s an elder millennial, I look back fondly on the days of the late-‘90s/early 2000s music princesses. Britney. Christina. Jessica. Beyoncé. Mariah. Gwen. Avril. P!nk. To this day, each of these women holds a place in my heart (and on my playlist). Nearly all of these names have, surprisingly or not, withstood the test of time—Gwen is currently in Vegas, P!nk is hosting the
on Surviving 2000s Stardom and Coming Out on Top
“I didn't know who I was, so therefore, I didn't know what I was offering the world.”
“I was 15, and I remember I was singing about things that I hadn't necessarily experienced in my own life, and I didn't know who I was,” Moore told me about her emergence on the pop music scene. “Like, who knows who they are as a freshman in high school? I didn't know who I was, so therefore, I didn't know what I was offering the world. Who am I? What am I going to continue contributing?”
But that lack of “experience” eventually gave way to a decades-long career. “For me, it was always this idea of longevity…like, I've been doing this for over 25 years. So, I look at other women who are in similar positions and they're still doing what they love to do. And it's like, this is so rad, because that's not often the case. And that's how I always qualified success: Success equals longevity.”
For the uninitiated, Moore got her start in the music industry when she debuted her first album, So Real, in December 1999, following the release of the album’s lead single “Candy” the previous August. Was “I’m missing you like candy” the deepest of lyrics? Hardly. But teens and preteens were quickly obsessed, with her first album officially certified platinum. And while she escaped the “mega-stardom” of celebrity that afflicted peers like Britney Spears, at the age of 15, Moore was already becoming a household name.
She dipped her toe into the film world with a voice credit in Dr. Dolittle 2 and a more noticeable “mean girl” role in The Princess Diaries in 2001. The work snowballed from there, with two follow-up albums dropping quickly. From a critical standpoint, reviews were mixed for Moore’s music. Rolling Stone gave her 2001 self-titled album Mandy Moore three out of five stars, with the condescending assertion that, “this B-level Orlando upstart played the jailbait card.”
This not-so-subtle (and largely icky) jab squares with our modern-day understanding of how many young women in showbiz were treated at the turn of the millennium. A number of pop stars have spoken out about the enormous pressure, issues of body shaming and worse, with celebs like Jessica Simpson noting the fat-shaming they encountered (for the record, Simpson was a size 4 in 2009!) and others, like Kesha, pointing to overt sexual harassment and abuse.
The now-42-year-old Moore muses that while she was spared most of these horrors, she did come of age and celebrity during a particularly toxic time. “We look back on certain interviews and questions that were asked of people, and it's like, it's unthinkable that anyone would be in a position like that nowadays,” she told me.
That said, the This Is Us star hesitated to label today as fully “better” for an emerging artist than the early 2000s. “The catch-22 is we also didn't have social media. We didn't have the extreme filterless content and access to people. And sure, there is this idea that artists and performers are able to, you know, protect and curate whatever information they sort of want to release to people. But in the same way, I feel like it's warping our brains.”
And speaking of coming back around again, I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t ask Moore about the possibility of rebooting one of her iconic films. I was fully prepared for a “they’re all perfect the way they are—let’s not ruin them with a reboot” answer. But she surprised me: “I would watch a reboot of A Walk to Remember. I feel like it's almost time for that.” (Did you hear that Hollywood?! Let’s get on it please!)
The heart wrenching drama (about a teen battling terminal cancer) came out in 2002 when Moore was just 17 years old and signaled more than a leap from the music stage to the silver screen. It jumpstarted a steady stream of acting work for Moore, as she began to be known as a good-girl teen icon. In the cult-classic satire Saved! (2004), she played an uber-religious high schooler. In Chasing Liberty (2004), she was the president’s daughter who desperately wanted to be seen as “normal”. Moore firmly established herself as a screen queen, but one who dabbled in frothier fare. And then…This Is Us arrived.
The NBC drama series first aired in the fall of 2016 with Moore now cast as adult matriarch Rebecca Pearson opposite Milo Ventimiglia as her husband Jack. The themes, from grief and loss to generational trauma, were much more nuanced and demanding than anything she’d done before, and responses to the show, specifically reviews of Moore’s acting work, were off the charts throughout the series’ six season run. Vulture called her “ingenious” and maintained, “It's time for Moore to get the respect and admiration she's surely earned.” The Independent hailed her as “secretly the best actor on TV.” (Cue her Emmy Award nomination in 2019.)
But perhaps most notable was the fan response—the show was a fast favorite with audiences, with the first season averaging an impressive 14.3 million viewers per week. By season six, the series had dropped to a slightly less impressive 5.5 million, though still remained NBC’s highest rated scripted series. Creator Dan Fogelman had long said the show would have a six season arc, so when it ended, nobody was surprised. The only question: What would Moore do next?
These days, the mom of three is focused on both her career and her family. In 2018, she married folk musician Taylor Goldsmith, and their kids range in age from 1 to 5. (She was previously married to Ryan Adams, and was linked, in the early aughts, to both Zach Braff and tennis star Andy Rodick.) She is quite vocal about being a mom, often sharing photos and stories of her kids on Instagram and musing about the good and bad of parenthood. “3 kids in 3 1/2 years is an endeavor (ha) AND being a mom is my favorite thing about this life. Period,” she wrote recently. Still, this domestic bliss hasn’t been without its challenges: The family nearly lost their home to the L.A. wildfires in 2025, and their rebuilding process is still ongoing. And recent “toxic mom group” drama (courtesy of Ashley Tisdale) forced her to speak out about the “very upsetting” ordeal, adding that “it just cuts to the core.”
