Mandy Moore came close to leaving the acting biz just before landing her starring role on the hit NBC series “This Is Us.”
“As an actor, so much of our job is rejection,” the 35-year-old star said during a panel with her co-star Susan Kelechi Watson at Popsugar Play/Ground on Saturday. “I think I had started like, I kept smacking into that wall time and time again for quite a number of years and I think it also coincided with some tricky stuff in my personal life and the combination of those two just made me feel so stuck.”
She continued, “I contemplated, I was like, ‘I think this is it. I think this is the universe giving me a sign that maybe this is not what I’m supposed to be doing … Maybe I’m not supposed to be an actor anymore like, I’ve been incredibly lucky, I’ve had this really fruitful time earlier in my life and maybe now I’m supposed to lean into something else.’”
However, Moore realized that even though she felt like all hope was lost for her career, she self-reflected and found that she shouldn’t give up on her passion.
“I think at the end of the day when I did dig deep I was like this [acting] is all, there was no plan B for me personally, this is just that period of building. It’s that period where I know I’m going to need this as fodder and fuel for … when I see the light again.”
And the actress couldn’t be happier that she kept with it, because not only did she land her role in “This Is Us,” which she called “the most incredibly fulfilling and satisfying job I’ve ever had in my life,” but she was also inspired to relaunch her music career.
“It feels so good to be back in the studio,” she said.
Moore says she has seven songs recorded and 15 written. She hopes to put out her new material this year.