Amanda Seyfried Confirms Meryl Streep ‘Very Much a Part’ of ‘Mamma Mia 2’

After the first trailer for Mamma Mia 2 was released, fans immediately had one question — is Donna dead? The character, played by Meryl Streep, was noticeably absent from any present-day scenes in the trailer and only appeared in earlier storylines, leading fans to wonder whether she had passed away.

Amanda Seyfried, who plays Donna’s daughter Sophia in the film, didn’t exactly put that rumor to rest while speaking to Entertainment Tonight on Tuesday, sharing that Streep is “very much a part of this movie.”

“You do see her. She’s, Meryl is very much a part of this movie,” Seyfried said. “No, there are absolutely no flashbacks. No, because all the ‘flashbacks’ are of Lily [James] playing Donna. So it’s a prequel and a sequel, and so you see Meryl is very much a part of it.”

The sequel to 2008’s Mamma Mia follows a pregnant Sophie as her mom Donna’s (Meryl Streep) best friends Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters) arrive in Greece to help her on her journey. Judging from a few moments in the trailer, however, some fans are speculating that Donna herself might not be there to help Sophie because she has passed away.

Along with Sophie’s story, the movie also cuts back to a young Donna (Lily James) as she falls in love with Sophie’s three possible dads, played in present-day action by Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgard and Colin Firth. The trailer also offers the first glimpse of Cher as Sophie’s grandmother, which is reason enough on its own to see the film.

Seyfried shared that she thinks Streep and Cher actually stayed at the same hotel while filming the movie, and she likes to imagine that the pair had a great time together.

“I’m pretty sure they were staying at the same place when Cher and Meryl were in town to shoot,” the actress said. “I just pictured sweatpants and movies. I don’t know what really happened. I guess they went to the bar, but I just thought it was so cute that they were staying in the same place.”

Since the first movie, Seyfried has gotten married and started a family — she and husband Thomas Sadoski welcomed their first child last month — and the 32-year-old shared that her co-stars in the film have now seen a different side of her.

“It was like such a weird mind trip 10 years on. Like, I’m an adult now, real bonafide adult with a baby, and these people related to me in such a different way,” she said. “And we all got along so well. It was so much like family and now they’ve seen me kind of grow up.”

Photo Credit: Universal Pictures