Just like her character on This Is Us, Chrissy Metz aspired to become a professional singer, and even auditioned for American Idol in 2007. But in a Wednesday, March 28, interview, the 37-year-old implied the producers were more interested in something other than her vocal chops. Metz, a former talent agent, understood, but she didn’t feel like playing the game.
“I get it, they’re trying to make stories and they’re trying to invest the audience into these characters, and I understand the whole scope of everything,” she revealed to Entertainment Tonight on Wednesday, March 28. “I understand what they’re doing. And I was like, ‘Oh, I can sort of see that and I want want to be that girl . . . Like, if you don’t dig it, you don’t like my voice, I’ll just keep it moving.”
Metz, who auditioned with “Heavy Heavy” from Dreamgirls, refused to cave into the backstory pressure. “It was like, ‘Oh, how else can we kind of jab?’ And I was like, ‘Don’t. You’re not ready because I’m gonna jab right back.’ Or, I’m just gonna leave because of course that’s not the purpose of me going. I didn’t want to make ridiculous TV. I wanted to, you know, be a respected as a singer.”
The actress also opened up about her rise to fame in her new memoir, This Is Me: Loving the Person You Are Today. Year after year would go by without me pursuing my acting or singing career in any way,” she wrote, according to USA Today. “Deep down I still wanted to entertain, to relate, to love through art.”
Per the paper, she hoped to break into Hollywood with American Idol. But instead, she went on to make a name for herself on the fourth season of American Horror Story playing Barbara, a.k.a. Ima Wiggles.
