Top 5 Mandy Moore Performances

By 2004, Mandy Moore had already stolen the hearts of cinemagoers. Then, with “Chasing Liberty”, she proved that she was more than a one hit wonder on the big screen, and that her girl-next-door charm could find a home in a wide variety of roles, including that of Anna Foster, the, uh, girl next door who just so happens to live in . . . The White House. As the 18-year-old first daughter, codenamed “Liberty” and constantly shadowed by Secret Service agents, it’s near-impossible for her to lead a normal life, until a trip to Europe gives her a shot at independence . . . and, of course, romance.

Excellent though she is at playing that girl next door, just months after the release of “Chasing Liberty,” Moore took on a very different kind of starring role, proving to audiences that she had the acting chops to drastically shift her onscreen personality. In “Saved!,” she plays a holier-than-thou religious high school student, who, despite her professed faith, is nonetheless the quintessential mean girl. It was a really dramatic about-face for Moore, and many were quick to praise her performance as the manipulative and catty Hilary Faye Stockard, as well as the sweetly subversive nature of the film.

People dismiss the difficulty level of voice acting, but when you consider some of the iconic performances from the history of animated film, you realize that voice actors can absolutely make or break a movie. It takes serious skill to infuse a character with personality using nothing but dialogue, and in “Tangled,” Disney’s update on the classic tale of Rapunzel, Mandy Moore took the fairy tale character to new heights. Moore described the role as a dream come true, and was happy to return and lend her voice to a “Tangled” short film and animated series.

As we were saying, by 2004 Mandy Moore was a bona fide star . . . and this movie is pretty much the reason why. Yes, Moore already had a successful music career going for her, but this tearkerjerking Nicholas Sparks adaptation launched her up into a whole new strata of popularity. She plays Jamie, a studious minister’s daughter, secretly living with leukemia.Though the film received generally negative reviews from critics when it was released, cinemagoers clearly wholeheartedly disagreed, earning the movie a number of Teen Choice Awards, and Best Breakthrough Female Performance for Moore at the 2002 MTV Movie Awards.

Because she’s primarily worked in the genres of romantic comedy and romantic drama, Mandy Moore has sometimes been dismissed as a good “fluffy” actress. With her role as mother-of-triplets Rebecca Pearson in Dan Fogelman’s hit NBC drama “This Is Us” however, critics have finally been forced to recognize her talents; and this time, without qualifiers. Her genuine, relatable and emotionally powerful performance as Pearson, whom she portrays in various timelines in the ‘80s, ‘90s and the present day, has earned her multiple nominations, including for People’s Choice Awards and, most notably, the Golden Globes. And perhaps her best is still yet to come.