The Amanda Show, All That, What a Girl Wants
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“Whatever is meant to be will be and you just have to trust that things happen for a reason. It’s made handling disappointments that much easier because I just remember my mom’s words and know that something better is meant to come my way.” One look at Amanda Bynes’ filmography, and it is clear that she has had to face more disappointments than she might have anticipated at the time she spoke those words. Her acting creedits suddenly came to an abrupt halt in 2010 after the film release of Easy A.
Starting her acting career at the age of seven in television advertisements and stage versions of classics like The Music Man, Annie, The Secret Garden, and The Sound of Music, she went on to attend a comedy camp with Arsenio Hall and Richard Pryor that gave her budding young career the extra spark it needed. While at the Los Angeles Laugh Factory, she was spotted by a producer for Nickelodeon who was impressed by her effervescent personality and comedic talent. Television shows like Figure It Out (1997-1999), The Amanda Show (1999-2002), and What I Like About You (2002-06), as well as films like Big Fat Liar (2002) solidified her spot as a promising up-and-comer.
The Native California Girl Takes Her Shot in Hollywood
Born 40 miles northwest of Downtown Los Angeles, California on April 3, 1986, Amanda Laura Bynes spent her early years in the quiet and calm City of Thousand Oaks. She is the youngest of three children, and her parents are Lynn Bynes, an office manager and dental assistant for her husband and Bynes’ father Rick Bynes, a dentist. Both of her parents have now retired from working.
Her father is of Irish, Polish, and Lithuanian descent, and her mother’s family background is Ashkenazi Jewish, with her family coming from Toronto, Canada.
Bynes’ interest in performing started at the tender age of three when she would learn and recite her sister Jillian’s lines from her own plays. Her family then began to take notice of Bynes' earnestness and natural talent, and they knew she would become a star.
The energetic young Bynes auditioned for a small newcomer role on the television series All That, which had started production in 1994. Bynes won her audition and came on board in 1996, and she quickly gained popularity, thanks to her natural comedic timing and talent in her skits. Her most famous and popular role and performance was in the skit called “Ask Ashley” where Bynes portrayed a little girl running an advice column. Each time she would read a letter, she became angry and exaggeratedly exasperated with the question. The skit was lighthearted enough to reveal her natural charm, yet it was also snarky enough that resonated with her peers in the audience and showed slightly edgier comedic potential.
As of 1999, the 13-year-old Bynes was awarded her own television variety show for her breakout success. The Amanda Show (1999), named for the young comedic actress, was made up of several skits. Bynes was featured in every skit except for “Totally Kyle.”
In 2001, Bynes began her film career in Big Fat Liar, which was released in 2002 and also featured Frankie Muniz. The two pair up as friends in the film to prove that Muniz’s character did indeed write the essay entitled “Big Fat Liar” to regain his father’s trust. The film forged a friendship between the two co-stars.
She returned to television to co-star alongside Jennie Garth in the series entitled What I Like About You in 2002, and the program ran through 2006. In this series, Bynes’ 16-year-old character named Holly moved in with her older sister Valerie after their father decided to move to Japan. The sitcom television series gave Bynes an opportunity to refine her comedic acting skills to add to her skit and sketch talent in comedy.
Once again straddling the line between television and film, Bynes starred in the 2003 film called What a Girls Wants where she starred as Daphne, a girl searching for her father who was portrayed by Colin Firth. The role of her mother was played by Kelly Preston. Additional films that featured Bynes throughout the run of What I Like About you include Lovewrecked (2005), Robots as a voice actor (2005), and She’s the Man (2006). After the series ended, she went on to work on films that include Hairspray (2007), Sydney White (2007), and Easy A (2010). She also worked on a few made-for-television movies during that time and from 2003 through 2007, she took on periodic voice work for the animated cartoon series The Rugrats as the character Taffy.
Throughout her formative comedic acting years, Bynes remained a straight-A student and dated fellow comedic actor Taran Killam for a time.
In April 2004, Bynes celebrated her 18th birthday attending the 17th Annual Kids’ Choice Awards. At that event, she won the best actress award for her role in What a Girl Wants.
An Abrupt Choice to Leave Acting, a Detour in the Fashion Industry, and Troubled Times for the Young Actress
After the release of Easy A in 2010, Bynes announced that she was retiring from acting to focus on building a fragrance and fashion line of her own. In 2007, she had already worked with Steve & Barry’s to design her own fashion lined called Dear, which featured accessories and apparel. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008, but the seed was planted for Bynes to focus on fashion. She left Los Angeles to move to New York in 2012 to further her fashion career, enrolling in the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising. She received her Associate's of Art degree in Merchandise Product Development.
During the time after ending her acting career, Bynes’ behavior became increasingly erratic. On two separate occasions, she was arrested for a DUI and a hit-and-run in 2012, before her driver’s license was revoked in California. The charges for the 2012 DUI incident were dropped in 2014, and Bynes received a three-year probation.
Her parents tried to intervene in 2013, seeking court approval to administer their daughter’s finances, claiming that she had gone through $1.2 million of her savings in under a year and that she was homeless and had no consistent source of income. Bynes later accused her father of emotional and sexual abuse, which both of her parents denied. She later retracted the accusation, stating that a microchip in her brain had made her say those things. Her mother was granted conservatorship once Bynes’ hospitalization began. During this stay, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Once she received her diagnosis and placed her trust in her parents, Bynes took some time away from the public spotlight. She made a return to public life in 2018, stating that she had remained sober for four years, thanks to the love and support of her parents. She has gone on to profusely apologize for any harm that she might have caused family and friends.
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