Mandy Moore 2.0

WHEN Mandy Moore steps out of her black Prius and bounds into a tiny speck of a restaurant in Los Feliz, not a hipster on the block flinches. Sure, her toffee bangs are partially covering her eyes -- but you'd expect someone might make a correlation between the girl on the street and the enormous photo of her plastered on a giant billboard just a few yards away, towering over Vermont Avenue.

But clad in her flowy indigo Mayle dress and little yellow sweater, the truth is that Moore, now 23, scarcely resembles her former self. In 1999, she was a shell of a 15-year-old with wisps of honeycomb hair strategically placed over her face, timidly staring out from the cover of her first album, "So Real."

That was the Mandy Moore who hit the pop charts with "Candy," the catchy but empty single that branded her as just another sugary tween act. The same Moore who, in her other career as an actress, has appeared in a string of clean, "aw, shucks!" movie roles.

"I find it funny that people are like, 'Wow, this is such a departure for you,' " she says, curling into a red banquette at her dinner selection, Cafe Figaro, and discussing her fifth album, "Wild Hope," the first for which she's written the songs herself. "For someone to question the authenticity of where this record comes from is kind of mind-boggling to me. I am 23 years old. I think it should be acceptable that nine years after my first record I'm doing something else musically."

The album isn't as squeaky clean as her youthful following might expect: "I'm the one who likes to make love on the floor," she sings in "Gardenia," raising the question: Will audiences accept a grown-up Mandy Moore?

"She's certainly weathered all sorts of idiotic criticism about being too wholesome or bubble-gum," says Ken Kwapis, director of "License to Wed," which also casts Moore in a more mature light. The romantic comedy, due July 3, costars Robin Williams and "The Office's" John Krasinski. In "Dedication," hailed at Sundance and arriving in theaters later this summer, Moore plays opposite Billy Crudup.

"She's finding herself in public in a graceful way," Kwapis adds.

When she lets you in, Moore reminds you of your best friend's cool older sister. The one you're actually hoping to hang out with; the one who sneaks in during your sleepovers to explain the intricacies of French kissing. She's consistently reassuring and scarily kind, to the point where you question why exactly she's being so nice to her younger sister's dorky best friend.