1997–present
Who Is Sydney Sweeney?
Actor Sydney Sweeney is known for her roles in the HBO shows Euphoria and The White Lotus as well as the movie Anyone But You. Born and raised in Spokane, Washington, she moved to Los Angeles at the age of 13 to pursue a career in acting. Sweeney’s early career included roles on Pretty Little Liars and Grey’s Anatomy. After years of small parts, she landed a role in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood. The Oscar-winning movie spurred her career momentum, and she then secured spots on two of HBO’s highly acclaimed series: Euphoria and The White Lotus. Most recently, Sweeney has appeared in Immaculate, Eden, and Echo Valley. Her newest movie is Christy, a biopic about boxer Christy Martin, that releases in November 2025.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Sydney Bernice Sweeney
BORN: September 12, 1997
BIRTHPLACE: Spokane, Washington
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Virgo
Where Is Sydney Sweeney From?
Sydney Bernice Sweeney was born in Spokane, Washington, on September 12, 1997. Her mother, Lisa, is a former attorney, and her father, Steven, has worked in hospitality and as a pharmaceutical rep. Sweeney has a younger brother, Trent, who now serves in the Air Force.
Lisa and Steven discouraged the use of electronics, so Sweeney spent her time outdoors, swimming, skiing, and building tree houses. She was also a big reader. “My parents kept the kid in me alive for as long as they possibly could,” Sweeney later shared. “I believed in Santa Claus until the seventh grade. My imagination was nurtured.” That inclined her to an interest in acting.
Sweeney’s first chance to act professionally was when a zombie movie came to film in her hometown. The 11-year-old just needed to convince her parents. “I wrote a 5-year business plan presentation of what could happen if they let me audition,” she told Teen Vogue. They said yes, and she booked the role.
Her parents continued to support her desire to act as they drove Sweeney back and forth to Los Angeles from their home in the Pacific Northwest. Slowly, her career began, and by 2014, she had landed small roles on TV shows such as Criminal Minds, 90210, and Grey’s Anatomy.
After she experienced severe bullying in middle school that required law enforcement to intervene, the family officially relocated to Southern California when Sweeney was 13. The move strained her parents’ finances, particularly in light of her father’s job loss around the time of the Great Recession. “We lived in one room. My mom and I shared a bed, and my dad and little brother shared a couch,” she told The Hollywood Reporter.
Before long, Lisa and Steve’s marriage broke down. They filed for bankruptcy and divorced in 2016. “A lot of their fights were financial, and I felt very responsible for that,” Sweeney later said. It fueled Sweeney’s drive to succeed.
“I knew that I could never actually fail because, I mean, on a very broad scale, my family did lose everything,” she told Glamour in October 2024. “They did get a divorce. Whether or not that was because of coming here, it definitely was a catalyst for it. So I knew I had to succeed in some capacity so that it wasn’t for nothing.”
Movies and TV Shows
After moving to Los Angeles, Sweeney’s career began with small parts on television and in movies. She told The Hollywood Reporter her early roles were often “really shitty projects,” some that paid only $100 a day. She kept at it and added The Middle, Pretty Little Liars, In The Vault, and Everything Sucks! to her resume.
“I learned that I thrived on hectic craziness,” she told Elle in October 2022. “I knew that this was my dream, that my dream was coming true—and I was going to work even harder to make sure that I kept building the career that I wanted.”
In 2018, she appeared in the highly acclaimed limited series Sharp Objects with actor Amy Adams as well as The Handmaid’s Tale alongside the show’s star Elisabeth Moss. Sweeney’s turn as Eden Spencer in the show, adapted from Margaret Atwood’s novel of the same name, earned the 21-year-old a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.
Her career momentum was building, and next, Sweeney was cast in Quentin Tarantino’s award-winning movie Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019). Her small role as a member of the Manson family stirred up buzz and established her talent as an up-and-coming star.
Euphoria and The White Lotus
Sweeney’s breakout role as Cassie Howard in the HBO series Euphoria, starring Zendaya, came next. Initially, however, the casting director didn’t think Sweeney was right for the part and discouraged her from auditioning. The determined actor recorded a scene with the help of her mom anyway, and an offer to join the show soon followed.
