Shadowing Practice: Sydney Sweeney Speaks on That American Eagle Ad & Her Body Transformation - Learn English Speaking with Video
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But you're a 13 year old girl, like what does fighting give you at that time in your life?
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The element of surprise.
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Ooh!
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You get to see the great boots, great shoes too, Kat.
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I know, you really, we pulled through the shoe game.
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Strong shoe game.
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I usually show up with my PJs.
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For whatever reason, I was like, you know what? but I'm gonna just actually get dressed.
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And then everyone liked the outfit, I was like, wow, this is the first time.
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I'm so flattered.
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Okay, so we're good?
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Okay, whoa, we're going.
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We're going.
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I feel really lucky to be talking to you right now in particular, because you're a producer with a film with festival buzz.
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Congratulations.
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Thank you.
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How does it feel to have Christie out in the world?
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Christy is one of those projects and stories that, like when you're making it, the crew, the cast, everyone involved,
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we all knew it was going to be something special.
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We had Christy with us on set many days.
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We would sometimes just like cry because of how powerful the story is.
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And so being able to share that experience with the world
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and to be able to show Christy's story to the world is so impactful.
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And I'm beyond honored and proud that we were able to bring this story to life in the beginning, it's also really fun.
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For context, like you've got headgear on.
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Yes.
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You've got a mouth guard in.
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And you are grinning as you punch people.
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And you look completely unselfconscious and completely joyful.
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First of all, was it as much fun as it looked?
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It was so much fun.
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I was over the moon.
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I felt like I finally came to life myself through Christie we really shaped every single fight to match Christie's fights.
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And so all the different combos that you see me doing are the actual combos from the fights.
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And I had the best girls to box with because they were down to actually fight.
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And we would do full contact.
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We were punching each other in the face.
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And so a lot of those reactions are me as Christy, but also me just like couldn't believe that I actually did it just then.
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So you have a background in martial arts.
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I do.
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Okay, so tell me about that.
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You're what, 13?
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Yeah, I was like 12, 13, and I started kickboxing and grappling.
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And I trained at GoCore Hyaston with Sensei Jean LaBelle and Benny LeJet in GoCore.
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and I did that from 12, 13 years old until I was about 19 and then I booked
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Handmaid's Tale and Euphoria and I can't fight
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and film at the same time because I'd come home with bruises
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so I put it to the side
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but I always wanted to find a story that would be able to bring that side of myself out.
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But you're a 13 year old girl like what does fighting give you at that time in your life?
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The element of surprise.
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I was the only girl there
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so there it was a lot of talk of oh what
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is she doing here the dads are kind of a little like upset
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that their sons would be fighting a girl and then I would sometimes win.
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Okay so I have this sense
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that you're someone who keeps a strong division between your characters
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and your personal self and I just wondered if that is harder
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when you've done this physical transformation for a character like Christy like
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you come home or come back to your hotel room like in her body in some ways.
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I actually learned so much more about myself throughout the process
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and I am someone who I build my book for my character
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and I learn everything about her life so
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that I can fully jump in and out and throughout
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that process of building Christy and working with Christy and filming the movie I started realizing I was like,
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oh wow, I actually have more in common with her than I realized.
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She is fighting a fight in her home life and she's also fighting a fight in the public.
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And I think that for me, I find myself in a lot of battles,
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both in front and not in front of the world.
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So I definitely can relate.
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I mean, Christie is a story about domestic violence and specifically like homophobia and domestic violence.
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And The Housemaid, which I also saw, takes on domestic violence from, a totally different genre.
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And then I did read that your American Eagle collection benefited a domestic violence charity.
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Is that, do I have all that right?
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Yes.
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Okay.
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You spent a lot of time this year working around that issue, and I just wondered if it meant something to you.
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It does.
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I always speak out about something that is important to me.
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And for me to speak out, I use art.
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And I think that through my characters and my movies, it's a way for me to be able to do my part
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that I can and spread awareness in different ways through my characters.
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And that's how I've always learned to communicate.
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And it's really important.
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If I look at your IMDb page, I'm thinking about you're on Euphoria,
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which is a show that covers a lot of topics without taking a moral stance on any of them.
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And you did Reality, which I love, which brought a lot of attention and humanity to the story of Reality Winner, the whistleblower.
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It does not look like a very political career, but you have become very swept up in politics.
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And so I wondered if that has surprised you as you put your ideas and yourself into art, not commentary.
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I've always believed that I'm not here to tell people what to think.
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I'm just here to kind of open their eyes to different ideas.
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And so I think that's why I gravitate towards characters
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and stories that are complicated and are maybe morally questionable and characters that are on the page hard to like,
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but then you find the humanity underneath them.
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And that's what I've always leaned towards.
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I think a lot of people feel like it's better for art
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if artists can keep themselves a little bit separate from politics.
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Yeah, I've never talked about my personal life.
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I know.
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So what I'm going to do is talk about your year as a phenomenon in the culture.
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Okay.
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And a big thing that happened to you this year is that you ended your engagement.
