What You Didn't Know About Amanda Peet

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Some actors love the limelight and all the scandal that comes with it. Others like to keep their private life, well, private. You have your Gwyneth Paltrows who can make a story out of a DMV trip, and then you have your Anne Hathaways who usually keep the conversation to their new projects. Now and then, though, there's Amanda Peet, who has been working steadily since 1995. Since then, she's been both a serious actor and the talk of the town.

You aren't likely to see Peet on the front page of the New York Post. No, you're much more likely to find her written up in Vogue for her immaculately decorated Hollywood Hills home, or speaking to Variety about her jump from actor to creator.

Though she's been a household name for decades, there's plenty people don't know about Amanda Peet. From her eyebrow-raising friendship with Sarah Paulson, to Peet and her husband's marriage-threatening disagreements about "Game of Thrones," to her other creative projects, we've got it all covered.

We can't talk about Amanda Peet without talking about her relationship with Sarah Paulson. If you know anything about the duo, then you probably remember their famous 2016 red carpet kiss that got people talking. "There was no thought process," Peet told People of the intimate moment. "That is often the case with my relationship with Sarah."

Peet and the "American Horror Story" star's friendship has been well-chronicled over the years. Peet described the relationship as complicated but worth it when speaking to the outlet in 2017. "It's very intense and visceral and really beautiful and we work hard at it," Peet said, describing Paulson as another wife or husband.

Paulson has been equally complimentary of Peet, famously singing her praises in a 2016 interview with Marie Claire: "She is an extraordinary mother, dedicated and present, with heavy doses of humor and a child's sense of play, while remaining my most loyal, supportive friend," Paulson said. 

Paulson reportedly connected Peet with Sandra Oh, who went on to star in Peet's show, "The Chair." Peet is not on social media, she said on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," so Paulson kindly agreed to "slide into Sandra Oh's DMs" (as Colbert put it) to ask her to read the script for Peet.

Despite her A-list status, Amanda Peet actually comes from pretty humble beginnings. Almost any successful actor was once a struggling actor, and any struggling actor will tell you that it takes a lot of credits before acting starts paying the bills. If you're lunching somewhere in Hollywood, the chances are that your waiter is serving food as a means to an end. After all, there's an entire series, "Vanderpump Rules," about waiters trying to get out of the waiting game.

Ever relatable, Peet spent years paying the bills with regular jobs, too. "I was a coffee presser at Bodum coffee shop," Peet told Backstage in 2018. You might recognize the Bodum name from their line of coffee beans and coffee grinders. So, was Peet a world-class coffee grinder? Not exactly. "I splattered and ruined a lot of shirts," she admitted.

The star told Intelligencer that her first New York job was as "a hostess at Crab City, at 18." Things didn't go so smoothly at the restaurant. "On the first day of work a couple asked me if I could please warm their bread, so I put the entire bread basket into the oven," Peet revealed. "The restaurant almost caught on fire and needless to say, I was fired immediately."

After years in front of the camera, Amanda Peet is ready to pursue other artistic outlets. Perhaps inspired in part by her showrunner husband, Peet has become increasingly interested in writing since her first play, "The Commons of Pensacola," premiered in 2013. "I want to write something for myself. I want to be Amelia Earhart or Eleanor Roosevelt or something. I want to write myself! But I found that it's better if I think about someone else when I write," she told Vanity Fair, adding that when she writes, she has some odd traditions. "I write on the floor, crouched up in a weird ball," she told the outlet. "I definitely think I'm a thrower of spaghetti against the wall. It's almost like having this huge lump of clay. It's what Mark Duplass calls the diarrhea draft. You have to just finish the diarrhea draft. Then you're good to go."

By 2021, Peet had landed a coveted spot as the co-creator and showrunner of a new hit starring Sandra Oh, Netflix's "The Chair." Rather than writing about her own experience, though, Peet was inspired by the news cycle. "Beyond what I was reading in the headlines, there were a lot of professors who wanted to speak about their experiences — experiences as women getting tenure, experiences with students, experiences in schools that are very old-fashioned still," she told Variety.

Amanda Peet had her husband's back when it came to the criticism he faced over the "Game of Thrones" finale. Given her support for the controversial ending, it might come as a bit of a surprise to learn that when David Benioff first came to Peet with plans to turn the literary franchise into a big-budget television series, she had some serious reservations. "I thought it was a terrible idea, terrible," she said during a 2015 "Conan" appearance. "It's like Dungeons and Dragons but real, with real people." After some prompting from the host, however, Peet admitted that once she saw the show in its final form, she became a huge fan.

In fact, Peet became such a fan that she took it personally when her favorite "Game of Thrones" character, Jon Snow, died in the Season 5 finale. "I don't love [Benioff] anymore," Peet said during an interview with Jimmy Kimmel. "I said, 'If you kill [Jon Snow], that's it," Peet explained. She detailed how, having been well aware of the rumors that Snow might die, she forced Benioff to send her a photo of the actor who plays Snow, to prove that his hair hadn't been cut (if he had cut his hair, fans thought it would be proof that his time on the show was over). "It's a little bit like being married to someone in the CIA or something, except...not as important," Peet joked.

In the showbiz industry, when creators find an actor they work well with, with they tend to stick with them throughout their career. Nora Ephron had Tom Hanks, Adrian Brody has Wes Anderson, and Leonardo DiCaprio has Martin Scorsese. As for Amanda Peet, her favorite pair of creators are the Duplass brothers (Jay and Mark), with whom she worked on "Togetherness."

"I love the way they work," Peet told BFF Sarah Paulson during a conversation for Elle. "They're brilliant writers. They're very loose on set," she continued. "I know that if I do something really bad, they won't use it, so I feel safe," she said. Peet also added that the Duplass brothers were such a dream to work with because they treat her so well — "They've ruined me," she said, "But I'm happy to have been ruined by them."

"Togetherness" may not have made it past its second season, but Peet went on to work with the Duplasses yet again in 2020, on Netflix's "The Chair." The only difference? This time, Amanda Peet was calling the shots as writer-executive producer, and Jay Duplass would be focusing more on his work in front of the camera. "I felt that we had that shorthand with each other and that intimacy with each other," Peet told Variety in 2021.

Did you know Amanda Peet is a published children's book author? In 2015, she co-authored a book, "Dear Santa, Love Rachel Rosenstein," inspired by her children. Peet's kids, Frances, Molly, and Henry, are being raised Jewish, and apparently, they've had a lot of questions when it comes to Christmas. Tired of fielding the same inquiries year after year, Peet decided to write a book. They were asking me, 'Why can't we have a tree? Is Santa coming to us? Who is Santa? What can we do for him?'" she told People. 

Peet wrote the book with Andrea Troyer, the wife of her husband's "Game of Thrones" creative partner D.B. Weiss, while living in Belfast during filming. Together, they came up with a short story that would eventually become "Dear Santa, Love Rachel Rosenstein," about a Jewish girl who wishes she could celebrate Christmas like the rest of her friends.

In a statement to Bustle, Peet shared, "The book came out of a desire to capture the feeling of being left out during the Christmas holidays and to explain how you can't always get what you want — and how sorting that out, for Jews and Gentiles alike, is part of what the holiday spirit is all about." The authors donated part of their profits to the Seeds of Peace non-profit organization.

Besides just inspiring the story, Peet's kids served as invaluable editors. Per People, Peet and Troyer would read the kids drafts of the story, and the second they started looking bored, they knew what to cut. If the glowing Amazon reviews are any indication, Peet's kids have a future in publishing.