iCarly's Jennette McCurdy Confirms She's Done With Acting, Won't Return for Revival: 'I'm So Ashamed of the Parts I've Done in the Past'

The upcoming iCarly revival will be missing one key cast member: Jennette McCurdy, who played Sam on the original Nickelodeon run, says she’s done with acting entirely, indicating she won’t return to reprise her role.

McCurdy told guest Anna Faris in a recent episode of her podcast Empty Inside that she quit acting “a few years ago to try my hand at writing and directing,” adding that she never wanted to act in the first place, but her mother got her into showbiz as a kid. “I was the main financial support for my family. My family didn’t have a lot of money, and this was the way out… always, always, always, acting was difficult for me.” (E! Online first reported the news.)

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McCurdy says she ultimately quit acting after her mother passed away in 2013, “because with her death kind of died a lot of her ideas for my life, and that was its own journey, and a difficult one for sure.” Looking back on her acting career, McCurdy admits: “I’m so ashamed of the parts I’ve done in the past. I resent my career in a lot of ways. I feel so unfulfilled by the roles that I played and felt like it was the most cheesy, embarrassing… My friends at 15, they’re not like, ‘Oh, cool, you’re on this Nickelodeon show.’ It was embarrassing.”

The original iCarly, which aired on Nickelodeon from 2007 to 2012, followed a group of friends creating a webcast while grappling with everyday problems and adventures. Miranda Cosgrove starred as Carly, with McCurdy playing Carly’s best friend Sam. (McCurdy later starred alongside Ariana Grande in the spinoff Sam & Cat.) An iCarly revival was ordered at Paramount+ in December, with Cosgrove returning along with original co-stars Jerry Trainor (Spencer) and Nathan Kress (Freddie) — but not with McCurdy.

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