iCarly Star Jennette McCurdy Confirms She’s Quit Acting

Fans are excited that Nickelodeon is reviving one of their most beloved series iCarly on Paramount+ later this year, though there will be one key member of the cast missing. That will be Jennette McCurdy, who played the role of Sam Puckett in the series, best friend to Carly and lover of ham, quesadillas, and fat cakes. Since iCarly ended McCurdy has stepped away from acting for the most part, and that isn’t changing anytime soon, including the iCarly revival. McCurdy spoke about why during the most recent episode of her Empty Inside podcast, where she confirmed she’s pretty much done with acting and that she resents her career in some ways (via E News).

“I quit a few years ago to try my hand and writing and directing—it’s going great,” McCurdy joked. “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.”

McCurdy said that “always, always, always, acting was difficult for me,” and that “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.”

The last time she got on a stage was for her one-woman show I’m Glad My Mom Died, which explored and discussed her mother’s death in 2013, but that was a one and done type of thing.

“I wrote this one-woman show, and I performed that, and I really did not want to because of the nerves,’” McCurdy said. “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.”

She continued to talk about her past acting jobs, which included iCarly, Sam & Cat, and more. “My experience with acting is, I’m so ashamed of the parts I’ve done in the past,” McCurdy 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. 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.”

She brought up one past experience with acting during the episode, which involved her agent, who was trying to get her the role in Because of Winn-Dixie. “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,’” McCurdy said. “And I was like, OK, guess I read homely.”

When asked if she would ever return to acting, McCurdy said it would depend on if she had the chance to collaborate with a director she “really admired. “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.

As for the iCarly revival, it hits Paramount+ later this year.