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And I got push notifications about it it was
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and we all sort of looked up
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and we're like oh sydney sweeney isn't just a talented actress
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and an up-and-coming producer she's someone that people are really obsessed with
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and really fascinated by oh man i know
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and i just i wondered did your sense of your own
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fame change this year no i surround myself with a really
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really strong group of people who have been in my life since I was little.
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And they take me out of Hollywood, take me out of this bubble and remind me what the real world is and that that's where I exist.
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The idea of fame, it doesn't apply to my personal life.
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I'm just sad.
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You can't feel the difference in the volume at times.
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If I turn on my phone, yes.
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If I have my phone off and I'm home, no. Right.
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Okay, so what is it like now being single?
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Are you single?
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I'm single.
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Okay, you're single.
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You are out there now as a person who has a lot of power, I would say.
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A person who people are obsessed with and someone who I gather is like really, really focused on their work.
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So I wonder how does that change what you're looking for?
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I don't think I'm looking for a man right now.
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What I've learned this year is that I have a really, really amazing group of girlfriends, and I am strong and independent,
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and that I'm going to be okay.
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If love finds me, love finds me.
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I'm hopeless romantic, so I hope love finds me, but I'm not the type of person that wants to go out all the time.
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and I do believe in true love and wanting to be with someone for the rest of my life.
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So I'm not going to, you won't see me jumping around a lot of places.
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Wait, jumping around a lot of places like?
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Like guys.
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Oh, okay.
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Okay.
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So you are making Anyone But You and there's sort of, what do we call it,
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like a game almost with sort of letting rumors build about you and Glenn.
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And we all now know that that was a projection, let's say on our parts, that wasn't real.
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But it occurred to me that maybe that story doesn't go so viral
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if you're not a very private person I imagine there are personal benefits to being private about your personal life
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but are there also professional benefits to being private about your personal life the professional benefits for me
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and being private is for my own just health and sanity.
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If I let everybody in all the time, I have nothing for myself.
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And I am just a 27 year old or 28 now.
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I turned 27, 28 yesterday.
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Happy birthday.
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Thank you.
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But I'm just a 28 year old woman who's trying to figure it out.
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And I'm still learning and I'm going to make mistakes and I'm going to grow.
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And I think that it's important to be able to do that without having to say every single thing all the time.
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Right okay but so you're never tempted to just like open your notes app
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and say this is what I really think
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and this is who I am and this is going on in my life and like stop guessing and projecting.
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I mean all offense to my girlfriends but other than
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that no. No. No. Okay that's honestly really impressive like I know who I am.
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Right.
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I know what I I know that I'm a kind person.
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I know that I love a lot.
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And I know that I'm just excited to see what happens next.
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And so I don't really let other people define who I am.
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I'm happy to hear that.
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I have a second-hand concern for you lately.
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Thank you.
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We're sort of talking around this American Eagle ad right now, and maybe we should just talk about it.
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So were you surprised by the reaction?
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I did a jean ad.
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I mean, the reaction definitely was a surprise, but it was, I love jeans.
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All I wear are jeans.
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I'm literally in jeans and a t-shirt like every day of my life.
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Jeans are uncontroversial.
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Jeans are awesome.
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You look great in your jeans.
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I think I know how you're gonna answer this, but I'm gonna ask anyway.
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I mean, the president tweeted about the jeans ad or Truth Socialed about the jeans ad.
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And that just seems to me like a very crazy moment for anyone.
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And I wondered what that was like.
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It was surreal.
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It was surreal.
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And it would be totally human.
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I would probably feel like thankful that somebody had my back in public,
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you know, and conveniently some very powerful people had my back in public.
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And I wondered if you felt that way.
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I don't think that...
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It's not that that feeling didn't...
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I didn't have that feeling, but I wasn't thinking of it like that or like of any of it.
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I kind of just put my phone away.
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I was filming every day.
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I'm filming Euphoria, so I'm working like 16 hour days and I don't really bring my phone on set.
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So I work and then I go home and I go to sleep.
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So I didn't really, I didn't really see a lot of it.
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You've made a really good case for keeping your thoughts and your life separate from that work.
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But the risk is that, you know, there's a chance that somebody will get some idea about what you think about certain issues
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and feel like I don't wanna see Christie because of that.
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Like, do you worry about that?
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No. No. If somebody is closed off because of something they read online
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to a powerful story like Christie,
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then I hope that, I hope something else can open their eyes to being open to art and being open to
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learning and I'm not gonna be affected by that.
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Yeah, you've come here like really willing to talk about this whole discourse
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that doesn't have that much to do with you and I'm grateful for that.
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Is there something that you want to say about the ad itself?
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The Sydney Sweeney has great genes.
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Do you have?
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The ad spoke for itself.
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You think the ad spoke for itself?
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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And the criticism of the content, which was basically that maybe specifically in this political climate,
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like white people shouldn't joke about genetic superiority.
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Like that was kind of like the criticism, broadly speaking.
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And since you are talking about this, I just wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about that specifically.
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I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear.
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We should talk about Cassie.
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You got back together with Cassie.
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You spent some time in Cassieland.
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I am.
