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Amanda Seyfried broke out with her hilarious performance as slow-witted but popular Karen Smith in the 2004 film Mean Girls. The former child model had graduated from high school the year before, though throughout her secondary education Seyfried had been acting on the popular soaps As the World Turns and All My Children, and by the time Mean Girls producers cast her for her big break, she was an experienced performer. She followed up the film's success with a role on the popular series Veronica Mars, playing the title character's murdered best friend in a series of "Laura Palmer-esque" flashbacks. She also took a role on the popular and controversial series Big Love before signing on to star in the big-screen adaptation of the popular Broadway play Mamma Mia!, a musical about a bride-to-be searching for her real father, set to the tunes of the popular Swedish disco group ABBA. She stretched her range with the 2009 erotic drama Chloe, and starred opposite Channing Tatum in the Nicholas Sparks adaptation Dear John the next year. In 2011 she was the lead in Red Riding Hood, and played opposite Justin Timberlake in the sci-fi film In Time. She played Cosette in Tom Hooper's grand adaptation of Les Misérables in 2012, portrayed unwitting porn pioneer Linda Lovelace in a 2013 biopic, and was featured in director Noah Baumbach's While We're Young. She co-starred in Paul Schrader's existential religious drama First Reformed alongside Ethan Hawke, returned to the Mediterranean for a Mamma Mia! sequel, and was singled out as the highlight of David Fincher's Mank for her portrayal of Marion Davies, the partner of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst.