Mandy Moore Breaks Down Her Iconic Looks From Princess Diaries, A Walk to Remember & More

I'm a Florida girl.

So I grew up in the sun.

That is a real tan.

That is not a fake tan.

[upbeat electronic music] Hi, Allure, it's Mandy Moore,

and today, I'm gonna be breaking down some

of my most iconic looks.

Oh, but listen, Jer, my friends and I were wondering,

this sweater you're wearing, was it designed for you

or did the knitting machines just blow up?

Princess Diaries 2001, I mean, I guess I just sort

of leaned on some of the like [sighs] mean girls that I went

to school with that were a little bit of a,

you know, a bully.

I did go to Catholic school for a good half a year.

So I was very used to the uniform,

although we rolled up our skirts quite a bit shorter

than my character does in the film.

I came as a blonde.

I mean, that's sort of like who I was in the music days back

then anyway, but for the character of Lana Thomas,

I was really happy to let the costume designer

and the key hair and makeup department heads like kind

of lead the charge with where they saw the character going.

I'm such a people pleaser anyway,

and I was so happy to have the opportunity there's no way

that I would've barged in on my first film

and been like, excuse me, I have some ideas.

I love, you know, performers like Bette Midler,

who did everything, who did TV and movies and made records

and went on tour and did Broadway, and I kind of like, yeah,

I grew up a musical theater kid, and I was like,

I wanna do everything if someone

would give me the opportunity.

When I got offered this small part on the Princess Diaries,

I was like, wow, this is like summer camp.

Like I get to be around a bunch of kids my age.

Annie and Heather and Robert, like it was so much fun.

It's like the greatest tight-knit group

for the couple months that you're working together

and I just, I was totally addicted.

It was so much new information to take in.

I was like how do I hit a mark and making sure

that I had my lines memorized

and like the stakes felt really high,

but it was also such a super comfortable environment

with Gary Marshall and a bunch of other kids my age.

[Interviewer] So there is talk

of a possible Princess Diaries three.

I have only heard what the internet has heard as well.

I would love if my character just even just like popped in

for a little cameo and was like, hi, I've reformed myself.

I've realized the error of my ways.

I don't know, like maybe Karma hit her out

of high school or something.

[upbeat pop music] ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

Candy, 1999,

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

I'm not sure who did my hair or my makeup,

because I was 15, and it was my very first time like

on a set doing anything remotely professional.

I'm not quite sure whose idea it was to do my hair

and those weird little like space buns

that stuck out like that.

I feel like the whole look of the primary colors,

everything that I'm wearing, my makeup and the hair,

like it was something that somebody just put me in.

I was just excited to be in this position

and to have this opportunity.

I'd never made a music video before.

Like I was beyond excited.

I will say those extensions were not doing me any favors.

They were super blunt.

Somebody sewed them into my hair that day,

but I was just excited.

I was like, wow, I have like instant long hair.

It was so much fun to change multiple times

and have like different wardrobe

and obviously like different hair and makeup

with a little arm band wrapped around my, like all of it.

That is a look that I did replicate myself somehow

when I went on tour with N'sync, like I don't know, a month

after we shot this music video.

I really sort of tried to level it up,

take it up the next notch.

I did a zigzag part and I started putting like gluing

in little crystals.

I think I did do my own makeup like on the road,

but here, I definitely had someone.

It was age appropriate.

I will say when I look back on this time period,

there was never anyone pushing me to do anything

outside of my comfort zone.

Like nobody was telling me I needed to dress a certain way

or like push myself into wearing something or looking a way

that like I didn't feel was comfortable.

So I loved that I was still very much allowed

to be a regular 15-year-old,

and it was like I just got to go and go on a shopping spree

at the mall or something.

It was so much fun.

[calm country music] A Walk To Remember, 2002,

I dyed my hair for A Walk To Remember.

It was a big part of kind of getting into character.

It was how Adam Shankman, our director, saw my character,

Jamie Sullivan.

She was brunette, she had bangs,

and so it was like I was more than happy to go

through any sort of transformation.

I think it did help me, again,

as like a new actor not having a ton

of experience really sink into character

and feel unlike myself.

I loved that Jamie was always comfortable in her skin.

She knew that she was an outlier and an outsider

and for the most part, like she didn't let that bother her.

The scene where I am in the school play

and I sing Only Hope, I think we filmed

that scene right around my birthday.

♪ Find love ♪

I'm sort of dressed in a manner, in a way,

that like is very atypical for my character.

