to be very careful in the buildings, and staff was on hand to monitor and serve as extra hands and eyes, Holland says. 

“Hancock was very generous with us, and we got to come there a lot to shoot and to visit a lot and to shoot exteriors and architecture as well, early on. That was incredible,” says Fastvold. “When we were building our sets in Hungary, we literally had the blueprints in hand. And we also had the sense and feel of the space. It was incredible to have access not just from a creative standpoint, but really understanding the architecture and the design and getting such a strong sense of that, and also just a little bit the spirit of the place to take with us. When you're standing on the set that's built, it doesn’t have that same sort of feeling. Of course, there’s problems with shooting in the museum. You have to be very mindful of your surroundings and careful with everything. Things like smoke detectors, you have to paint out. 

“It’s great to build a set where you can pull a wall out and have room for equipment and stuff, but there is something very exciting for performers, as well, to be able to be in that real space and feel that real wood and feel its history and think about the people. Hancock was not Ann Lee’s village, but she did visit and spend a lot of time there. So, knowing that she was there and talking to the specialists and interpreters and hearing their stories and their relationship to the Shakers and to Ann, that is just a wonderful added layer. My composer came and visited up there, as well. We got into their archives and played with some Shaker instruments. It was just a wealth of knowledge that they have up there.” 

Fastvold was in post-production of The Brutalist when the filming started for The Testament of Ann Lee. Like The Brutalist, they had a modest budget and an ambitious screenplay. “I felt like we deserved to tell her entire story and felt that was the most radical and exciting way to approach this, as well,” says Fastvold. “I wanted it grounded in storytelling, and then I wanted hundreds of dancers and all these other things. I worked very close with my team and very closely with my producer, Andrew Morrison and Maddie Browning, and my co-producers in Hungary and Sweden. I knew the cost of every line item. I knew how to manipulate my budgets and my schedule so that certain days were very expensive and others were cheap.” 

She also turned to old-fashioned filming techniques, such as working with a traditional matte painter. (This pre-digital form of matte painting is a technique that involves painting on glass or board to create large-scale, often partially open landscapes that were photographed and combined with live-action footage to create the illusion of elaborate sets.)

“I was excited about that aesthetic, because I wanted it to feel like you escaped into a painting and pulled into the past in that way,” says Fastvold. “The artificiality of it was intentional and exciting to me. It's a little bit in line with the Shaker ideology, by bringing in some old-fashioned craftsmanship like that.”

In January 2024, they transformed the Discovery Barn at Hancock Shaker Village into a green room, a wardrobe room, and a warming space. The shots they wanted on campus included the Meetinghouse; the Round Stone Barn, where there was a dancing sequence; the Farm & Forest Trail; and the Brick Dwelling, when Ann Lee is singing and looking out a window. In the spring, they filmed for a few days, and then in November 2024, the crew returned again while the village was closed during the week. They worked out an aggressive daily schedule from sunup to sundown and used one of the offices as a sound mixing space. They shot footage in the Brownstone Barn and more segments in the Brick Dwelling, as well as a big shoot in the Sisters’ Dairy.

In all, they filmed for eight days, in addition to scouting and research.

As a matter of reference, Ann Lee died in 1784 before Hancock Shaker Village was at its peak. The Round Stone Barn wasn’t built until 1826, and the Brick Dwelling not until 1830. The theological basis and storyline of the film were accurate, as well as many of the details, Holland says. “I will say there's some artistic liberties in the selection of the structures, but I think that if you let that go and just appreciate the fact that they were there in a Shaker village, it wasn’t too far off the time. That’s why they wanted to use the Sisters' Dairy for the big scene, because it’s much older, a little rougher.”

Other parts of the filming at Hancock Shaker Village included a scene where Ann Lee is in the back of a wagon and blood is dripping off her fingertips into the snow. There was a small sequence in the woods near the swamp and the Farmer Forest Trail. Even when they were in Hungary, the film team kept in touch with Hancock Shaker Village. “We were helping feed little bits and pieces of background while they were shooting over the summer in Europe,” says Holland, who was given updates on how things were going over there. One time, she received a photo of Seyfried on an18th-century ship in Sweden that was used for one of the scenes.

