In the early 2000s, Mandy Moore was everywhere. Between her music ruling the pop charts, her tear-jerker role in A Walk To Remember (2002), and her star turn in the cult hit, Saved! (2004), it seemed like she was here to stay. But then, Moore essentially disappeared and for years, it felt like Hollywood wasn't casting her anymore. We can explain why that happened, and why it's changing for the better.
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Although she was a consistent presence on the big screen for a handful of years, Moore's filmography isn't exactly something one would brag about. Take one of her most well-known flicks, A Walk to Remember, which was pretty savaged by critics, even though it performed well at the box office. Or how about Chasing Liberty, which got even worse reviews and bombed with audiences? Heck, even the Disney animated Tangled underwhelmed, earning $200 million off an insanely expensive $260 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo. The combined effect is enough to give any studio head pause.
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Moore rose to fame during the pop-music boom of the late-'90s and early'00s. Although her name was often mentioned alongside female contemporaries like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Jessica Simpson, she never quite reached their level of success on the charts. Her most recognizable hit, her debut single "Candy," peaked only at number 41 at the Billboard Hot 100 chart, while her most successful single, "I Wanna Be With You," barely cracked the top 25.
Her albums, meanwhile, didn't perform as well, either. In fact, her debut CD, So Real, peaked at number 31, despite going platinum. Only one of her albums, 2003's Coverage, landed in the top 20, reaching number 14. Sure, she arguably had a better voice than, say, Spears or Simpson, but in Hollywood, money and sales go a long way toward success.
While some celebs' dramatic personal lives can certainly keep studios from casting them, Moore's problem could be exactly the opposite. Since she's not controversial in the slightest and exceedingly pleasant on Instagram and Twitter, she simply doesn't capture the attention her competition does. Moore gets the benefit of living a quiet, less turbulent life, but that mellow style could be detrimental to her career at a time when the more buzz a celeb gets on social media, the better—good or bad.
Moore is also not into high-profile relationships. Her extremely private marriage to musician Ryan Adams in 2009 ended in divorce in June 2016. She's now seeing Dawes singer Taylor Goldsmith, but they're keeping that romance far away from the headlines.
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Mandy Moore's most successful roles have all been similar, and unfortunately, that's not a good thing for an actress looking to expand her range. When she wasn't playing a romantic lead, like she did in A Walk To Remember (2002) and How To Deal (2003), she was playing the resident mean girl à la The Princess Diaries (2001). And now? Moore shall forever be known as Disney Princess Rapunzel after lending her voice to 2010's Tangled. That can be a tough spot for an actress to find her way out of, especially if studios aren't willing to cast her outside of her tried and true material.
In 2014, Moore starred in a teen hospital drama called Red Band Society, but it was promptly canceled after the first season. Before that, her most recent films were TV movies in 2013: The Advocates and Christmas in Conway. Not the best track record, and definitely not impressive to film studios producing major motion pictures.
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Although Moore is definitely known for her acting, it was her music that first put her on the map. Her most recent release—if you don't count the tunes from Tangled—was the album Amanda Leigh, released in 2009. According to The Times of India, new material is on the way. "I've been working on music steadily for the last couple of years. I guess 2016 will be the re-emergence of my music," she said (via iHeartRadio). If Moore follows through with a new record, that could catapult her profile with a fresh generation and jump-start acting opportunities too.
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With or without a new album, Mandy Moore is now involved in some big and exciting projects that could take her career to the next level.
In 2016, she began co-starring in the NBC drama This Is Us, which became the breakout hit of the fall TV season and continues to do well in the ratings. In 2017, she reprised her role as Rapunzel in an animated TV series and a TV movie, and she'll voice the princess again in 2018. Also in 2018, she'll appear opposite Amandla Stenberg in the thriller Darkest Minds, based on the young adult trilogy by Alexandra Bracken, reported Variety.
It looks like Hollywood is paying attention once again, and we'll all be seeing and hearing Moore (pun intended!) in the days to come.
