Sydney Sweeney Is Making Waves

Dennis Leupold , Styled by Kristen Saladino, Alice + Olivia crop top, shopbop.com; Alexandra Miro bikini bottom, mytheresa.com; Georg Jensen ring (left hand), georgjensen.com; Mara Paris ring (right hand), us.mara.paris

This is a story about Sydney Sweeney...and a lake.

“I grew up on the water,” says the 26-year-old. On the surface, she’s referencing where she spent childhood—on a lake in a small town on the Washington-Idaho border. But Sydney is sharing something deeper. To the self-described homebody turned starlet, the lake is more than a location; it’s the place that shaped her into who she is, and where she returns to feel most herself. There, she’s not two-time Emmy nominee and Fifty-Fifty Films founder Sydney Sweeney; she’s Lake Syd.

She soft-launched the idea of Lake Syd last summer after bringing her stylist and other members of her work team to her family’s lake for a week. At the trip’s end, she captioned an Instagram post chronicling their adventures, “wish you knew lake syd.”

So who exactly is Lake Syd? “She’s truly just who I am at the core, everything stripped away,” Sydney says. “I wrote that caption because everyone with me was like, ‘Wow, really wish the world could see Lake Syd,’ because it’s just who I am.”

Lake Syd goes on hikes with her rescue dog, Tank, and spends her free time organizing her house. She drives a four-wheeler in the woods and likes to jump off a rope swing into the water. She wears matching Christmas PJs with her family (including Tank) and dreams of opening an ice cream shop. More than anything, Lake Syd loves slalom waterskiing. (Slalom is different from traditional waterskiing in that you strap both legs onto a single ski.)

“The moment I could walk, my mom put me on what’s called a U-board to learn how to ski,” Sydney says. “I remember that whenever we would go by the docks of my grandma’s or my cousin’s house, I’d wave. I felt so cool because I could take off one hand. That’s my earliest memory of skiing, but I’ve been doing it as long as I can remember. It’s my favorite.”

But Sydney doesn’t love slalom waterskiing solely because it’s a respite from the Hollywood hustle and bustle. She loves it because it’s a challenge. “It’s a lot of upper body strength, it’s balance, it’s core, it’s legs—you get tired really fast,” she says. “I see such a change in my body after an entire summer of [skiing]. My arms are stronger, more sculpted. My abs are rock solid. But I never look at it as a workout because it is so much fun.” (Appropriately, she fuels this active pleasure with water—specifically flavored water brand, Bai, for which she is a brand ambassador. Her fave flavor: Pilavo Pineapple Mango.)

To Sydney, the tough stuff is fun—on the water and at work. “Whenever a new challenge presents itself and I’m not scared to push myself to try, that’s when I’m really proud of who I am,” she says. It might be taking on a complex role or taking a turn to cut across the wake at 60 miles an hour. “I know that my body can keep going—it’s more just that mental challenge to push myself through,” she says. “I take that skill into skiing, into acting, into anything I do, because it’s always more mental than physical. Of course you have to train, but it’s mind over matter at the end of the day.”

Even when her arms are sore and her hands burn from gripping the ski rope, Sydney doesn’t let go because, ultimately, the mental rewards outweigh the physical toll. “It’s a rare moment when I can actually just hear myself breathing, where everything else goes quiet,” Sydney says. “No one else is back there with me—just me, the ski, the lake behind the boat. All I’m thinking about is skiing, and there are not many things that allow my brain to shut off that way.”

Dennis Leupold , Styled by Kristen Saladino, Gigi C surf suit, gigicbikinis.com; Alexis Bittar earrings, alexisbittar.com; Fry Powers rings, frypowers.com; G-Shock watch, gshock.casio.com/us/

Dennis Leupold , Styled by Kristen Saladino

Sydney struggles with anxiety, particularly social anxiety. “Whenever it feels like the world’s so loud, and there’s so much going on, and I’m trying to balance it all—sometimes, it can feel overwhelming,” she says. In these moments, Sydney finds solace in spending time outdoors with Tank, whether they’re meandering through lakeside forests or trekking Solstice Canyon in Malibu near their new home.

She’s open to talking about anxiety because everyone experiences it, in some way, at one point or another, but she’s purposeful about what she shares about her mental health, having previously dealt with a media frenzy after an outlet mischaracterized a single panic attack experience as multiple ongoing ones. “I’ve only once spoken about one panic attack,” she clarifies. “I said, ‘I felt like I had a panic attack,’ and then the news just kind of did their own thing with that.”