That ship often comes up in discussions about the movie. It is a significant musical and visual sequence depicting Mother Ann and her followers traveling to America—a montage of scenes showing the characters singing and moving in various weather conditions on a New England-bound ship, highlighting their spiritual and physical journey. They reached back out towards the end of summer and said they wanted more footage at Hancock, including a few exterior shots of people walking past buildings. They also wanted to film a scene with the Shakers coming to Massachusetts and New York for the first time. Holland’s team had to find spaces without any electric poles, signage, or any modern elements, so the film crew was taken to Richmond, Pittsfield, and West Stockbridge.

It’s hard not to draw parallels between the Shakers and the team behind The Testament of Ann Lee. Making the movie took a lot of dedication. Everyone on the set—and in the village—jumped in willingly when needed. It took the vision of Fastvold to steer this ship. Her passion was infectious.

“The whole story of this movie is that the cast was the crew and the crew was the cast,” says Fastvold. “If you knew me, you were in the movie. When we came up there and we were shooting, and I said, ‘Does anybody want to come and be in the movie?’ They were very excited and happy to join in. It was kind of wonderful for them to all of a sudden see the costumes and see our people be brought into the space and have that experience, as well. It’s feeling that connection to the real history and wanting to be really respectful of it. It was wonderful to be able to bring in all of their interpreters.” That included an oval box maker, basketmaker, blacksmith, weaver, and woodsmith.

Seyfried describes the filming at Hancock Shaker Village as “a real fellowship.” One day, Fastvold gave a 12-hour notice needing more extras for one scene. There were some extras from Boston, but more were needed, and they were working on a tight budget. A few of the staff stepped in as extras, as well as Holland and her parents, the curator, more interpreters, and a few other friends that they called. They were wardrobed and situated in the crowd for one of the big scenes.

“That was one of the most memorable times for me, because you could see Mona and Amanda in action, and you saw what it takes to film,” says Holland. “We were there for hours. They basically did that one scene over and over, hours and hours. You could really appreciate how much work it takes and how playful this group was, but also so disciplined and rigorous with their process. I was just so impressed, and it really makes you appreciate what it takes to produce a story like this. They would flip in and out of character so quickly. It was just fun to sit on the bench in Shaker garb and just watch it unfold.”

SCREENINGS & MORE

Holland attended the Woodstock screening with a few colleagues from Hancock Shaker Village. It was so much fun for them to see their coworkers and friends on film. In one scene, Holland picked out a handful of village staff. “I was very excited to see just how much of the shooting that they did at Hancock actually made it into the film,” says Holland, who pointed out the incredible dance sequence in the Round Stone Barn. The film score was written by Daniel Blumberg (The Brutalist). 

A talkback was held at the Woodstock Film Festival in Upstate New York after the screening of The Testament of Ann Lee. On stage were, from left, choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall, director/co-writer Mona Fastvold, star Amanda Seyfried, and film festival founding director Meira Blaustein. (Woodstock Film Festival)

“My biggest surprise was how impactful the music and the score and the sound came into play in the story,” says Holland. “Even after the film, some of the melodies and tunes were stuck in my head. I was so curious to see how they were going to do that, and I wasn't sure how to imagine telling the story in a musical form, but that was surprising in the best way, how that sound and how the musical elements came into play with the whole film. It was gorgeous.” 

Hancock Shaker Village also shared photos of gift drawings and other items from its collection, which appeared in many instances in the film, such as in the credits. “All these little thoughtful pieces just made it so much richer,” says Holland. “Every second of the film, they infused it with symbols and references to Shakers. That was a lovely surprise.” 

After the Venice premiere, the film screened in festivals in Toronto, London, Zurich, Chicago, Hollywood, and elsewhere. Berkshire residents will have an opportunity to see The Testament of Ann Lee when it has a limited theatrical release in the United States on Christmas Day. Hancock Shaker Village is working on having a local party for the opening of the film and is planning a larger community screening next summer. 

Seyfried is co-starring in another movie coming out the previous week. On December 19, The Housemaid starring her and Sydney Sweeney will be released. “You can’t fit either movie in a specific genre because it just doesn't apply,” says Seyfried. “That movie is bonkers, but I also saw it and was immensely proud of the work. I had a lot of fun. I shot it after Ann Lee. It was so campy at times, but also hilarious, but also terrifying. It's a great adaptation of a book, and I'm firmly behind it. I think it's just a coincidence that they happen to be both be coming out within a week of each other. These characters can’t be more different. I’m drawn to whatever is hard or different than the last character.”