| Amanda Seyfried |
Amanda Seyfried
While the older generations might have their Audreys and their Marilyns, these days, the true litmus test of an actress’s broader youth-culture currency is not whether she’s commonly referred to by her first name only—it’s whether she has been deemed worthy of a moniker that’s an amalgam of her first and last names, like ScarJo and K-Stew and LiLo (not to mention K-Stew’s boyfriend, R-Patz). But collapsing one’s name isn’t a badge of approval so much as a mark of obsession. It doesn’t mean that you’re better at what you do than anyone else. It doesn’t mean that you’re unconditionally beloved. Rather, it signifies that you’ve become an object of fixation, which is usually preceded by some sort of professional watershed, or an association with an overwhelming cultural phenomenon, or because you’re frequently photographed looking shiny and heavy-lidded while straddling a banquet at Trousdale in a short skirt and stilettos, an unlit cigarette wedged backwards into the corner of your mouth.