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Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.

It's Bullseye. I'm Jesse Thorn. Feed your Tomogachi, jump into those jingos,

Frost those chips. We're going back to 1999 baby.

It's a classic from that year. Candy by my guest Mandy Moore. It was her first single.

She was a teenager. It hit number 41 on the Billboard charts. It went gold. It made Mandy a teen

pop star following in the footsteps of her peers Britney Spears in sync and the Backstreet Boys.

But Mandy Moore never wanted to just be a teen pop star. She had dreams to act, to write her

own music. And it turns out she was great at those things. For over 20 years, she's been a regular

working actor. She started movies like Saved, The Princess Diaries, and I'm not here. On TV,

she's appeared on Grey's Anatomy Scrubs. And of course, this is us. That smash hit beloved drama

just finished its six-year run on NBC. Mandy played Rebecca Pearson on the show, a role that earned

her screen actors guild awards along with Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. And now like I said,

this is us has come to an end. When the production wrapped Moore found herself,

it had a bit of a crossroads in her career. So she started writing music again and recording it.

She has a brand new record. It's called Real Life. This is the title track.

Mandy Moore welcomed a bullseye. Thanks for being on the show. Thanks for having me.

Do you have to think about what the effect of your records is on people that love you from the

one of the most popular shows on network television? A completely different thing.

...