Amanda Seyfried gets 'bizarre life or death' panic attacks due to her fame

Amanda Seyfried has been in Hollywood for nearly two decades but being in the spotlight continues to be difficult for her.

In a conversation with Willie Geist for Sunday's episode of The Today Show, Seyfried admitted that she still faces anxiety and panic attacks due to her fame. They are so severe that they feel like "life or death." "That's what a panic attack is, really. Your body just goes into fight or flight. The endorphin rush and the dump that happens after the panic attack is so extraordinary," she said.

Explaining the "bizarre process" after her panic attacks, the actress said: "You just feel so relieved and your body is just kind of recovered in a way. It's so bizarre because it's physiological, but it starts in your head."

The Oscar-nominee also confessed that she has struggled with showing people that she is "normal," and doesn't have a team of people waking her up with breakfast in bed and chauffeuring her around.

"And every time I meet someone new, I'm just so desperate for them to understand that you can talk to me. I wanna connect like everybody else, because I am like everybody else," the "Mean Girls" star added.

The 35-year-old has been living with her husband Thomas Sadoski, their two children, and her mother on a working farm in the Catskills of Upstate New York. She said that setting up her home away from Hollywood was a "very conscious" decision, as she has always wanted to live on a farm.

"I just need to feel grounded somewhere that I can trust will always be there," the "Mank" star said.

While being a mother to a four-year-old daughter and a seven-month-old son is a lot of work, even with the help of her own mother, Seyfried says "the benefits outweigh everything."

Seyfried also opened up about her first Oscar nomination that she received for her recent portrayal of Marion Davies in David Fincher's "Mank," and revealed she was asleep when her mother heard about the news.

"It hasn't really hit me yet. It's a recognition, it's an achievement that I didn't really set out to expect. I was never desperate for it," she claimed.