Mandy Moore Is Working on a New TV Show Based on Her Life
Long before Mandy Moore was yanking at our heartstrings and racking up Emmy nominations as Rebecca Pearson on This Is Us, she was one of the biggest popstars of the early aughts. If her first single “Candy” hasn’t been stuck in your head for the past two decades, there’s a nostalgia-fueled new show coming to reacquaint us with Moore’s early career on the pop charts.
Audiences will get to relive an interpretation of Moore’s meteoric rise to fame with 90’s Popstar, a TV show coming to ABC. Deadline reports that the show, which has a pilot commitment, will follow a plot loosely based on Mandy Moore’s early stardom. In it, a Florida teen becomes a pop singer seemingly overnight—leaving her and her family to navigate a wild new reality.
The show’s teen singer is inspired by Moore, who signed a recording deal with Empire Records in 1999, when she was just 15 years old. You know the rest of Moore’s story: Her first album, So Real, went platinum, and she reached her first Billboard Top 30 Single with 2000’s “I Wanna Be With You.” Despite her connection to the forthcoming show’s source material, Moore reportedly won’t be playing any of the characters on the show. Instead, she’ll be behind the camera as an executive producer.
One look at the names joining Mandy Moore on 90’s Popstar, and you know this show is going to get emotional. The script is being written by Amanda Lasher, who’s hailed over TV successes including The Bold Type, Gossip Girl, and Riverdale. The rest of the behind-the-scenes team for 90’s Popstar includes This Is US showrunners Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, who’ll join Moore as executive producers.
Casting announcements and an expected air date haven’t been shared for the pop stardom vehicle quite yet. But with Moore lending a hand, it’s safe to say her new show is going to be good. Until the new show airs, Moore will be busy with This Is Us. NBC announced in May that it ordered three more seasons of Moore’s popular drama.