Jennette McCurdy, who has opted not to return for
Paramount+'s
iCarly revival, shared memories of working with Miranda Cosgrove and other cast members before walking away from acting.
Jennette McCurdy has decided not to return to iCarly for its upcoming revival, and now she's reminiscing about her working relationships with former cast members.
On a recent installment of her podcast
Empty Inside, the 28-year-old Nickelodeon alum chatted with Karan Brar, known for his role on the Disney Channel's
Jessie. During the discussion, the pair shared stories about their respective experiences as child actors.
McCurdy played the role of Sam Puckett on
iCarly from 2007 to 2012 and brought the character back to life for its spinoff series
Sam & Cat.
At one point, Karan, 22, explained that he appreciated developing connections with co-workers who were his own age. Jennette, who divulged on a previous podcast episode that
she feels "embarrassed" of her acting roles, then recalled interacting with her own colleagues.
She said of working on a show, "It's sort of like a family, and you also have peers that you can connect with at some level. Even though you're all kids trying to be adults, you can still, in that regard, try to connect with one another."
The star of Netflix's Beyond, who is best known for her role as Sam Puckett on Nickelodeon's iCarly opposite Miranda Cosgrove's title character, shared that her career started out with parts on very adult-focused projects.
"The breadth of my resume—before getting a part on
Zoey 101, when then the producer knew me for
iCarly and the shows I did after that—I did mostly heavy dramas," she said. "A child prostitute, I played, or like the rape victim, or all these really intense, heavy roles where I'd have to cry on cue and do all that spiel."
Luckily, things improved when she was able to make connections on the iCarly set, thanks not only to Miranda but also Nathan Kress (Freddie) and Jerry Trainor (Spencer).
"I had great friends in Miranda and Nathan, and even Jerry, who was a bit older than us but was wonderful in trying to cultivate that kind of, to your point, the younger environment," she said on an April 28 episode of Empty Inside. "It was better in that aspect—having some friends my age was helpful and healthy. Yeah, I think that's how I feel."
She further described her time with her Nick peers as family-like and added, “even though you're all kids trying to be adults, you can still, in that regard, try to connect with one another."
Jennette, who is currently focused not only on her podcast but also on writing and directing, has previously made it clear that painful memories surrounding her acting career led her to quit pursuing that path. In a March episode, she said she "really resented my life because I didn't like the projects that I was a part of."
When further discussing her past projects, albeit not by name, Jennette explained why it’s proved “difficult” to tell the truth about her past experiences.
For her part, Miranda has expressed kind words in the past about working with Jennette. "My best friend is Jennette McCurdy, who was on
iCarly with me," she
told the BUILD Series in 2017. "We live really close to each other. We have sleepovers all the time. Like, I literally see her every other day."
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