Sydney Sweeney is one of the hottest names in Hollywood right now. But with that level of celebrity comes an inevitable backlash, and it seems that may already be happening with the actress. A major Hollywood producer is not mincing words, claiming that Sweeney’s recent rom-com Anyone But You is “unwatchable” and that Sweeney herself “can’t act.”
Carol Baum has produced more than 30 movies, including the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Steve Martin’s Father of the Bride remake. She recently attended a screening of the Jeremy Irons drama Dead Ringers, and during a Q&A after the film (via the Daily Mail), Baum took aim at Sweeney, saying she had watched Anyone But You recently on an airplane, and found the film “unwatchable” and Sweeney’s performance awful. She’s even brought the actress up in the class she teaches at USC. She explained…
I said to my class, ‘Explain this girl to me. She’s not pretty, she can’t act. Why is she so hot?’
To be fair, it seems fairly clear from the fact that Sydney Sweeney is “so hot” right now, that there are a lot of people who think she is pretty, or can act, or more likely both. While critics largely agree that the movie Anyone But You wasn’t great, audiences absolutely did not, as a lot of people went to see it. It’s not a stretch to assume that Sweeney herself was a big reason for that.
Of course, whatever the reason that Sydney Sweeney is the “It Girl” of the moment, she certainly is that. In just the last few months Sydney Sweeney appeared in Anyone But You, and has been all over the 2024 movie schedule as part of the Madame Web cast, and as the star of Immaculate. Even Carol Baum admits that Sweeney is a huge star, regardless of how she feels. Baum understands that right now getting Sweeney in your movie is a big deal, a decision that can be the deciding factor in whether a movie is made at all. Baum may not think Sweeney can act, but it sounds like she would still cast the actress if given the choice. She continued…
[T]hen the question was asked, ‘Well if you could get your movie made because she was in it, would you do it?’ ‘I said, ‘Well that’s a really good question…that’s a very hard question to answer because we all want to get the movie made, and who walks away from a green light? Nobody I know. Your job is to get the movie made.
While most producers probably feel the same way as Carol Baum, at least when it comes to the value that casting Sydney Sweeney can have right now, nobody else has made such brutal comments about the actress or her work. Whether that’s because nobody else feels the same way, or simply that nobody else is saying it out loud, we can’t really know.