Hallmark Alum Reflects on 4-Year Acting Break, Letting Go of Hollywood ‘Superficiality’

A former Hallmark star is opening up about her decision to step away from acting after her time on a hit show. Danica McKellar, the star of Hallmark’s “MatchMaker Mysteries: The Art of the Kill,” felt that after doing “The Wonder Years,” she needed time to figure out who she really was.

Danica McKellar Wanted to ‘Exercise My Brain’

“I stopped acting for four years. I just needed to find out who else I was,” McKellar told Closer Weekly (via People). After doing “The Wonder Years” for six seasons, McKellar chose to attend UCLA rather than continue acting right away.

McKellar shared, “For me, the way I could find out [who else I was] was just to do something else and really exercise my brain.”

She pursued a degree in mathematics and has since written several books on the topic. In February, McKellar announced that a new children’s book tied to math was on the way. She noted that her own experiences with her young son inspired it.

Ultimately, pursuing her mathematics degree at UCLA was “really empowering” to McKellar. She realized that after spending her teen years on a television show, she wanted to “let go of all the glamour and superficiality of Hollywood.”

The Hallmark Alum Worried It’d Be Tough to Get Back Into Acting

McKellar noted that she was concerned about trying to start acting again after finishing college. “When I was done with my degree and I decided to go back into acting, I felt like I was trying to catch up,” she recalled.

As she worked to rebuild her acting career, McKellar “was doing all these independent films that weren’t very good.”

She landed a role in “The West Wing,” and acting gigs steadily came from there. As McKellar’s IMDb page notes, she has had roles in over 100 projects. In addition, she has accumulated producer and writer credits with recent projects as well.

McKellar had roles on “NCIS, “NYPD Blue,” “The Big Bang Theory,” and many other shows before joining the Hallmark network. In recent years, she has worked with Great American Family to further develop and star in movies.

She previously told Fox News Digital it was “really gratifying” to work on co-writing a script for the network. It lead to McKellar receiving her first script writing credit. Her most recent Christmas movie for Great American Family was “A Cinderella Christmas Ball.”