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I wondered if after the break and after the changes in your life, since last time you were Cassie,
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if you came back to that role with a different perspective on her character, her arc.
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Well, Cassie and the whole world of Euphoria is now five years ahead.
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So all the characters are living in the real world.
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They're dealing with very real world life problems.
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And Cassie, Cassie's just so much fun.
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She's so crazy.
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And I don't know if I can implement any of my own knowledge
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or life experiences to Cassie because she's just so on her own plane and in her own world and thinks completely differently.
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It's such a fun rollercoaster ride because I'm getting to go to all these insane places.
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She's crazy.
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I thank Sam like every day for giving me a character like her in my 20s
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because Sam put together a show of like a powerhouse lineup of really interesting storylines and characters.
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And being able to go back to Cassie and grow with her and go even crazier is such a treat.
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I always feel like I'm going home.
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One thing we haven't talked about that you've talked about a lot,
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but I wonder how it's coming up now and your work is the way women,
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women actors and you are represented on screen.
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The early part of your career was defined by a lot of chatter about that, right?
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About is it an empowering or not empowering?
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Blah, blah, blah.
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In regards to my body?
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Yeah.
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And like Cassie, I think, brought that out.
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And that doesn't really seem to be part of the story anymore.
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And I wonder if you feel like Hollywood is changing or if it has to do with being an actor, producer roles.
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I think that the conversation around it is changing.
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I've always looked at a woman's body as a very beautiful, powerful tool.
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I transform my body for Christy.
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It's a challenge but then also really amazing at the same time
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that we're capable of doing stuff like that and being able to tell stories through our body.
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And I've always looked at it that way.
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I've always looked at it as my body is another tool to tell this story.
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How does using that tool change when you are more in the driver's seat as a producer?
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I mean, I'm thinking about the housemaid, like, there's a scene in that where you're in this home theater and you're wearing like a push-up bra.
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And she's like, okay, this is not a push-up bra.
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It's just my boobs.
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Wow.
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Fact check me.
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Fact check.
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That's just like a sports bra or something.
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Yeah.
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Good God.
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Okay.
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I mean, she's wearing what she'd wear.
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It's like, she's being comfortable.
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It's for herself.
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It's not for anybody else.
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Great.
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Yeah.
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That, I mean, that's sort of where I was going with it, though, is that watching that scene, I had this feeling of there's a self-awareness and knowingness to this that,
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you know, it is a casual sweatshirt, her boobs are out, and then you're like,
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the wife comes in and like comments on it in this way that to me felt very like funny.
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Letting Sydney use her body in this way,
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but also commenting on it in a knowing way that lets you know that we're all in on this joke.
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And I guess I wondered if that is a hallmark of having you having more control of the project.
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I think so.
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I think that as time goes on, people will see that I'm way more aware of things than people think.
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Can you say a little bit more?
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I mean, if I say it, then I like to let the art speak for itself.
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I think that's where it's fun.
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Okay.
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But you know that you are like, you are giving us permission to keep projecting.
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A little bit, like we're gonna keep taking what you do and like putting it up on our board.
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I'm like, what does Sydney think?
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I can't wait to see what the board says.
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Okay.
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That felt like a punctuation.
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Wow.
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It's a beautiful punctuation.
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Awesome.
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Thank you.
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Thank you guys.
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Yeah, thank you guys.
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Why This Sydney Sweeney Clip Is Perfect for English Speaking Practice
This casual, energetic conversation is a goldmine for english speaking practice. The dialogue flows naturally, with real-world phrases and relaxed tone—exactly what you need to sound confident in everyday chats or even IELTS speaking practice. Plus, the mix of personal stories and quick exchanges makes it easy to mimic rhythm and intonation, key for mastering shadowspeak (or shadow speak), where you repeat phrases aloud in real time to build fluency.
Break Down the Dialogue: Natural Phrases to Copy
- "I was over the moon." This vivid idiom replaces "very happy" and sounds far more natural. Notice how it’s used to express excitement—perfect for describing achievements in your own stories.
- "We pulled through the shoe game." "Pulled through" here means "succeeded," and "shoe game" is slang for "style with shoes." Colloquial phrases like this make your speech sound less formal and more like a native.
- "I put it to the side." A simple way to say "I stopped focusing on it." The casual tone works in both friendly talks and discussions about priorities—great for improve english pronunciation since it’s short and easy to repeat.
Your 5-Minute Shadow Speak Practice Routine
Ready to try shadow speak? Follow this loop: 1. Watch 10 seconds of the video, pausing after each phrase. 2. Repeat the phrase aloud, matching the speed and tone (even the laughter!). 3. Record yourself, then compare to the original—note where your rhythm or stress differs. 4. Do this 3x for the same clip, then move to a new 10-second segment. This quick routine builds muscle memory for natural speech, making english speaking practice feel like a game. You’ll notice better pronunciation and confidence in just a week!
Whether you’re prepping for IELTS or just want to chat like a pro, this video is your secret tool. Start shadowing today—your next conversation will sound smoother than ever!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've done · I've always learned · have become |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | someone who keeps · someone who I · people who have |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is closed · be affected · are represented |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.