’13 Reasons Why’ Dylan Minnette on Stepping Away From Acting

Don’t expect to see Dylan Minnette on your television screens any time soon. The 13 Reasons Why star opened up about his decision to step away from his acting career in order to redirect his passion toward music in a recent interview on the Zach Sang Show.

“I was very fortunate to find success in it,” Minnette said of acting. “We’ve always worked a ton, and then I was on 13 Reasons Why, and it was really popular and definitely reached a peak in what I’ve had in acting.”

Minnette said the fever-pitch attention that he received from starring in the acclaimed Netflix series began to shift his perspective once the pressure of success settled in. “But it also started to feel like a bit of a job. I was in a very fortunate position, it was always fun for me, always really inspiring, but then it was just starting to feel like just a job.”

But Minnette doesn’t necessarily plan to walk away from acting forever. He said he still feels like he has something to give artistically and creatively in fields outside of music — when the timing is right. He planned to act last year, he said, “but that timeframe was the actor’s strike.”

In the meantime, Minnette said he’s “incredibly privileged” to switch career paths and is focused on fulfilling his “Wallows duties” as the band’s lead singer.

“Wallows and music is this passion that we’ve always had as a group to really take all the way up as far as we can,” Minnette said. “I’m in a position now where I can just do that for a while, and I feel like [to] get this the farthest it can go, the only way that’s gonna happen is if I put my 100% [of my] time and energy into it and take it very seriously.”

Wallows released their third studio album, Model, on May 24. The alt-rock band, made up of Minnette, Braeden Lemasters, and Cole Preston, begin their U.S. album tour in August with stops in New York, L.A., Las Vegas, Boston, and San Diego, followed by a European tour with stops in Paris, Berlin, and London.

In a recent Rolling Stone interview following the album announcement, Minnette said they hope it’s the “most approachable album” they’ve created.

“I want people to put this on if they’re not really a fan of us, and be gripped immediately,” he said. “We don’t want to take too much of their attention, but we want to keep it. We keep them the whole time and make them want to come back.”