Euphoria captured audience attention soon after its June 2019 premiere due to its shocking portrayals of teen sex, drug use, and mental health struggles. Cassie’s storyline is peppered with toxic friendships, cheating, and slut-shaming. “The point is making people uncomfortable and thinking outside the box. What else is the point of art?” Sweeney told Variety. “For me, I feel so free and confident now. And I’ve found that through Cassie.”
She returned to the role for Season 2, released in 2022, and generated even more buzz by earning a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. Sweeney has confirmed she has filmed for Euphoria’s highly anticipated third season. A release date for Season 3 has yet to be announced.
Amid her Euphoria success, in 2021, Sweeney starred in the first season of The White Lotus alongside Connie Britton, Steve Zahn, Brittany Ogrady, and Jennifer Coolidge. Sweeney portrayed Olivia Mossbacher, a manipulative teenager on a family vacation. The luxury resort–set murder mystery, another HBO show, became a massive hit. The first installment of the anthology series racked up 20 Emmy nominations, including a nod for Sweeney in the Best Supporting Actress category. She lost out to her castmate Coolidge.
Anyone But You and More Movies
Sweeney made the jump back to the silver screen in 2023’s Anyone But You. This time, she shared top billing with co-star Glen Powell and served as an executive producer of the romantic comedy loosely based on the Shakespeare play Much Ado About Nothing.
The lead actors had an undeniable spark that carried over to the movie’s press tour, which Sweeney was heavily involved in planning. Fans speculated the two had a real relationship, however, Powell shut the rumor down in an interview with The New York Times. “The two things that you have to sell a rom-com are fun and chemistry. Sydney and I have a ton of fun together, and we have a ton of effortless chemistry,” he said. “That’s people wanting what’s on the screen off the screen, and sometimes you just have to lean into it a bit—and it worked wonderfully. Sydney is very smart.”
She then starred in the critically acclaimed 2023 biopic Reality about NSA contractor–turned-whistleblower Reality Winner. The actor was subsequently nominated for a Critics’ Choice Award for her performance in the HBO drama. With her role as Julia Cornwall/Spider-Woman, Sweeney appeared in her first superhero movie, Madame Web. However, the 2024 project starring Dakota Johnson was heavily panned. That same year, Sweeney starred in the convent-based horror movie Immaculate.
New Movies: Eden, Christy, and The Housemaid
In 2025, Sweeney has had her busiest year yet with the release of the western Americana, the survival epic Eden, and the mother-daughter drama Echo Valley. This December, she and Amanda Seyfried star in The Housemaid, based on author Freida McFadden’s thriller novel of the same name.
Sweeney has also completed filming for her lead role in Christy, a biopic about boxer Christy Martin. The movie had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival and will release in theaters on November 7, 2025.
Ex-Fiancé
Sweeney, who is currently single, was previously engaged to film producer Jonathan Davino. The couple was first photographed together in October 2018, and their engagement was confirmed in March 2022.
For much of their relationship, the actor remained tight-lipped about Davino, which sparked rumors about him and his background. “He’s not a restaurateur. I have no idea where that came from,” Sweeney told Glamour U.K. in 2023. “He’s also not the heir of a pizza company. He’s a business guy. He’s from Chicago. We’ve been watching [this narrative] for six years now and I’m like, ‘What the hell?’”
Together, the couple founded the production company Fifty-Fifty Films. “It’s really great to work with someone who knows you so well, who fully supports your ideas, your vision and your voice,” Sweeney told Glamour U.K. “And it’s nice. I mean, who doesn’t want to be with their best friend all the time?”
By May 2025, the couple had broken up. “I’m learning a lot about myself, spending more time with my friends. And I’m loving it,” Sweeney said in an interview with The Times.
Net Worth
Sweeney has a reported net worth of $40 million as of August 2025. Despite her wealth today, the actor has spoken openly about the financial challenges she’s experienced earlier in her Hollywood career. “If I wanted to take a six-month break, I don’t have income to cover that. I don’t have someone supporting me, I don’t have anyone I can turn to, to pay my bills or call for help,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in July 2022.
