This Is Us is one of the most exciting TV dramas of the past few years, and Mandy Moore is currently pregnant and filming a new season. Years before Mandy Moore starred as Rebecca Pearson, she was in the romantic movie A Walk To Remember with Shane West.
After starring in the successful Nicholas Sparks movie, what has Shane West been up to? People don't hear a lot from him these days, although he has been working fairly regularly since his turn as Landon in that heartwarming film. Let's take a look at where his career went from the 2002 movie.
Making Music
Some fun 2000s movies did poorly financially but A Walk To Remember was a success. After that, West didn't take on a ton of starring roles, but his attention was focused on another creative pursuit.
Shane West was in the band Jonny Was, and it sounds like music was a big part of his life both before, during, and after he shot the movie A Walk To Remember.
In a 2003 interview with Buffalo News, he talked about how he had some indie films that he could be part of but he was excited about his band. He said, "I might do a couple of independents in January. I wanted to take a break and focus on the band. We've got pretty tight songs. I'm serious about it and they're definitely serious about it."
He also talked about the band's former name, Average Joe. West explained, "We used to be called Average Joe. Average Joe was just average, so typical of a title that when we tried to copyright it, we got in trouble because basically there were too many bands, clothing companies and all that" who were also called Average Joe. West penned a tune "about a homeless person" in Baltimore and that became the name of the band.
It sounds like Shane West was happy to take a bit of a time-out from the acting business so he could make music, and fans are glad to know that he was doing what he loved.
A Failed Movie
Of course, no one has successes all the time, and when West turned to producing, things didn't go all that well.
Shane West was an executive producer on a movie that didn't end up doing very well at all.
According to Nicki Swift, the movie What We Do Is Secret tells the story of Germs, a punk band from Los Angeles. It makes sense that West would have gotten involved with the project since he has played in many bands and is definitely into the music world. Unfortunately, it was a failure. Nicki Swift points out that the movie grossed a little more than $58,000 globally. West ended up starring in the movie as Darby Crash.
Other Roles
In 2003, Shane West starred as Tom Sawyer in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
After that movie, he took on a few other movie roles, but nothing is too memorable. West did a little better on TV, taking on the part of Michael on Nikita from 2010 to 2013 and John Alden on Salem from 2014 until 2017.
West told Collider.com that he loved working on Nikita and felt that it was an exciting project to be part of. He said, "I was looking at other TV shows. It was the first pilot season that I was a part of, since I did Once & Again. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted. I just wanted to get in there and see what was going on because so much on television has been kicking butt lately and the film world has been falling apart, in a lot of senses in the world, and trying to recover. That’s why you see so many amazing actors and so many film actors on television now. The writing is better and it’s just working."
Of course, since fans loved watching Moore and West in A Walk To Remember, there's a natural next question: would he have a part on This Is Us? According to a UPI story from 2019, he said it could definitely happen but would have to feel like the "right" thing to do. He said, "I feel like if it was right [I would do it]... it would have to be the right way to do it. I'm 100 percent interested. We've talked about it, actually, but you'd want it to be something special. I wouldn't do it] just to pop in, but [I want] something that goes somewhere."
It's cool to learn more about what Shane West has done since his starring role in A Walk To Remember. While he has seen some success, like his TV roles on Nikita and Salem and his time with his band Jonny Was, he also produced a film that didn't do great at the box office. West's career is a great lesson in how everyone experiences ups and downs and it's okay as long as someone is searching for meaning and happiness in what they do.
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