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Mandy Moore knows how to travel with her kids. She hands them a tablet for some screen time.
Not that the children have carte blanche on what they could watch.
Instead, Moore uses ABCmouse, a childhood education app that
she says keeps the kiddos occupied while teaching them how to read. It also offers lessons in math, social studies, art, music and more.
“I was just on a trip with my kids where there are really no rules. It’s like you could eat everything you want on the plane and have as much screen time as you want. Let’s just get from point A to point B as easily as possible,” the actress tells me. “I think the entire two-hour flight home, both boys were doing ABCmouse. I feel safe sitting next to them. Like I don’t have to hover. I know they’re not going to go down some rabbit hole. It’s fun to see them look up after each level and be like, ‘I love this. I feel smart. I can do this.’ It’s very sweet.”
Moore and her musician husband Taylor Goldsmith have two sons Gus, 5 and Ozzie, 3 and a daughter, Lou, 2.
“I don’t have any self-control when it comes to like limiting my digital time on my phone , so I I’m a big fan of the Brick,” she says, referring to the popular app-blocking tool. “Other than that, I love the convenience of everything the phone offers us and whatnot. But it also is really easy to get sucked into just life solely existing there. I am happy to try to find that delicate dance and balance.”
She admits to not remembering buying things through Instagram until they’re delivered. “I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, I ordered those weird packing cubes that you can suck all the air out of,’” Moore says, laughing. “I’m like, ‘I don’t really need these, but I guess I’ll use them now.’ I’m definitely one to fall victim to getting targeted on Instagram.”
Meanwhile, Moore is gearing up for the premiere of “The Land,” her new Hulu series that marks a reunion for her and “This Is Us” creator Dan Fogelman.
The show, which also stars Christopher Meloni, William H. Macy, Chloe Bennet and Chase Crawford, follows a family that owns an NFL team. Moore plays a daughter of the team owner (Macy) who will stop at nothing to inherit the top job one day.
“If you love football, if you love family drama, it’s like ‘Friday Night Lights’ and ‘Succession’ all kind of rolled into one,” Moore says.
She wasn’t a big NFL fan before shooting the series. “We definitely all did crash courses,” she says. “I still feel like I have so much to learn. I had some fantastic meetings with some incredible women that are in similar roles at different organizations at the NFL. I’ve been able to pick their brains a little bit. I joked I felt like Taylor Swift, where I was like, ‘Oh, I got to learn all about this.’ I mean, it’s different when your boyfriend-slash-husband is like a player, but I truly knew nothing.”
The show shot in Los Angeles. “Nothing shoots in L.A. so I am so grateful,” Moore says. “And I get to play an absolute bitch … I get to play this badass, a woman in a man’s world who her entire life she’s been gunning for this one job and will do absolutely anything and breathes this air of sort of desperation and entitlement. It’s so fun to play someone like so wholly different from who I am.”
As for her music career, Moore says she’s not looking for a comeback like her bestie Hilary Duff. “I am not the superstar that Hilary is,” Moore says. “I am so proud to watch her absolutely crush it on stage and performing around the country. She is such a role model to so many, myself included. I’m so inspired by what she’s doing because she’s also the best mom in the world and such a good friend. She kind of just does all of it so effortlessly. I don’t have that canon of hits in the same way, and I’ve never had designs on being a pop star.”
Instead, Moore predicts she and Goldsmith will make music and tour together when the kids are older. “My husband’s is an ndie singer songwriter,” she says. “I want to play theaters across the country and have him in my band and write records with him and friends of mine. I will find my way back to music.”
She adds, “I’m not going to have like a confetti cannon. I can’t do that. I can’t pull that off.”
