aking the transition from singer to actress is not always easy, but Mandy Moore seems to be doing it better than most.

  The 19-year-old singer/MTV hostess, whose past screen credits include The Princess Diaries and the tearjerker A Walk to Remember, is now trying her hand at romantic comedy in How to Deal.

  Moore plays Halley Martin, a teen that expected her senior year in high school to be perfect. With her father's remarriage, her sister engaged to the wrong guy, her best friend in crisis and a bad boy (Trent Ford) determined to get a date with her, Halley decides she's had enough and swears off complicated relationships, especially love.

  "There are all these examples of love kind of gone wrong around her," Moore told etonline.com. "That's kind of made her a bit tough, angry at times, and judgmental. It's quite fun to play a character like this, because I guess I get to get out a lot of my stress and anger."

  Relative newcomer Trent Ford (Slap Her... She's French) is Macon Forrester, the boy who restores Moore's character's 
actors
Mandy Moore
Allison Janney
Peter Gallagher
Trent Ford
Alexandra Holden

director
Clare Kilner

 locations
 Toronto
Hamilton, Ontario
Oakville, Ontario
outtake
Mandy Moore won the Breakthrough Female Performance award at last year's MTV Movie Awards for A Walk to Remember, another young-adult novel adaptation.

faith in love while Allison Janney (TV's The West Wing) and Peter Gallagher (American Beauty) play Moore's parents.

  Janney, who has appeared in films as diverse as 10 Things I Hate About You to The Hours, told Entertainment Weekly she enjoyed her latest turn. "Comedy is so much easier on my soul."

  British director Clare Kilner, whose only other credit is the 2002 indie Janice Beard, also managed to keep things light on set said Moore, who admitted it was nice to have a female director. "All of us had such a good time on set. It's awkward to try and meet someone for the first time and try to have this chemistry, on-screen, on camera. The vibe here is wonderful."

  The film is based on a pair of young-adult novels, Someone Like You and That Summer by author Sarah Dessen. For her part, Dessen compared the experience of getting her books adapted to film to an out of body experience. "While I am here in North Carolina trying to write and cleaning out my refrigerator, there is a huge group of people up in Canada hard at work bringing characters I created to the screen. I mean, that's just insane."

  As for Moore, she said she has no problem figuring out how to deal with both her music and film careers. "It's all good. There's definitely enough time in the day to get it all accomplished."

- Robin Stevenson