Dennis Leupold , Styled by Kristen Saladino, GSTQ jacket, gstq.com; Jade Swim one-piece, jadeswim.com; Goodr sunglasses, goodr.com

It’s not that Sydney is uncomfortable with her (ever increasing) fame and what that means for her personal or private life. She’s incredibly grateful for every opportunity, from attending the Met Gala to starring in a Rolling Stones music video. But she seems to realize, at a young age, that career accolades and the attention that comes with them are an unreliable source of happiness. She’s existed in the spotlight long enough to know there is more to life than red carpet interviews. “I started [acting] when I was 11, 12 years old, and it was only in the last few years that everyone was actually interested in talking to me,” she says. “There was a good eight, nine years where no one was saying yes. It was just me pushing through all the no’s.”

As Sydney strived, her family sacrificed. “I watched my parents lose a lot. We filed for bankruptcy, and they lost their house back home on the lake. [Sydney has since bought back her great-grandparents’ home on the same lake so she can return.] We couldn’t afford life in L.A. We couldn’t afford life anywhere,” she recalls.

To help pay the bills, Sydney babysat, cleaned restaurant bathrooms, and led tours at Universal Studios. “It was hard because they were supporting my dream, and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” she says. “I didn’t want to fail them. No matter how long it took, I was going to be in a TV show or a movie, and I wasn’t going to stop until something happened.”

That something was arguably the HBO miniseries Sharp Objects. And once one thing happened, so did many others: The Handmaid’s Tale, Euphoria, The White Lotus, Reality, Anyone But You, Madame Web, and more to come. A self-described workaholic, Sydney revels in the chaos of juggling multiple scripts and a packed schedule. “I love the hecticness of it all,” she says. During the SAG-AFTRA strike, she “tried to create that in other aspects of my life.”

Despite her family’s well-intentioned requests to chill, Sydney wanted, or perhaps even needed, a challenge. In lieu of acting or working on her production company’s upcoming projects, Sydney party-planned—starting with her own ’80s prom-themed birthday party. (“I’ve never had a prom,” she confides.) She even designed her perfectly pink and poufy birthday dress, choosing everything from the shape to the fabrics. Family and friends were invited to a blowout bash. But on her actual birthday, she celebrated in modest Lake Syd style by painting a giant blue cupcake at Color Me Mine. “I love to paint, and I love to read,” Sydney says. “Those are the activities that are just for me.”

Sydney credits her mom with instilling in her a sense of independence and self-reliance—something she hopes to encourage in her own children someday. When Sydney was young, she got into a wakeboarding accident (where there’s a water sport, there’s Syd) and had to get 17 stitches next to her eye. “The day the doctor cleared me to go in the water, my mom drove me to the lake and told me I couldn’t get out of the water until I stood back up on my board,” she says. “I was crying, but now I’m so thankful for everything she did.”

That self-sufficiency comes in handy in Hollywood, where friendships tend to last only as long as the shoots where they form. “It’s hard to build meaningful relationships, so whenever I am able to feel that connection, I try to foster it,” she says. “Like Maude [Apatow]—I look at her as my sister.” When they’re not working together on Euphoria, Sydney tries to spend as much time with Apatow as possible.

Recently, she also forged a tight bond with her Anyone But You co-star Glen Powell. “Getting to work with Glen, I’ll never forget this one… I hope the audience can actually feel the love and fun we all shared making this film,” Sydney says. “That’s something I always feel from my favorite rom-coms—the joy and energy shared amongst the cast and crew, and I was lucky enough to experience that on this film.” [Ed note: All quotes about this specific project were obtained after the strike ended.]

A tight-knit social circle also ensures Sydney surrounds herself only with those who align with her core values: kindness and loyalty. “I truly believe that kindness is the most important attribute anybody can have, because whoever you see on your way up, you’re going to see on your way down,” she says. “I try to be as loyal to my people as I can, and I hope they return the favor. I also love watching everyone succeed together.”

An innate desire to treasure shared success is also why Sydney’s family relationships remain some of her strongest. “My cousins are my best friends.…I love my family, and I love where I came from,” she says. “Anything my family needs, I’m always there for them.”

And because they loved her before millions of fans did—back when Lake Syd was the only Syd—she has confidence in not only who she is, but who she can be. “I look up to the older version of myself. When I was 10, I looked up to the 25-year-old version of myself, and now I look up to my 50-year-old version,” she says. “I hope I make the decisions she would be proud of.”

When she’s not filming, Sydney starts her days strong with a simple a.m. routine.

Lindsay Geller

Lifestyle Director

Lindsay Geller is the Lifestyle Director at Women’s Health, where she oversees the Life, Sex & Love, and Relationships sections on WomensHealthMag.com and the Mind section of Women's Health magazine. When she's not writing or editing articles about the latest dating trends and pop culture phenomenons, she's usually watching reality TV or playing with her dog, Lucille (Go Fetch That) Ball.