Hi everyone and thank you for tuning in to episode 136 of Awards Chatter, the Hollywood Reporters Awards

podcast. I'm the host Scott Feinberg and my guest today is a strikingly

beautiful and multi-talented woman who at just 33 has already lived many lives in show business

and is experiencing a career renaissance right now. The singer slash actress

Mandy Moore. Moore first burst onto the scene in 1999 as a teen pop sensation in the mold of Brittany Spears and

Christina Aguilera, following the release of her first album, So Real, which featured a

catchy single called Candy that spent 20 weeks on the Billboard

Hot 100 list.

Unlike her aforementioned contemporaries, however, she resisted being packaged and sexualized and instead gravitated towards and displayed a talent for acting as well.

She ventured into films with small roles in big projects like 2001's The Princess Diaries, soon giving way to larger roles in smaller projects like 2002's a walk to remember, an early Nicholas Sparks adaptation that proved a hit.

Over the ensuing years, she continued to put out music,

including in 2007 her fifth album, Wild Hope,

the first for which she did her own writing,

and movies, ranging from 2004 saved to 2010's tangled.

But around the start of this decade things began to dry up for more.

She attempted to pivot to TV, but three pilots into which she poured her heart and soul over three consecutive years were not picked up, and eventually she began to question if she should even remain in the business.

Then in 2015, just as she was about to throw in the towel,

a script for the pilot of a show written by tangled writer Dan Fogleman crossed her desk,

and she was so taken with it that despite her doubts she

decided to audition for the part of Rebecca Pearson the matriarch of an unusual family

the rest as they say, is history.

This is Us was brought to series by NBC and became the biggest critical and commercial

...