“I would watch a reboot of A Walk to Remember. I feel like it's almost time for that.”
Talking to her now, it’s clear that through it all, she’s remained an extremely positive person—and smitten. “Working with [Taylor] is the best. I mean, he's my favorite person in the world, and I just admire him and respect him and have him on a pedestal in terms of how talented he is. The idea that we can make music together and have that sort of deep shared connection woven into our relationship…It's so much fun to share that together.”
While she’s working on this next dream, she is, of course, promoting her new film, which has the feeling of the kind of ‘90s comedy she (and I) grew up with. In her words, the film delivers in a way that “Uncle Buck, Cheaper by the Dozen and all those John Hughes movies” did. Like The Breadwinner, these films are irreverent family comedies that offer fast laughs and “out there” plot points—at times flippant, at times oddly poignant. “They feel good,” she told me, laughing. “They're for everybody.”
And in a way, it’s this nostalgia and familiarity that feels so right for a person like Mandy Moore, who is the girl we all grew up with, the one without drama and the one who prides herself on integrity. As she explained it, “As long as I'm considered a kind person and I treat people kindly, that is truly the only thing I care about.” And though she’d be too humble to refer to herself as a ray of sunshine, she does admit the movie has that effect. “You leave the theater smiling and go about your day and take that good mood with you. This is…” she paused. “This is what we need right now.”
Moore’s latest film The Breadwinner hits theaters Friday, May 29.
And in a way, it’s this nostalgia and familiarity that feels so right for a person like Mandy Moore, who is the girl we all grew up with, the one without drama and the one who prides herself on integrity. As she explained it, “As long as I'm considered a kind person and I treat people kindly, that is truly the only thing I care about.” And though she’d be too humble to refer to herself as a ray of sunshine, she does admit the movie has that effect. “You leave the theater smiling and go about your day and take that good mood with you. This is…” she paused. “This is what we need right now.”
Moore’s latest film The Breadwinner hits theaters Friday, May 29.
by Phil Mutz
Tonys, Beyoncé is about to drop a rock album, Britney breaks the internet with each of her IG posts. This list, of course, also includes pop singer and Emmy-nominee Mandy Moore—the girl next door who morphed into our mom-friend as we aged alongside her.
While modern day audiences may know her best as Rebecca Pearson on This Is Us, we millennials still fawn over her for her work in A Walk to Remember, Chasing Liberty and Saved!—and, obviously, for delivering such earworms as “Candy” and “I Wanna Be With You” (she was prominently featured on my iPod Shuffle back in 2005). And Moore is far from slowing down. This week, she debuts a brand-new film, The Breadwinner, starring opposite comedian and acting newcomer Nate Bargatze.
In the new family comedy, Nate Wilcox (Bargatze) is the “breadwinner” of the family, with the stereotypical male mentality that his work (and worth) is outside the home. Meanwhile, his wife Katie (Moore) is left to handle the mental load. To manage the family’s complicated schedule, she makes their three children a “Starminder” that helps them check off to-dos in the morning before going to school. Yada, yada, plot twist: Katie ends up on Shark Tank and gets an investment from Lori Greiner, which suddenly leads to the couple switching roles. Nate then takes leave from his job as a car salesman, while Katie is thrown into the new position of CEO.
I had the good fortune to sit down with Moore to discuss her newest film, as well as “brain warping” social media, the return of “soft pants” and the difficulties and triumphs of surviving the early aughts.
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Fortunately for a nostalgia-fan like Moore, the late ‘90s and early aughts are making a major comeback. “I think that all of these things are cyclical, whether it's, like, pop culture and entertainment, or fashion…what's old is new again. The world feels chaotic, and I think in times like these, plugging into something that feels familiar and comfortable is just the way to go. It's what we're all craving right now. I, for one, am subscribing to that as well. I'm like, oh, I love, like, cargo pants and flip-flops, and I'm back in my soft pants again, and baby tees.”
The NBC drama series first aired in the fall of 2016 with Moore now cast as adult matriarch Rebecca Pearson opposite Milo Ventimiglia as her husband Jack. The themes, from grief and loss to generational trauma, were much more nuanced and demanding than anything she’d done before, and responses to the show, specifically reviews of Moore’s acting work, were off the charts throughout the series’ six season run. Vulture called her “ingenious” and maintained, “It's time for Moore to get the respect and admiration she's surely earned.” The Independent hailed her as “secretly the best actor on TV.” (Cue her Emmy Award nomination in 2019.)
But perhaps most notable was the fan response—the show was a fast favorite with audiences, with the first season averaging an impressive 14.3 million viewers per week. By season six, the series had dropped to a slightly less impressive 5.5 million, though still remained NBC’s highest rated scripted series. Creator Dan Fogelman had long said the show would have a six season arc, so when it ended, nobody was surprised. The only question: What would Moore do next?
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Mandy Moore is Officially in Her Comfort Era
JUNE 2026
