The Wonder Years’ Danica McKellar is celebrating her new path and opening up about her Hollywood experiences. Speaking with Closer Weekly, McKellar shared about how the end of the hit show and her breakout role as Winnie Cooper left her with some big decisions to make. Would she continue her career in acting or would she pursue a college degree? “When I finished The Wonder Years, I went to UCLA to get a degree in mathematics. I stopped acting for four years,” she said. “I just needed to find out who else I was. For me, the way I could find out was just to do something else and really exercise my brain and let go of all the glamour and superficiality of Hollywood. That was really empowering to me.”
The hiatus would also bring a lot of spiritual healing for McKellar, who began attending Al-Anon meetings while she was dating someone in recovery. “That’s when I heard things like ‘Let go and let God’ for the first time. It opened something in me. I started to realize I didn’t have to control everything,” she said. McKellar would continue to pursue and be intrigued by a life of faith, although she wouldn’t fully embrace Christianity for many years. “I’ve been around Christianity my whole life in some way, shape or form, but it never really clicked. And my good friend Candace Cameron Bure, she brought me to church. And all I can say is that something happened,” she told Fox and Friends in an interview about coming to Christ three years ago.
After college, McKellar decided to get back into acting, but she struggled with doubt. “I worried I made a mistake. I felt like I was behind and had to catch up. What if I couldn’t go back?” she admitted to Closer. She began small with roles in indie films, eventually landing a role on The West Wing for a couple of seasons. It was a confirmation to McKellar that she was on the right path. “That show was a turning point,” she said. “It reminded me that I still had something to offer in the industry.”
McKellar hasn’t left behind her love of math either. She is now the author of 12 math books for kids, with her latest book, I Love You 100: A Counting Book Full of Love, now available for preorder. Now 50, McKellar says she knows she made the right choice. “Looking back, I know everything unfolded the way it needed to. I had to step away from Hollywood to come back on my own terms and that made all the difference.” Aside from co-parenting her 14-year-old son with ex-husband Mike Verta and her successful math books, McKellar also continues acting through The Great American Family Channel, where she also acts as a producer. “The way we experience our lives is exactly because of what we choose to focus on,” she said. “We all get dealt a hand. Some parts are good, some are challenging. But the story we tell ourselves about that hand, that’s what defines our life.”