Amanda Seyfried was thrust into the celebrity spotlight at 18 years old after starring in Tina Fey’s 2004 comedy Mean Girls, playing opposite Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, and Lizzy Caplan. She adopted her Australian Shepherd Finn on the set of HBO’s Big Love when she was 23.
Since then, Seyfried has frequently shared that the pup immediately helped her cope with the anxiety caused by dealing with high-pressure work and fame since she was a teen – And has been vital to her personal life and career for over 15 years now.
As soon as he was mine, like 24 hours after I got him, I realized something about me needed him. He completely changed my life and helped me find my solitude and my independence. When you have a lifestyle like I did when I was in my early twenties, there were no constants. It was just hard to know where I was going to be the next month because of my career. That’s why I got him.
Amanda Seyfried, People, August 2019
Since adopting Finn, the pup has been a fixture of Seyfried’s Instagram and has an Instagram of his own. Seyfried also ensured all of her contracts included that she could bring Finn on set. The pair has also put plenty of time and effort into advocating for adoption and shelters. And Finn has also battled cancer, with Seyfried celebrating his last chemotherapy session in July 2022. In September 2022, Seyfried thanked Finn during her acceptance Emmy acceptance speech (for her portal of Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout)
In a recent interview with People, Seyfried shared on the importance of pets, “[Pets give us] purpose. No matter what we say, we can’t deny the fact that we need purpose, and to have that responsibility of taking care of animals, who don’t have a voice and can’t really do much for themselves, it gives you so much more than we could ever give them, really.”
Then she got personal about the importance of her rescue dog, “I don’t know what my twenties would’ve looked like without Finn. I really don’t know. I don’t know how I would’ve navigated Hollywood. I mean, I stayed out of a lot of trouble, I think, because I had that guy to come home to.”
Seyfried also recently celebrated Finn’s 15th birthday with an adorable photo dump.
