Interview: Madison Moellers Talks Shameless & More

You’ve seen her on The Mentalist and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to name a few and now you can see Madison Moellers in a recurring role as Molly on the Showtime hit series, Shameless.

Photo Credit: Chuck Hodes/SHOWTIME

Tell us about your character, Molly who’ll we’ll be seeing a lot this season on Shameless.
Molly is Mandy’s best girlfriend’s half sister. Somehow Molly winds up in the Gallagher house and we find out some pretty big surprises about her.

Who are you working with the most on Shameless and what have you learned from them so far?
Emmy Rossum is amazing. She is such an amazing person and actress. She is so focused. I’ve learned a lot from her. I’ve also had scenes with Justin Chatwin and he is so inspiring. I’ve done a lot of scenes with Jeremy Allen White and Emma Kenney who are both so nice.

Can you tell us about your work on the upcoming ABC series, Mistresses?
I play one of the lead’s boyfriend’s daughter. It’s not a big role but it was really fun to work on.

What was it like doing voice-over work for Monsters University?
When lines got messed up, we would fill in those lines and we would do back up voices. It was awesome. There were five to seven of us who were acting like monsters at the same time. It was really, really fun.

So which do you like more and which do you find to be more challenging, stage work or voice-over work?
Well, that’s a very tough question because stage work is probably harder to get because you have to think about if you look like the mom, if you have red hair, etc… but voice over is a little tougher too because you have to be squeaky high or have any certain kind of voice, so that’s tough.

So when did you know that you wanted to be an actress and what do you love about TV?
My mom is a model agent and she took me to work because I wanted to go with her – I thought it was a really cool industry. My mom had been told by a few agents that I should try to act but we thought not. But one time we were on a trip we thought, “How many times are we going to say no?” so that was that.

As far as what I love about television… the thing that I love most about television is that you get to find different parts of yourself. Everyone has a psychopath killer part of them, everyone has a shy part to them, everybody has a creative part to them, everyone has a secret. So it’s fun getting to find different parts of yourself that you really don’t show that often – and probably sometimes never should but that’s the cool thing about acting.

Photo Credit: Cliff Lipson/SHOWTIME

With the success of your web series, Influential Women of Hollywood, where you interview powerful women in the entertainment industry, have you gained an interest in TV hosting or journalism?
While I’d love my own children’s sitcom, I definitely want an Influential Women of Hollywood talk show. I really want to go further into journalism and the talk show path while still sticking with acting.

Do you plan on interviewing any young women in Hollywood who are influential?
Yeah, I want to inspire young college women to be as influential as the women who have made it but I definitely want to interview some younger women in the future.

Who are your dream interviews for Influential Women of Hollywood?
I definitely want to interview Shonda Rhimes and Kathleen Kennedy!

When you’re not working, what TV shows and movies do you enjoy?
Perks of Being A Wallflower was an amazing film and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was also great. I also really like Glee, The Ellen DeGeneres Show and I watch a lot of Animal Planet!

Madison Moellers’s first appearance on Shameless airs TONIGHT at 9pm on Showtime.