Moore Power

From teen pop to cheesy romcoms, Mandy Moore was the ultimate guilty pleasure – and then along came This Is Us. Let the Moorenaissance begin…

- Martha Hayes

Five years ago, if I’d told my friends that I was interviewing Mandy Moore – and looking forward to it – there would have been a lot of raised eyebrows. An unashamed enthusiasm for the noughties’ teen pop star (and purveyor of bubblegum hits like Candy and I Wanna Be With You) turned romcom princess (A Walk To Remember, anyone?) would have been the final nail in the coffin for my poor credibility. But fast forward to 2018 and, thanks to her starring role in the heart-warming American TV sensation This Is Us, I’m wearing it like a badge of honour. And I’m not the only one.

‘We were at the Super Bowl in Minneapolis [in February] surrounded by about 60 football fans who were freaking out because we were there as a cast,’ laughs Moore, 34, down the phone from her home in LA. ‘It’s the biggest sporting event of the year, so it was a funny juxtaposition; people drunk on beer wearing face paint and football jerseys wanting to talk to us about the show and getting super emotional about it.’ Even in Hollywood, where people are notoriously unfazed by running into TV and movie stars, there is no shortage of overly enthusiastic fans, she explains. ‘And it’s not just a passing kind [of] comment – they wanna get down to it with you! They want to talk about the characters they relate to and what it’s brought up in their own lives,’ she says. ‘I’ll be at the hairdresser’s or the grocery store, and people will say things like, “It’s helped me reconnect with my stepfather”, and then get all vulnerable or quasi-therapeutic when they talk about the show.’