Sydney Sweeney, whom the world has often struggled to be normal about, has been caught up in yet another news cycle centered on her acting abilities and physical appearance. At an event last week, veteran Hollywood producer Carol Baum said that Sweeney is “not pretty” and “can’t act”—particularly in her blockbuster romantic comedy, Anyone but You, which Baum deemed “unwatchable.”
Sweeney subsequently defended herself through her representative. “How sad that a woman in the position to share her expertise and experience chooses instead to attack another woman,” her rep said in a statement shared with Variety. “If that’s what she’s learned in her decades in the industry and feels is appropriate to teach to her students, that’s shameful. To unjustly disparage a fellow female producer speaks volumes about Ms. Baum’s character.”
Baum, who has produced films including Father of the Bride and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, criticized Sweeney during a discussion with New York Times film critic Janet Maslin. “There’s an actress who everybody loves now: Sydney Sweeney. I don’t get Sydney Sweeney,” Baum began, according to the Daily Mail. “I was watching on the plane Sydney Sweeney’s movie [Anyone but You] because I wanted to watch it. I wanted to know who she is and why everybody’s talking about her. I watched this unwatchable movie—sorry to people who love this…romantic comedy where they hate each other.”
Baum then made reference to her work as an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California: “I said to my class, ‘Explain this girl to me. She’s not pretty, she can’t act. Why is she so hot?’ Nobody had an answer. But then the question was asked, ‘Well, if you could get your movie made because she was in it, would you do it?’… That’s a very hard question to answer because we all want to get the movie made, and who walks away from a greenlight? Nobody I know. Your job is to get the movie made.”
On Wednesday, TMZ reported that Baum is “already expressing regret over the whole thing” and “wishes she never would’ve made her original comments.” Vanity Fair has also reached out to the producer for comment. For her part, Maslin took to X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday to weigh in on Baum’s comments, asserting that Anyone but You “IS unwatchable” and replying to another tweet, “We brought up Anyone But You because it’s been the rare smash hit rom-com at a time when they aren’t working. Not because we wanted to take cheap shots at anyone.”
In the aftermath, Sweeney, a two-time Emmy nominee for her work on HBO’s Euphoria and season one of The White Lotus, has gotten public defenses from some colleagues. Teddy Schwarzman, a producer on Sweeney’s latest horror film, Immaculate, called her “one of the most talented actresses I’ve worked with,” as well as “incredibly smart, kind and humble.” He added, “I’m not sure why someone who claims to still be a producer would make such terribly ugly comments.”
Scott Sedita, Sweeney’s former acting coach, also came to the rescue via TMZ. “Sydney is beautiful because she has inner depth, intellect, compassion, style, and facial features—eyes, smile, cheekbones—that the camera angles pick up on. The camera loves her ‘look’ as well as the audience. Audiences love her because she’s relatable and approachable,” he explained. “She’s been through the ups and downs of this business. So you have to be pretty much a serious actress if you’re gonna go through all that. When taking feedback or critique, she processes it, uses her acting technique, and makes the adjustment.”
As for Anyone but You—a modern-day retelling of Much Ado About Nothing, starring Sweeney and Glen Powell as dueling would-be lovers—it has grossed more than $200 million worldwide.
