“13 Reasons Why” star Dylan Minnette says his pivot from acting to focus solely on his rock band, Wallows, happened when acting began to feel like “just a job.”
“I was fortunate to find success in it — I was on ’13 Reasons Why’ and it was really popular and definitely reached a peak so far in what I’ve had in acting. But it also started to feel like a bit of a job,” Minnette said in an interview on the Zach Sang Show of his shift to music. “I was in a very fortunate position where it was always fun for me, always really inspiring, but then … it was just starting to feel like just a job.”
Minnette, who leads Wallows alongside band members Braeden Lemasters, and Cole Preston, explained that music and Wallows reflects a “passion that we’ve always had as a group to really take all the way, as far as we can.”
“I feel like I’m in a position now where I can just kind of like do that for a while and … get this the farthest it can be,” Minnette said. “The only way that’s gonna happen is if I put my 100% time and energy into it and take it very seriously and show the world that we all take this very seriously.”
Rather than putting a hard and fast rule on his future endeavors, Minnette said he is following “what feels natural and inspiring at the time” and noted his privilege to pursue his passions as they come to him.
The “Saving Grace” actor, who has been acting since he was 8 years old and recently appeared in “The Dropout” and 2022 sequel movie “Scream,” admitted he thinks about returning to acting “as a concept one day” after seeing Wallows through, and revealed he has told his manager and agents that 2026 might be a good time to return to the screen.
“In my mind I was gonna do something last year,” Minette said, explaining that his available months to act coincided with the SAG-AFTRA strike, which ran from mid-July to early November.
Even though the timing didn’t work out as planned, Minette noted he’s begun to have more inspiration beyond music, noting “I feel like I have something to give, artistically and creatively, in other fields than just music right now … and that’s probably acting.”
“I feel like I’m starting to feel inspiration for that again,” he said. “At some point, when we’ve fulfilled our Wallows duties and … when we’re ready to take a break as a band, or just take a second, that’s when I feel like I’ll have the perfect inspiration to do something.”
