‘Victorious’ Star Daniella Monet Almost Had a Third Baby Instead of Restarting Her Career
Jane LaCroix
Stepping back into a role that helped define a generation of Nickelodeon fans could easily feel “victorious,” if you will. For Victorious star Daniella Monet, it feels more like coming home. After spending five years away from acting to raise her children, she’s returning to Hollywood Arts with a new appreciation.
On Good Guys, Monet opens up about the surprising road back to acting, the audition that nearly made her Hannah Montana instead of Miley Cyrus, and the Ariana Grande voice note that convinced her to say yes to the Victorious spinoff.
Here are some of the highlights from the conversation, adapted from the episode.
You took some years away from acting after becoming a mom. Did you always plan to stay away that long?
“I took five years off of work because I told my manager, ‘I’m gonna go back, give me like three weeks postpartum with my son,’ that turned into three years, turned into four years, turned into five. I was like, ‘Take me off the market. I’m starting fresh. I’m never going back to this business.’ And then eventually I got the itch about two years ago, and now I’m like, what do we do? Like, once you start working again as a girl to take yourself back out of it, it’s a full reset.”
Why did you decide to step away from Hollywood in the first place?
“It was a weird time in the world. Like, I had gotten pregnant, and then I realized very quickly you don’t work when you’re pregnant. Then I lost my insurance…But basically my son came in more of an emergency C-section fashion. I wanted to have a home birth or at a birthing center. I was on this whole natural path, and long story short, he shook us. Like he came into the world, and I quickly realized, like, I don’t know if I’m mentally sound to leave this child, quite literally ever. And my husband felt the same way. And so he decided to take time off of work. At the same time, my business came to a complete halt because I’m now postpartum. I kind of lost my rhythm with acting and just wasn’t feeling as passionate about it. I couldn’t even imagine leaving him to work if I had the opportunity to.”
What finally convinced you to start acting again?
“I was at this point where I said, OK, I’m either going to go chat with some managers, and if that goes well, we go that route. If not, we have a third baby. And that was where we were at. And you guys, the most TMI, I’ve never even shared this, most TMI situation ever because you’re dads, I’m telling you…It was, I think, August 16th, and my app told me I was ovulating that day, and that was the day I met my manager on Zoom, and I was like, ‘Shoot, I like you, I like this guy,’ …I’ll give it a shot. And lucky enough, I got a job, and I’m like, back in it. I’m back in the saddle.”
Is it true you almost played Hannah Montana?
“I just did Miley [Cyrus’s] mom’s podcast…Tish [Cyrus] and I just dished on all the things, but she remembered me, and I didn’t realize it, but Miley at the time was almost 12 years old, and I was 16, so she goes, ‘I very much remember the older girl sitting in the room,’ because when you’re in these audition rooms, you’re like, well, if they want older, there’s only one of them, you know. I mean, it made perfect sense for Miley to do it.”
What do you remember most about that Hannah Montana audition?
“I don’t even know how many times we all kind of just kept rotating, the three of us, and you can kind of hear, right? So it’s annoying that you could hear the laughs and the things. Like you couldn’t make out every word, but it was enough that you understood what the vibe was and when someone was really hitting. I just remember it taking a long time, and I turned to Miley at one point, and I said, ‘Hey, do you want french fries? There’s french fries downstairs,’ and Taylor was sitting in this like elevator area kind of off to her side and so I just, I don’t know, it was a rush and it wasn’t those kind, it wasn’t the type of audition where you leave and you’re like, I know exactly what direction this is going, you know, like it was kind of just like we all felt good about it or at least I felt good about it, but I wasn’t sure, but you never know.”
Did you know the ‘Victorious’ cast was something special while you were making the show?
“I feel like a mother who just watched her kids, each one of them more talented than the next, just explode. Just so impressed.”
What was it like watching Ariana Grande become a superstar?
“I think she’s a genius. I think that her comedic timing and her comedy in general, the willingness that she has to just go for it is so impressive to me. I mean, I remember she was obsessed with Jim Carrey, and like she would be obsessed with character. And voices and doing all this stuff. So when she came back, and she kind of had her own bit now, like, and had a whole new thing for Cat, it took—it made so much sense, and I think it just paved the way for that character to become what it was and so beloved. That was all her.”
What made you say yes to the Hollywood Arts spinoff?
“I just got in with Hallmark, which is kind of like a dream of mine. I never really wanted to be famous. I just wanted to make fun stuff, like cute, fun, silly goose, family-friendly stuff. So for me, Hallmark was the older Nickelodeon. Like, that’s what made sense for me. I’m like, I could have my family if I do a few a year, if I’m lucky to have an opportunity to do, if I become like, what, like to do 10 percent of what Lacey Chabert’s doing right now, like I’d be the luckiest.”
What did Ariana Grande tell you that changed your mind?
“Ariana was the one to say it on a voice note to me when I had told her about Hollywood Arts, it’s like, be a part of like what Nickelodeon was for us for the next generation, like regardless of anything that’s ever happened or, you know, like, how do we make Nickelodeon like special and that’s what stuck with me and I’m like, you know what, if there’s any chance that like I could be a part of something like that, I, yeah, I’d be dumb not to. I have kids, you know, like my kids would watch this. And if I could have a tiny say and make this silly and fun and wholesome and hysterical, like that’s what I want to do. And so, yeah, here we are.”
How did you tell your former castmates about the spinoff?
“I had like 48 hours to tell the cast that they were going to drop that news that it’s in development. And that was when I was like, well, I have to call them now. Like, they were going to drop it within 24 hours, and I said I need time to talk to everyone because I didn’t think this was going to happen. Like y’all have been chatting about this for a while, and I thought it was a figment of our imagination, and now this is a real thing. You’re going to put it on the internet. I said I need to talk to my cast. Like that’s what matters most to me is like making sure I have their blessing and their support and that like they understand that, you know, I want to do this, but I want them to, to want me to do this too.”
To hear the full conversation, listen to Good Guys wherever you get your podcasts.
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