As former iCarly fans eagerly await the debut of a rebooted series, premiering on Paramount+, there's one actor that likely won't ever reprise her role. Jennette McCurdy, who played Sam Puckett on the Nickelodeon series, revealed that she quit acting.
Speaking on a recent episode of her podcast, Empty Inside, Jennette said that she made the decision to leave entertainment several years ago, E! News points out. “I quit a few years ago because I initially didn't want to do it,” she said on the podcast. “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.”
She confessed that acting was often difficult for her, and she frequently struggled during audition processes. She often felt nervous, and although she was able to overcome that, the passing of her mom later altered her goals. “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 said.
Jennette went on to discuss her feelings of embarrassment regarding much of her Nickelodeon past. She starred on iCarly from 2012 to 2017, and her character also received a spinoff series, Sam & Cat, costarring Ariana Grande. “I'm so ashamed of the parts I've done in the past. I resent my career in a lot of ways," she said. “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.”
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She reflected on the feeling of being recognized for her roles, saying, "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."
Although she didn't completely rule out an eventual return to acting, she did say that it will likely be some time. “I feel like I have a point of view, and I have a vision. We'll see where things are in a few years,” she said.
News of Jennette's decision to take a break from acting comes as iCarly prepares for its return. The series will feature members of the original cast, including Miranda Cosgrove (Carly), Nathan Kress (Freddie), and Jerry Trainor (Spencer). There's no word on a premiere date, but the trio did star in a recent teaser trailer.
In a recent episode of Nathan Kress's podcast, RadioActive Dads, he also addressed Jennette's decision not to take part in the reboot for now. “I think it’s just a personal decision and where she’s at and what she wants to do," he said. “I think her focus has generally been on content creation, doing like her podcast that’s doing really well and writing, directing, producing. It seems like that’s just where her focus is. And I think — this is speculating too — but because she already did a spin-off series doing Sam & Cat, she might also feel like she got 60, 70 more episodes than we did as our characters and maybe she just feels like her character is complete."
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