Fans of Nickelodeon’s “iCarly” can count out series co-star Jennette McCurdy, who has all but confirmed that she will not reprise her role as Sam Puckett in the upcoming sequel season.
McCurdy, 28, confessed that she’s “ashamed” of her past acting career, in a recent episode of a podcast she hosts called “Empty Inside.”
“My experience with acting is, I’m so ashamed of the parts I’ve done in the past,” she said. “I resent my career in a lot of ways. I feel so unfulfilled by the roles that I played and felt like it was the most cheesy, embarrassing.”
Alongside McCurdy, “iCarly” also stars Miranda Cosgrove (Carly Shay) and aired on Nickelodeon from 2007 to 2012. Her character was later spun off in the Nick series “Sam & Cat,” which launched the career of pop star Ariana Grande (a k a Cat Valentine).
“I did the shows that I was on from like 13 to 21, and by 15, I was already embarrassed,” McCurdy recalled. “My friends at 15, they’re not like, ‘Oh, cool, you’re on this Nickelodeon show.’ It was embarrassing. And I imagine there’s a very different experience to be had with acting if you’re proud of your roles, and if you feel fulfilled by them.”
Talking to Anna Faris, a guest on “Empty Inside,” McCurdy said she’d ultimately quit acting in favor of taking on more writing and directing work. “It’s going great. “I quit a few years ago because I initially didn’t want to do it,” she admitted.
“My family didn’t have a lot of money,” said McCurdy, whose mother encouraged her to begin acting as young as age 6. “This was the way out, which I actually think was helpful in driving me to some degree of success.”
The kid actor said that “always, always, always, acting was difficult for me,” adding that her nerves often got the best of her.
“Once I started to get the nerves under control was when I started to actually get some traction, but I ultimately quit after my mom passed away because with her death kind of died a lot of her ideas for my life, and that was its own journey, and a difficult one for sure,” she explained.
She also confided one of her most painful memories of acting — when she was passed over for a part in the 2005 film “Because of Winn-Dixie,” around age 13, because casting agents thought she was too “homely” for the role.
When Faris asked if she’d ever act again, McCurdy confirmed that she bowed out of acting following the debut of her highly personal solo live show “I’m Glad My Mom Died” in February 2020.
“I wrote this one-woman show, and I performed that, and I really did not want to because of the nerves. Because of feeling like I don’t want to f- -king act anymore,” she said.
But she wouldn’t say “never,” offering that the right director might be able to coax her back on set.
“I feel like I have a point of view, and I have a vision. We’ll see where things are in a few years,” McCurdy said.