Danica McKellar Explains Why She Gave Up Acting After The Wonder Years for Unexpected Career Outside Hollywood

Danica McKellar was told she was America’s sweetheart thanks to her role as Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years — and then she gave up Hollywood to study math, finding new joy as an accomplished author on the subject.

McKellar, 50, appeared on the Sept. 23 episode of Hey Dude… The 90s Called!, hosted by Christine Taylor and David Lascher, to talk about her journey into, out of and back into Hollywood and how mathematics became her grounding force. McKellar was cast as Winnie on The Wonder Years in 1988, when she was 13 years old. Winnie was the love interest (and eventual girlfriend) of Fred Savage’s Kevin Arnold.

When the series ended in 1993, McKellar was ready to head off to college. “I needed to figure out who else I was besides Winnie Cooper,” she said. The actress said that “every day, all day long,” people would say to her, “Aren’t you that girl, Winnie? Aren’t you that girl from TV?”

Though she said it was a “blessing to be on a show that’s that popular,” it was “very limiting.” She said, “You’re trying to figure out who you are as a teenager, and everyone else is telling you who you are, and it’s like a thing that doesn’t exist anymore.” To the hosts, she said, “You guys are aware there’s all the insecurity that comes from having a lot of success early on, and then you don’t have that thing anymore. And you’re like, ‘Who am I now? Where do I get my validation?’”

McKellar remembered a high school friend who would be complimented on her “gorgeous” long, red hair “all day long.” At 18, she cut it off and dyed it black.

When McKellar got to UCLA, because she’s “always loved a good challenge,” she decided to take a math class. “I thought I failed the first midterm,” she said. “And I got my score back, and it was 22 out of 40.” She soon found out that the test was meant to weed out who in the class had a talent for math. 

The professor mapped the scores for the class. “There was one 22, there were two 15, and the rest was nine and below. I will never forget this,” she said. Her “imposter syndrome” evaporated.

“And the next day, I kid you not, somebody tapped me on the shoulder and says, ‘Excuse me, are you that girl?’” McKellar expected her to ask about Winnie Cooper, but instead she says, “Are you that girl who got the 22?” The actress called it “the greatest feeling” and compared it to her friend who chopped off her hair. 

“It was just me. It had nothing to do with the superficiality of Hollywood or all the great writers and the sound design and all the things they did to make Winnie Cooper [into] Winnie Cooper. This is just me and my brain who did this,” she said. She ended up majoring in math, and during one summer as a researcher, she co-authored a mathematical theorem. 

McKellar told the podcast hosts that when she went to college, she wanted to get away from the “false” feelings Hollywood was projecting. But, she said, while she was making the show, she hadn’t realized just how popular it was. 

“In the last year of The Wonder Years, somebody referred to me on set as America’s sweetheart. I was like, ‘What? What are you talking about?’ ” she said. She didn’t realize that for some viewers, she was a first crush. “It’s still bizarre for me,” she said. 

McKellar decided not to become a professional mathematician because she missed connecting with people. When she tried to explain her work to her mom, there was no “common vocabulary” to express what she was doing. But when she graduated and returned to acting (with voice-over work and roles on shows like Even Stevens and The West Wing), she started a website to give math advice. 

Then she started writing math books, for both children and adults. Her first one was called Math Doesn’t Suck. Her twelfth book, I Love You 100: A Counting Book Full of Love, comes out this November.

“The math books have kept me sane for the last twenty years because it’s something that I can do something about,” she said. “Like, I can actually write a book and then have it published and then help kids with math and then make some money from that. It’s a thing that I can do that’s not like the business.”