Chrissy Metz shows off her gorgeous voice and incredible songwriting abilities in her Grammy-eligible children’s album, Prayed For This Day, which is a companion piece to her best-selling children’s book, When I Talk to God, I Talk About You. When she wrote her children’s book, she had no idea that a children’s album would soon follow. HollywoodLife spoke exclusively with the Emmy nominee about bringing her children’s album to life.
“It just all kind of fell out very quickly, and I think because we had so much of the information through the book of lines that we wanted to either use as song titles or just ideas of learning to be brave or making new friends,” Chrissy told HollywoodLife. The children’s album was created over Christmas, and Chrissy teamed up with a small group of musicians and producers to make this happen.
“It felt like this was so much bigger than us, and I think that’s what beautiful art really is,” she continued. “It wasn’t anything we had planned, but we were like, well, we’re on a roll. I remember one day, we wrote four songs in a day, which is typically not normal. And then it took us three days to finish all of the songs. We were very surprised.”
Chrissy, who taught preschool before becoming an actress, has always felt that it’s so “important” for kids to “be heard and feel important and their self-esteem is bolstered.” With her children’s album, she believes that she can “help young people.” In creating the album, Chrissy’s own “inner child” surfaced. “I’m like, hey, this is helping me. This is touching me in ways that maybe I didn’t always hear between adults growing up,” she added.
The singer admitted that there were “challenges” making this album because she’s an independent artist. “It costs a lot of money to make music and to make it right, and to have the players on that you want and to make sure that everything is just right. We had a very short window to make it all happen,” she said.
Chrissy revealed she’s already starting to think about another children’s album. The actress and her now ex-boyfriend Bradley Collins just put the third draft in on their second children’s book. The pair co-wrote the children’s album. As she looks ahead, Chrissy told HollywoodLife that it would be “cool” to write music about how kids talk about their feelings.
This fall, Chrissy will join Jim Brickman on a leg of his A Joyful Christmas tour. Chrissy teased she’s got a bit of a “little Christmas EP” coming out in addition to going on tour. After 6 seasons of playing Kate Pearson on This Is Us, Chrissy has turned her attention primarily to her music career. The 43-year-old has long-term music goals she still wants to achieve.
“I definitely would love to have music on the radio. People still listen to the radio, and I would love that,” she said. “I didn’t really get to have that. Right before the pandemic hit, I had a single go to radio but didn’t stay because they were just playing songs that people knew because they wanted comfort in such a difficult time.”
She added, “I’d love to go on a big tour and just share the music, but I also love really intimate theaters. I love that stuff, the more vulnerable and small and intimate it is it’s really special. I just want to get my music out.”