Amanda Seyfried says she was ''pigeonholed as the dumb blonde'' after her role in 'Mean Girls'.

The 29-year-old actress, who has played a variety of characters, from a loved-up singing star in the ABBA musical 'Mamma Mia', to a 1970s porn actress Linda Lovelace, felt that she wasn't taken seriously when she first took to acting.

She said: ''I was totally pigeonholed as the dumb blonde after 'Mean Girls'. But it's different now. And 'Mean Girls' was amazing for me, it gave me so much. I was 18, I had no clue what to do with my life; it was either mean girls or college, so it gave me direction.''

The star, who started acting at the early age of 15 on 'As the World Turns', also revealed that she finds it too hard to watch herself on screen.

She said: ''I'm too critical; it's a problem with me. I really should just be doing lays, because then I'll never be able to see [the work], I'll just live with it.''

The 'Les Miserables' starlet had been dating actor Justin Long, 37, for just over two years now and seems to be in a happy place and ready to settle.

She told US OK! magazine: ''I'm really, really lucky; he so light, warm and funny. It's really about being happy now and I feel like things are good right now.''