Jennette McCurdy Reveals She's QUIT Acting & Is 'Ashamed' Of Her Nickelodeon Roles!

Don’t expect Sam to sign on for the upcoming iCarly revival, y’all!

Jennette McCurdy, who played Sam Puckett for six seasons on the Nickelodeon show and its spinoff Sam & Cat, revealed that she’s officially quit acting, and isn’t exactly proud of her body of work.

The revelation was made on a recent episode of the starlet’s Empty Inside podcast, during which the 28-year-old explained to guest Anna Faris that she’s always felt indifferent about the craft of on-screen performing.

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She said with a self-deprecating laugh:

“I quit a few years ago to try my hand and writing and directing—it’s going great… I quit a few years ago because I initially didn’t want to do it. My mom put me in it when I was 6 and by sort of age, I guess, 10 or 11, I was the main financial support for my family. My family didn’t have a lot of money, and this was the way out, which I actually think was helpful in driving me to some degree of success.”

Yeah, we’d imagine it’s hard to enjoy something that feels like a job at such a young age.

The former actress went on to admit that “always, always, always, acting was difficult for me,” noting that she had a tough time dealing with nerves during auditions. She spilled:

“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.”

When asked by Anna if she would ever return to acting, Jennette explained she returned as a stage actress in February 2020 for her one-woman show I’m Glad My Mom Died, which was about her mother’s 2013 death from cancer. However, the California native considered the show a one-off and doesn’t plan on returning to the limelight in that way.

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She explained:

“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, ‘I’m done.’ So I did it just for that show, but I think that one-woman show would be the most of it.”

Although the Zoey 101 alum had early success that thousands of other young actors would kill for, she admitted to being “ashamed” of her roles on Nickelodeon, sharing:

“My experience with acting is, I’m so ashamed of the parts I’ve done in the past. 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. I did the shows that I was on from like 13 to 21, and by 15, I was already embarrassed. 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.”

Wow… we wonder if Miranda Cosgrove feels the same way!?

Later in the interview, Jennette recalled an awful moment from age 10 when her mom was giving the budding star’s agent a tough time after her daughter didn’t book a role in the 2005 film Because of Winn-Dixie that ultimately went to AnnaSophia Robb. She recounted:

“My agent, I literally hear her on speaker phone go, ‘They want an ethereal beauty. Jennette is not an ethereal beauty. She is homely. She reads homely.’ And I was like, OK, guess I read homely.”

Clearly, there are many reasons why the industry left a bad taste in Jennette’s mouth. Yet while she may be stepping away from the screen, that doesn’t necessarily mean McCurdy will never return.

When asked if she’d ever come back to acting, Jennette said it would depend on if she got to work with a director she “really admired.” She mused: