It was March 2017 when Netflix released the teen drama For thirteen reasonsproduced by the singer and actress Selena Gomez, and in a short time it became the great hit of the season on the platform. The plot, based on a novel by American writer Jay Asher, dealt with the delicate topic of teenage suicide. Its protagonist, Hannah Baker, played by Katherine Langford, made the fatal decision to end her life at the start of the series, but left 13 cassette tapes recorded to explain her motives. The character played by Dylan Minnette was the romantic interest of the series’ protagonist, and once the mystery of the first season was solved, he continued three more installments. Being the fashionable face led him to appear in the fifth film of the saga screamand also in the series The Dropout, starring Amanda Seyfried and which chronicled the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, the company that promised to revolutionize the future and turned out to be a big scam. After that, Minnette stopped acting.
“I was in For thirteen reasons and it was a complete success. I reached a peak that, until now, I had not reached in the world of acting. But I also began to live it as a job,” the 27-year-old actor has now acknowledged in an interview at the podcast The Zach Songto whom he has attended not as a performer, but as a vocalist with his band Wallows, which is promoting its new album, Model. “I was in a very privileged position, because acting was always something fun for me, and very inspiring, but as soon as I started to feel that it was a job, I thought… ‘well,’” admits Minnette, who before getting the role protagonist of For 13 reasonshad been a sporadic character in television series such as Lost (where he played Jack Shepard’s son) or Prison Break (where he played the young version of the protagonist). So the actor decided to take a break and focused on music, where he does find “passion,” since, as he explains, the enormous attention he received when starring in the much talked about Netflix series began to change his perspective when the pressure for this great success it settled in his head.
As he recognized in a 2022 interview, during this period of enormous teenage success he had some interesting offers. For example, he auditioned to become Peter Parker, which ultimately went to actor Tom Holland: “I went to an audition to be the new Spiderman. But to be honest, it was at a time when I wasn’t really looking forward to it. I feel like I wasn’t at a point in my career, in my life, where I was going to feel ready to commit to something like that. So I don’t think he gave it his all in that audition. I think Tom Holland would always have gotten the role. He was destined for it. I think he is the best Spiderman.”
The actor is aware of his own luck, as he acknowledges in the interview: “I know that I am tremendously privileged and lucky to be in a position where I can say: ‘This is starting to feel like a job.’” But Minnette does not completely close the doors to the audiovisual world either: “I know that I still have something to offer, and that it is probably related to acting. I feel like I’m getting inspired by that again. So at some point, when we’ve fulfilled our duties in the band and are ready to take a break, maybe it’s time to come back.” In fact, Minnette acknowledges that last year he had an offer on the table, but the writers’ and actors’ strike got in the way, and ultimately, the project didn’t come together.
Music is not a new hobby for Minnette because, as she said in an interview in BuzzFeed, has been combining his two passions for years: “I am proud to have remained true to myself throughout my career on both sides. I have played music since I was very young, always with the same people, and I always thought that at some point we could make a name for ourselves and a career,” he acknowledged at the time; “And I remember always thinking, ‘Acting is your priority, and that’s where the money is.’ Now is when I start to feel comfortable on both sides. I think what I’m most proud of is believing in myself, listening to myself, and trusting that I can get where I want, no matter what those around me think.”
His band Wallows started at the same time as the popular series that made him famous, in 2017, when they released their first singletitled Pleaser and that reached number 2 on the list of The 50 most viral from Spotify. In 2018, they signed with Atlantic Records and released their first album, titled Springs. model, which was released on May 24, is their third album that, starting in August, will take them on tour across the US and Europe. The band has 1.6 million followers on Instagramalthough Minnette, alone, has 6.7 million.
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