Sydney Sweeney Opens Up About When the Criticism Really Started Hitting

Sydney Sweeney has navigated the transition from television breakout to polarizing movie star with a mixture of silence and strategic visibility. For years, she was a fixture of lighter cultural conversations, recognized primarily for her versatile turns on HBO. She captivated audiences as Olivia in The White Lotus, a hyper-verbal avatar of Gen Z moral certainty, and as Cassie in Euphoria, a character whose desperate need for love led to a public and emotional implosion.

Sydney Sweeney says her experience with internet criticism began with ‘Euphoria,’ as her recent foray into the digital zeitgeist has been far more complicated than her early career success. I play a lot of characters that make questionable decisions or where it’s complicated to like them. People project some of that onto me, Sweeney tells Cosmopolitan. She views the recent waves of internet criticism as a significant escalation, describing it as a landscape of clickbait and manufactured narratives.

The shift toward this new level of scrutiny arguably began with a July 2025 American Eagle campaign. The tagline Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans was meant to be a simple play on words but was instead condemned by some critics for having eugenics-related undertones. The discourse deepened when social media users circulated her voter registration, leading to intensified calls for political accountability.

Despite the noise, Sweeney has continued to prove her mettle as a business mogul and executive producer. She was instrumental in reviving the modern romantic comedy with Anyone But You, which grossed over $220 million worldwide. Much of that success was attributed to her marketing instincts, including leaning into offscreen dating rumors with co-star Glen Powell to fuel ticket sales.

The 28-year-old actor’s current professional output remains prolific and daring. She recently starred in the psychological thriller The Housemaid, directed by Paul Feig, which has earned nearly $300 million globally. The film, which features Sweeney alongside Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar, cemented her ability to lead high-stakes genre pieces.

Her recent sports biopic, Christy, saw her undergo a significant physical transformation to play 90s boxing champion Christy Martin. While the film struggled to find a massive audience at the box office, it earned her some of the best reviews of her career. Critics praised her for a raw, transformative performance that moved far beyond the bombshell image often projected onto her.

Sweeney is set to headline several major projects that span various genres. She is reportedly attached to a live-action Gundam adaptation at Netflix, directed by Jim Mickle and co-starring Noah Centineo. Additionally, she is slated to star as Kim Novak in the biopic Scandalous! and will eventually return for the long-delayed third season of Euphoria.

The tension between her artistic choices and her public perception remains a central theme of her career in 2026. But that was scratching the surface of what I’m dealing with now, with people creating their own narratives that serve their purposes, their headlines, their clickbait, she explains. For Sweeney, the work is about the story, even when the audience is focused on the ideology.

Ultimately, she continues to bet on herself by choosing roles that challenge expectations. Whether she is playing a corporate strategist in a survival thriller or a legendary boxer, she is reclaiming her power through visibility. It’s her choice to lay herself bare, and as she notes, it’s the public’s choice whether or not to buy into the version of her they see.

Do you think it is fair for audiences to project the traits of complicated characters onto the actors who play them? Share your thoughts in the comments.