Sydney Bernice Sweeney was born on September 12, 1997,^[4][1] in Spokane, Washington.^[5][6] Her mother is a former criminal defense lawyer, and her father works in the hospitality industry.^[7] She has one brother.^[8] Sweeney was raised in the Idaho panhandle^[9] along the Washington border, at a rural lakeside home that her family has inhabited for five generations.^[10] She has said her family is religious.^[11] Sweeney attended school at Saint George's School in Spokane.^[12] She was active in numerous sports: "I was in every single sport possible", she said. "I was on the soccer team, the baseball team, the snow slalom ski team, I was wakeboarding." Sweeney said she had a wakeboarding accident as a child when the edge of her board propelled backward and sliced the area next to her eye, leaving a permanent scar.^[10] She also did combat sports, including taekwondo, jujitsu, grappling, and kickboxing.^[13] Sweeney has mentioned she began practicing combat sports at age 5 to help manage her hyperactivity.^[14]

Sweeney became interested in acting after auditioning to be an extra in an independent film that was shooting in the Spokane area.^[12] To convince her parents to allow her to pursue acting, she presented them with a five-year business plan.^[15] Sweeney began to audition and book commercial acting jobs in Seattle and Portland, Oregon, where the family temporarily resided, until choosing to move to Los Angeles when she was 13 years old.^[16] In high school, Sweeney was on the robotics team and in the mathematics club.^[17] She was valedictorian of her graduating class at Brighton Hall School in Burbank, California.^[18] In 2016, Sweeney briefly worked at Universal Studios Hollywood, but left after she had been hired for an acting job. She also briefly attended the University of California, Los Angeles.^[19]

Beginning her career as a child actress, Sweeney debuted on television in 2009 with a bit part in an episode of the series Heroes.^[20] Her first film role was in the 2010 horror comedy ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction.^[21] She played supporting roles in television shows such as 90210, Criminal Minds, Grey's Anatomy and Pretty Little Liars.^[22][23] In 2018, she starred as Emaline Addario in the Netflix series Everything Sucks!, which revolved around two groups of high school students in Oregon in 1996. She then appeared in the HBO miniseries Sharp Objects, recurring as Alice, a roommate whom Amy Adams's character meets at a psychiatric facility.^[24][25] Her character originally had a smaller role, but the director kept bringing her in for more scenes.^[26] For the role, Sweeney studied stories of girls who experience mental illness and self-harming, and visited hospitals with patients who self-harmed.^[24][26] She filmed Everything Sucks! and Sharp Objects concurrently, the former during the week and latter on weekends.^[27]

Sweeney had a role in the 2018 film Under the Silver Lake.^[28] She had a recurring role in the second season of the dystopian drama series The Handmaid's Tale as Eden Spencer, a pious and obedient girl from the totalitarian and theocratic Republic of Gilead.^[23] She also starred as the heroine of the horror film Along Came the Devil.^[29] In 2019, Sweeney appeared in the drama film Clementine, the coming-of-age film Big Time Adolescence, and Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.^[30][31][32]

In June 2019, Sweeney began portraying Cassie Howard, a teenager with a promiscuous reputation, in the HBO drama series Euphoria.^[33] The show was a breakout hit, becoming the second most watched HBO series.^[34] Her performance was praised, earning a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2022.^[35] Variety wrote that her performance "proves that Sweeney's one hell of a shapeshifter between her deft turns in this, The Handmaid's Tale, Everything Sucks and Sharp Objects."^[36] Her many nude scenes in the series received significant attention, generating discussions about nudity in film and the male gaze. Sweeney has said she does not consider on-screen nudity a boundary.^[37]

In 2020, Sweeney founded the production company Fifty-Fifty Films.^[38] The same year, she starred in the television film Nocturne and Webtoon's live-action advertisement for the online comic Lore Olympus, appearing as Persephone.^[39][40][41] In 2021, Sweeney appeared in the first season of Mike White's anthology series The White Lotus^[42][43] as a sardonic college sophomore.^[44] For that performance, she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie in 2022. She appeared on the Time 100 Next list for 2022.^[45]

In 2023, Sweeney starred as U.S. Air Force veteran Reality Winner in Tina Satter's thriller drama Reality, which premiered in February at the 73rd Berlin Film Festival. Steph Green of IndieWire called the film "inventively mounted and extraordinarily tense" and Sweeney "the real deal".^[46] Jessica Kiang of Variety wrote that she played Winner "so convincingly that it's hard to remember her as the sardonic, pampered teen in The White Lotus, or the nice-girl-turned-nasty in Euphoria".^[47] Sweeney next had a role in the crime thriller Americana, which premiered at the South by Southwest Festival in March 2023.^[48][49]