She's pretty plain and like a pretty modest dresser,

and she's in this like beautiful ice blue dress

that has been made for her as a costume for the play,

and my hair's done, and I'm wearing makeup like all of this

for the first time, and I'd like to think that it's not just

how she is presenting herself, but it's also her singing

that kind of like makes Landon, Shane's character,

kind of notice her in a new way and realize like, oh wow,

I think I have feelings for this woman.

I mean, beyond the obvious of like just not having a ton

of experience working with someone like Shane West

who had like done films, and he was on a TV show

at that time, like he really knew how to be an actor,

and all of that was like new territory for me,

but also like being so young and not having the experience

of ever like really being in love before.

Shane made it so easy to fall in love with that character,

and it was the best, the best experience.

[rhythmic pop music] MTV Music Video Awards, 2004.

Oh okay, we're moving and shaking, guys.

I loved having the short hair.

I cut my hair for a movie a couple years before this.

I was really like living for the short hair.

This wasn't like Mia Pharaoh short,

but it was like as short as I kind of went.

I loved how kind of low maintenance it was.

I remember, do you know the tancho stick?

I'm sure it's still around.

It's like a really kind of dry, it smells really good,

like a pomade, and I remember that's what I would use

on my hair, and it was so easy.

Like I could just kind of wake up,

put a little tancho in my hands

and like kind of spike my hair around and go.

It was [grunts] the best.

I feel like I was wearing a Calvin Klein dress,

because I had worn some Calvin Klein like earlier

to like a premiere or something.

When I did have to go to an event or a premiere

or I was getting dressed up for something,

I really, I think I leaned into how tan I was

at this particular moment.

I'm a Florida girl.

So I grew up in the sun.

That is a real tan.

That is not a fake tan, but this does feel very 2004 to me,

like a quintessential Mandy look at the time.

Like it's a cheek.

It's a little bit of a smoky eye.

Like it feels elevated for an award show,

but it still feels very age appropriate and very me.

I grew up on MTV.

I grew up with all of those VJs and Carson

and just all of the crew at MTV at 15-15.

So when I think back to MTV, I think back to quick changes,

quick hair and makeup changes and costume, wardrobe changes,

and as like a young woman, the opportunity to like go

through hair and makeup, like I was never one

that turned down an opportunity to sit and glam.

I loved it.

I'm like, sure, change my nail polish, change my lips,

wash my face and start over.

Like I love, I still love like sitting in the chair

and like the whole experience is so much fun,

but especially as like a young person,

I really leaned into all of that.

[upbeat electronic music]

So this is the Vanity Fair Oscar party in 2001.

Oh my gosh, okay.

I like how clean and simple it was.

I like that you could see my skin.

I don't know who did my hair and makeup for this.

We're talking like 25 years ago,

but I do remember it was like my first foray into sort

of an adult world and going to something

that felt very exclusive, and so this was my idea of like

what a movie star looked like.

I can't say that I subscribe to the hair.

I like where I was going.

Someone put like a little bit of a lash on me

and the winged eyeliner and like sort

of the pink glossy lip feels very age appropriate

but also like very of the moment in 2001

and there was gigantic diamond earrings, good gracious.

Because I wasn't able to go to my own prom

and I didn't have that like typical high school experience,

like I got to treat some of these events,

whether it was the Vanity Fair Oscar Party

or like a premier or something,

I got to treat those events as like what would I like

to look like if I were going to prom with my friends

right now, and I think this is kind of evidence of that.

This Is Us from 2016 to 2022.

I wonder who she was.

I never have.

Rebecca Pearson, yeah, I got to play this woman

from like 16 in one episode,

which they definitely use some lovely computer stuff

to de-age me a little bit, all the way till 80,

in her like mid-eighties and every age in between.

We used prosthetics, we used wigs, more makeup,

less makeup, lashes, no lashes, like just everything

under the sun, and obviously, sprinkling in wardrobe choices

to kind of compliment everything,

but I really feel like this was a show

that was about hair and makeup.

I feel like she had this sort of bohemian spirit

to her always with long necklaces and cardigans

and sort of looser clothing.

Like there was this sort of artistic element to

who she always sort of was.

She does go through some transformations, but it's funny,

'cause I look back at like pictures of my own mom

and grandma and they did as well.

I mean, it was always so fun to go back to the seventies

just 'cause I think if I could pick a time period

to have grown up in,

I definitely would've picked the seventies,

like the late sixties or early seventies.

So like anytime we were able to go there and make her young

and fresh and have like the coolest vintage dresses

and jewelry and yeah, I didn't have to be a tired mom.

