Sydney Sweeney ‘Believed in Santa Clause Until the 7th Grade’
Sydney Sweeney has never been short on creativity. Now that she’s begun to really establish herself in Hollywood as a sought-after actor, she’s expanding that creativity. In 2020, Sweeney founded her own production company, Fifty-Fifty Films, so that she could help build the world that her characters inhabit. Sweeney admits that she’s always had a very vivid imagination. In fact, the actor divulged that she believed in Santa Clause until she was a teenager.
Sydney Sweeney grew up in the Pacific Northwest of The U.S.
Sweeney has credited her unique upbringing as something that helped foster her intense creative streak. The Players Table star grew up on the border of Idaho and Washington and was always outside. Though she’s firmly a part of the chronically online Gen Z, Sweeney admits that she didn’t have access to much technology growing up. Her childhood home wasn’t equipped with WiFi, so she had to rely on nature and her imagination to keep herself entertained.
The actor admits she believed in Santa Clause until she was a teenager
“Growing up where I did has allowed me to have such a free, creative mind,” Sweeney explained to Story + Rain. “I had an amazing landscape to grow up with. I was always outside, my parents always wanted me to play outside. I didn’t have my first phone until I was 13. I was never on electronics. I was always reading books. I was building treehouses. My parents kept the kid in me alive for as long as they possibly could. I believed in Santa Claus until the seventh grade. My imagination was nurtured. I’m able to use that in my work.”
Sweeney has a certain sense of nostalgia for her childhood and the way she grew up. While she likely believed in Santa Clause for longer than most, she admits that she misses the innocence of that time period. Certainly, growing up in the Pacific Northwest allowed the Spokane native to really embrace the great outdoors. Before she even knew she wanted to be an actor, she was building imaginary worlds for herself in her backyard.
Sweeney has a real love for nature and being in the great outdoors
These days, nature is still a huge source of solace for Sweeney. Whenever she needs a break from her hectic schedule or needs to find her center, she finds herself escaping to the outdoors. “My safe space/method for when I was younger would be to escape by being outdoors, which is still the case,” Sweeney told SBJCT Journal. Elsewhere in the interview, Sweeney again praised her hometown. “I was lucky to have grown up in the Pacific North West where we have access to such beautiful land to hike and explore, so I try to do that wherever I am.”
Clearly, nature plays no small part in feeding Sweeney’s huge imagination. And while she may have believed in Santa Clause a lot longer than some, we’d say it worked out for her.