Sweeney starred in the video for the Rolling Stones' single "Angry", from their 2023 album Hackney Diamonds.^[50] In response to criticism that the video objectified her, she defended it as "empowerment through embracing my body".^[51] At age 25, Sweeney was selected as one of Forbes's 2023 30 Under 30 in the celebrity category.^[52][53] She and Glen Powell starred in the romantic comedy Anyone but You, which premiered in December 2023.^[54] It became a commercial sleeper hit.^[55] Sweeney was an executive producer for the film and was instrumental in hiring Powell and director Will Gluck. She also contributed to the script.^[56]

In 2024, Sweeney had a supporting role in the superhero film Madame Web, set in Sony's Spider-Man Universe franchise.^[57][58] It was released in February and received negative reviews, bombing at the box office.^[59][60] Of the film's commercial and critical failure, Sweeney said, "I was just hired as an actress in it, so I was just along for the ride for whatever was going to happen."^[61] In March 2024, Sweeney hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live.^[62] Following her appearance, conservative Canadian newspaper National Post ran an article asking "Are Sydney Sweeney's breasts double-D harbingers of the death of woke?"^[63][64] and right-wing academic Richard Hanania tweeted "Wokeness is dead" alongside a clip of Sweeney centered on her bust.^[65][66] Sweeney called the obsession with her appearance "this weird relationship that people have with me that I have no control over".^[67]

Sweeney then produced and starred in the psychological horror film Immaculate.^[68] Sweeney originally auditioned for the project in 2014. Years later, she purchased the rights to the screenplay and hired frequent collaborator Michael Mohan to direct.^[69] Sweeney has said that she considered producing a way to create opportunities for herself.^[70] Later in 2024, she co-starred in Eden, directed by Ron Howard.^[71] Reviewing the film for TheWrap, critic Chase Hutchinson wrote that Sweeney "runs away with the whole thing ... it's her subtle looks and a growing agency that turns Eden into something more ... every moment with her at the forefront is Eden at its best."^[72]

In June 2025, Sweeney starred alongside Julianne Moore in Echo Valley.^[73] She learned how to ride horses for the role.^[74] In August, Americana was released in theaters to low box office. Several medias labeled it a flop, though Deadline argued that it would be profitable in terms of an indie film.^[75] Christy, a biopic about boxer Christy Martin, had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.^[76] In addition to starring in the film, Sweeney also produced it.^[77] Of taking the role, Sweeney said,

I was blown away and inspired by [Martin's] strength, her perseverance, and who she is as a woman. Having a character that has so many layers and depths, that's a dream as an actor... Then, on the physical side, I grew up kickboxing and grappling. I'm a very outdoorsy, athletic person, so to play a character that [required me] to transform myself was a dream. I loved every part of it.^[78]

As of 2025, Sweeney is set to co-star in The Housemaid, an adaptation of the bestselling novel of the same name.^[79] Sweeney is attached to play Kim Novak in Scandalous, a romantic drama to be directed by Colman Domingo.^[80] It will shoot in early 2026.^[78]

In January 2023, Sweeney became a brand ambassador for Armani Beauty and Laneige.^[81][82] Her other advertising deals include partnerships with Miu Miu, Samsung, Ford, Baskin-Robbins, Cotton On and Guess.^[83][84] In May 2025, she received widespread attention on social media after partnering with personal care brand Dr. Squatch to launch a limited-edition soap line containing her bathwater.^[85]

In July 2025, Sweeney appeared in an advertising campaign for American Eagle Outfitters called "Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans",^[86] which became a subject of controversy.^[87] Some social media users claimed that the pun on "jeans" and "genes", associated with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed white woman, promoted eugenics and white supremacy.^[88][89][90] This, in turn, increased left-wing criticism of the campaign. Mainstream media widely reported on the controversy, and the Trump administration commented on it.^{[91][92][93][94]} The Hollywood Reporter was unsure whether this "media firestorm" had negatively impacted the box office returns of Americana.^[95] American Eagle Outfitters later praised the campaign as a great success and said they were planning other collaborations with Sweeney.^[96]

Sweeney started dating businessman Jonathan Davino in 2018, and they became engaged in 2022.^[97][98][99] They produced films together (including Anyone but You and Immaculate), and Sweeney considered Davino her "producing partner".^[99] The couple separated in 2025.^[100][101]

Sweeney is an automobile enthusiast. She has restored a 1969 Ford Bronco and a 1965 Ford Mustang, and also owns a 1956 Ford F100 with original patina, gifted by her grandfather.^[102][103] As part of her partnership with Ford, Sweeney designed a custom 2024 Mustang.^[104]

In 2021, Sweeney purchased a 3,200-square-foot (300 m²) Tudor-style home in Los Angeles, for US$3 million.^[105] In 2023, she bought a US$9.9 million "fixer-upper mansion" in Los Angeles's Bel Air neighborhood, and in 2024 she bought a US$13.5 million home in the Florida Keys.^[105]

Sweeney has garnered significant attention and discussion for her on-screen nudity, particularly concerning her breasts.^[106][107] She has stated that nudity is a necessary part of her work, arguing that the female body helps tell a story,^[108] and she has maintained a lighthearted attitude toward the public discussion.^[109][110]