The testament to Ann Lee’s incredible musical numbers is based on historical facts

“The Testament of Ann Lee”, directed by Mona Fastvold — partner of director Brady Corbet, with whom she worked on “The Brutalist” and who co-wrote this historic musical epic with her — depicts the founder of the Shaker movement, played by Amanda Seyfried. As Fastvold and some of her colleagues (including Seyfried) discussed it in various interviews ahead of the film’s big Christmas release, the director and her composer, Daniel Blumberg, detailed how they ensured that real Shaker hymns were part of the film.

Talk to IndieWireBlumberg — who won an Oscar for his music for “The Brutalist” — said he was fascinated by “the early Shaker lineups, where they used hymns without words, like these very extreme singers that I had seen over the years,” name-check singers including Phil Minton and Maggie Nicols. From there, Blumberg hoped to take the concept of these wordless anthems as far as possible.

For her part, Fastvold said she visited a Massachusetts public library and a museum called Hancock Shaker Village, both of which had sheet music and songs “written” so she and Blumberg could “listen to some of the hymns without words.” Yet, as she notes, Blumberg put her own stamp on it. “Of course, it sounds very different from the movie, even if the melody is the same or the lyrics are the same or change slightly. Daniel will do a weird counter-harmony or key change, and all of a sudden it would transform something in a really unique way.”

Yet despite Fastvold’s obvious connection to the music of “The Testament of Ann Lee,” she wasn’t sure she was truly making a “musical.”

Talk to The Hollywood ReporterMona Fastvold admitted that she was hesitant for some time to call “The Testament of Ann Lee” a musical, even though it certainly wasn’t a musical. conventional musical by all standards. “Because the Shakers worshiped through ecstatic singing and dancing, it had to be a musical, moving piece, as I had called it for a very long time,” Fastvold said before saying Brady Corbet stepped in and put it back in order, so to speak. “And then Brady finally said, ‘Mona, it’s a musical, that’s what it’s like when there’s that much music and songs in the movie.'”

There’s a big distinction between a traditional musical and the musical numbers featured in “The Testament of Ann Lee” — because the Shakers didn’t use music and dance simply to perform (as Amanda Seyfried’s co-star Lewis Pullman wryly noted, “It’s like they didn’t sit down to breakfast and sing about the heat of coffee or anything”). That’s why Fastvold and Daniel Blumberg worked to integrate the film’s sound design with the music. Also why Seyfried had to make some adjustments as a performer.

“[The music] had to come from within and she had to stop listening to herself,” Fastvold said of Seyfried’s “reformation” from a musical standpoint. “We would lay on the studio floor and cry and labor and laugh and scream and try all kinds of different ways to find a completely different voice for this character. “She has all this amazing training that’s there, so she can access it and sing perfectly, but she almost had to unlearn all of that a little bit.”

Okay, so wait a second: If the Shaker songs and hymns in “The Testament of Ann Lee” are accurate to the historical record, what about the woman herself? Ann Lee was a real person who, by all historical accounts, came to the American colonies from England in the 18th century and is credited with creating the Shaker faith in America; For reference, the Shaker religion is somewhat of a “spin-off” of the Quaker religion (they were often called “Shaking Quakers” because of the way they “danced” to express their faith).

“She took this horrible trauma and transformed that suffering into compassion, into community, into how she could mother the world,” Fastvold said. Vanity Fair about the real Ann Lee. “It’s about worshiping through work, creating something beautiful and meaningful and giving it everything you have. As someone who wants to try to create impossible things, that really spoke to me.”

We can imagine that it was definitely a daunting task for Seyfried, and although she told the outlet that she was Intimidated, she found inspiration in the Shaker movement. “The ecstatic dancing, the beating and the pounding, the frenzy that the Shakers lived in, I love it. It makes me feel alive,” Seyfried mused. “That’s not what intimidates me.” The thing that did The Bully played a powerful religious leader seen by his followers as the second coming of Christ, but Seyfried, one of the best actors of his generation, pulled it off wonderfully.

If you want to see it for yourself, “The Testament of Ann Lee” hits theaters on Christmas Day, and it’s one of the best films of 2025.