That was always really fun.

My life changed so fundamentally during this time.

I started the show as a single woman, I got engaged,

I got married, and I had my first child.

At the very end, I was pregnant with my second kid right

when we were wrapping up.

Like I was given the opportunity to do things

and challenge myself in ways

that no one had ever given me permission to do before.

I'm so grateful to Dan Fogelman for the, yeah, the role

of a lifetime, truly, and I think it will be hard

for anything in my life

to ever top this experience creatively.

The friends I made, the work we all got to do together,

what it meant to other people out there,

what it meant to us, like all of that is just

like such a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

[cheery rock music] Met Gala, 2017,

this was the Met Gala.

I went with Michael Kors and Jen and Ashley,

the Striker sisters, they did my hair and makeup.

I feel like we really leaned into the asymmetrical sleeves

and the one glove and a really big swing with the makeup,

but also it's like, it's the Met.

That's kind of what you want to do.

There's a lot going on with the dress.

It's cashmere, but it has these sort of origami,

like flowers up and down it,

but because it's such a dark color,

it's hard to sort of see the detail.

So I think we were kind of leaning into the makeup

and hair kind of doing a bit more of the heavy lifting.

I had these like, you can't really see,

but Ash put these like weird metal pieces in my hair

that felt very architectural as well.

Gosh, I'm trying to think of how I met them.

I think we were introduced by friends,

and like back in the day,

the three sisters had a salon here in Los Angeles.

One does eyebrows, one does makeup, and one does hair.

So it was like sort of one-stop shopping,

and this is like my team.

These were my ladies, my girls.

I worked with them like multiple times a week.

This was like the heyday of This Is Us,

and there was so much going on.

So I felt so comfortable to experiment with them.

I definitely prefer like a bit more

of a subtler red carpet look.

So this was something I'd never done before,

but again, if like you're not gonna go big at the Met,

then when are you gonna do something like this?

So this was like my first time attending

where it felt like really intimidating and scary.

You can kind of tell by my face.

I'm like what the F am I doing here?

[upbeat electronic music] Emmy Awards, 2019,

aw, Jen and Ash back again for hair and makeup.

Brandon Maxwell made me this outfit, which I love.

I think that's my favorite color combo,

the pink and the red.

I was nominated for best actress in a drama.

It was really fun.

We kind of leaned into like more

of a like a nineties moment here.

Looking back at like our Pinterest board,

it was like a lot of like Cindy Crawford,

like the sort of like really done kind of hair

of the nineties, and I think the makeup, too, is,

I think it's complimentary.

It's a lot, because it's a big red carpet event.

Brandon made this sort of custom look for the awards for me

with the top and the skirt and the cumber bun,

but like there's still a subtlety to it.

I think you can still see my skin and like my brows

and like it feels bold without being like overpowering,

because the dress is like, that's a lot of color,

and it's off the shoulder, and there was a lot going on.

I'd never really done that before, and I was like,

this is my big night.

I wanna like really do it up if we're gonna do it properly.

So I'm glad I had that chance.

[Bright pop music] The Breadwinner, 2026.

Yeah, Alexis and Becks and Lindsay, hair and makeup,

and our costume designer.

Katie Wilcox, my character in the film, is like,

she's a busy mom when this like extraordinary opportunity

sort of lands in their lap, and Katie invents something

that takes her to Shark Tank.

She ends up getting a deal with Lori, one of the sharks,

and her business sort of like takes off,

and she has to kind of follow the chaos,

and she leaves her husband, Nate, home to take care

of their three daughters, and real chaos ensues.

So I didn't wear a ton of makeup,

and my hair was sort of like just my hair.

I kind of just wanna look like myself.

It was done every day and like a little bit of bend added

to it, but I've since had to change my hair for work.

So it looks wildly different,

but that was my hair a year ago.

That's what it looked like.

Nate is so wonderful.

He's such a hustler, too.

Like this was his first film, and we were working every day,

or he was working every day, and then like in between

on the weekends, he was like flying and doing standup.

Like it was truly wild how hard he works.

I feel like this film really hearkens back to like a lot

of the family films I grew up loving.

So I'm super grateful to be a part of it

and grateful that like I get to show it to my kids one day

and say like, remember that summer that like I was popping

around and in and outta town,

and like this is what I was doing.

[upbeat electronic music] Thank you so much for going

down memory lane with me.

It really means a lot to be able to share some

of those memories with you guys.

Bye, Allure.