“They don’t pay actors like they used to, and with streamers, you no longer get residuals,” she continued. “The established stars still get paid, but I have to give 5 percent to my lawyer, 10 percent to my agents, 3 percent or something like that to my business manager. I have to pay my publicist every month, and that’s more than my mortgage.” She added, “If I just acted, I wouldn’t be able to afford my life in L.A. I take deals because I have to.”
Apart from acting, she has increased her wealth thanks to a number of additional business ventures. She founded her own production company, Fifty-Fifty Films, in 2020. Fifty-Fifty has backed Anyone But You and the horror movie Immaculate; Sweeney starred in both projects.
Elsewhere, Sweeney has partnered with a number of brands, including Laneige, Miu Miu, Kérastase, Samsung, Armani Beauty, and Baskin-Robbins. In May 2025, the actor and Dr. Squatch soaps released a line of exfoliating soap called Sydney’s Bathwater Bliss, which the brand noted was made with “a touch of Sydney’s real bathwater.” It was a nod to the infamous scene from the 2023 movie Saltburn, where actor Barry Keoghan’s character drinks the bathwater after fellow actor Jacob Elordi’s character pleasures himself in it.
Sweeney told E! News that she, herself, pitched the idea for the soap and got a kick out of the subsequent uproar: “I think that it’s more fun to see everybody else talk about it.” Sweeney addressed the controversy again in an interview with WSJ. Magazine. “It was mainly the girls making comments about it, which I thought was really interesting,” she shared, before adding, “They all loved the idea of Jacob Elordi’s bathwater.”
In July 2025, another one of Sweeney’s advertisement campaigns—this time with American Eagle—went viral. Titled “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans”, the clothing brand released a series of short, provocative ads with Sweeney dressed in a pair of American Eagle jeans and a figure-hugging blouse. In one ad Sweeney says, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”
Following the campaign’s release, viewers were quick to condemn that ad for its apparent nod to eugenics. To some, Sweeney’s play on the word “jeans” suggested her Caucasian genes were superior to others. People were also alarmed at the overt sexuality of the overall campaign.
The brand shared a statement defending the ads, stating: “‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story. We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.” Still, the brand removed the ad that discussed genetics.
Body Image
Sweeney’s figure has become a highly talked about focal point throughout her career, and she has commented on the attention it has brought her. “Especially when it comes to red-carpet pics and they’re like, ‘Sydney Sweeney displays bust,’ or ‘Sydney Sweeney wears a scandalous dress,’ I’m like, ‘I’m wearing the exact same dress someone else would be wearing! I just have tits,’” she told Glamour U.K. “And if someone else is wearing it, they’d be like, ‘Oh, so sleek and so well-mannered.’ Just because I have boobs, it doesn’t change.”
The Euphoria actor, who is about 5-foot-3, added that body positivity has been a journey for her. “Flaunt what you got. Own it. Love them,” she said. “When I was in high school, I used to feel uncomfortable about how big my boobs were and I used to say that when I turned 18, I was going to get a boob job to make them smaller. And my mom told me, ‘Don’t do it. You’ll regret it in college.’ And I’m so glad I didn’t. I like them. They’re my best friends. Everybody’s body is beautiful. When you are confident and you’re happy within is when it really shows to other people.”
She concluded, “I went through that process of covering my body up at such a young age, but once I became more confident with myself, [it changed]. I want to show girls that it’s amazing and beautiful and empowering to have the bodies that we have.”
Quotes
- I definitely think through everything that I do and every move I make. There’s nothing that I do that is just by happenstance, but also I’m very flexible with the moves that have to be made. It’s important. This industry is like playing chess.
- One of the questions I get is, “Are you a feminist?” I find empowerment through embracing the body that I have. That’s sexy and strong, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.
- My body doesn’t define who I am.
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Emily Shiffer has worked as a writer for over 10 years, covering everything from health and wellness to entertainment and celebrities. She previously was on staff at SUCCESS, Men's Health, and Prevention magazines. Her freelance writing has been featured in Women's Health, Runner's World, PEOPLE, and more. Emily is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she majored in magazine journalism at the Medill School of Journalism and minored in musicology. Currently residing in Charleston, South Carolina, Emily enjoys instructing barre, surfing, and long walks on the beach with her miniature Dachshund, Gertrude.
