Actress-singer Mandy Moore admits she’s a perfectionist, at least when it comes to her job. That’s not surprising considering that she was just 14 when she negotiated her first record deal.
“I’m my own worst critic, I really am,” she says. “And sometimes I put way too much pressure and stress on myself.
“. . . But I think, for the most part, being a perfectionist has worked out for me”
Dressed in a black-and-white striped, one-shoulder T-shirt and khaki-gold pants Moore seems model-perfect with a long, lean torso. She wears dangling, pagoda-shaped earrings with dark hair fashioned like feathers around her round, pink-cheeked face.
The star of “A Walk to Remember” is back with another coming-of-age drama, “How to Deal.” In this film, she plays a girl with more to contend with than puppy love and fitting in. At 19, Moore admits that she finds herself in foreign waters, just like her character in the movie.
“Growing up is weird,” she says, shaking her head, “growing older and maturing and being aware of things you weren’t aware of — like six months ago — is an odd thing.”
Still, unlike many young women her age, Moore seems to carry a ready supply of self-confidence.
“There’s not a girl in the world who doesn’t have something about themselves that they don’t like,” she says.
“I started in this industry at 14, a tiny little thin beanpole, I was an adolescent and it’s really been the last six to eight months that I’ve become a woman.
She may be grown up in most ways, but Moore still lives with her family. They have homes in Florida where she grew up and in Los Angeles.
Her bedroom is downstairs from the rest of the family, she explains, permitting her a sense of privacy and independence. Yet her parents help her make decisions, which she says owes to a strong relationship.
“They’re outside of the industry, they’re mom and dad, and they don’t have too much knowledge of the business,” Moore says, “but they help me make decisions with everything, and I love that.
“I’m at the point in my life when I should be rebelling against them and not wanting to spend time with them, but I think because I’ve spent the last four years with them when they’ve traveled with me everywhere, it’s quite the opposite in my case.”
Describing herself as happy and in love, Moore is also enjoying a “crazy long-distance romance” with tennis star Andy Roddick.
“I’ve never dated someone who’s such a heartthrob,” Moore says. “It’s really weird to go to matches and be sitting in the stand with his parents, and girls will be flipping out. “He’s just so oblivious to all the attention, which I think, makes him cooler.”
She says she knew nothing about tennis until meeting Roddick, but says she loves the game now. She follows whom Roddick plays, where his opponents are from, when he last played them and who won, “all that crazy stuff.”
“It’s very interesting,” she says. “I’m very loud and boisterous at matches. I like it. I like being loud.”
While Moore fusses over her next movie, “Saved,” and continues orchestrating her next album, “Coverage,” due in September, she confides that all her perfectionism flies out the window when it comes to every day life.
“My room is a mess,” she smiles. “I’m a messy person. But when it comes to work and my work ethic, I’m a perfectionist.
“I’m so particular about what I do with my job that I guess I can afford to be a little more relaxed in my private life.”
- Arab News Features 17 July 2003