My Nickelodeon show 'Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide' was the high-point of my career at only 15. I'm 31 now and still trying to figure out Hollywood and adulting.

• Devon Werkheiser was the star of Nickelodeon's "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide" in 2004.
• Now 31, Werkheiser says he ran out of money and had to reevaluate what adulthood meant to him.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Devon Werkheiser, star of "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide." It has been edited for length and clarity.

I started acting in Georgia, where I'm from. My parents put me in community theater because I was a silly kid who loved attention and movies. Someone there connected us to an agent in Atlanta, who eventually said we should go to LA for some auditions. I was 11 the first time I went to LA.

Back then, there was a thing called "pilot season" — the four months out of the year when most of the auditions were happening. My mom and I would leave my dad and my sister in Georgia and go to LA for that, and the second time we did that, I booked the title character in the Nickelodeon show "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide."

We filmed the show for three years — that was ages 12 to 15 for me. I'd do six months living this child-actor life in LA, and then six months back in Georgia in public middle school. I went to school with kids I'd grown up with my entire life, so my stardom wore off with my schoolmates pretty quickly, but the show was popular on Nickelodeon and globally. I was having the time of my life, and at the time it seemed like it would last forever.

Adulthood comes at you fast.

An easy road to stardom was not what happened when 'Ned's' ended

Before "Ned's," I had my first major role in Georgia opposite Mel Gibson — and even though it was a small part, it was still a big movie. So that, on top of booking the lead on a TV show, made me feel like my road to the Oscars was paved. I thought there's nowhere I could go but up. I knew the show would end eventually and I was fine with that, because I figured continuing on that path would be easy-peasy.

A version of "Ned's" in high school was pitched (our show was specifically about middle school) to Nickelodeon, but they passed on it. I wasn't upset about it at all at the time — I felt good about the three years we did and was excited to move on to other projects, thinking I should be in high demand. But Nickelodeon jobs require a really particular kind of acting.

Pretty quickly after the show ended, I realized I was going to have to get a lot better at acting if I was going to get cast in something major. When I started going in for more dramatic roles on bigger movies and shows, I'd never be right for the part. I'd been doing "Ned's" for three years and not going to any acting classes — so I found some classes and an acting coach, and really focused.

I got my footing and started to get a lot more callbacks. I wanted to find that next big thing after "Ned's" that would take me to the next level. I pushed and pushed at it — I'd say from ages 16 to around 24 — But to be honest, I don't know that I ever got there.

Around age 25, my career still wasn't taking off — and I'd run out of money

My savings, which I'd been living pretty modestly on, inevitably ran out when I was around 25. I just wasn't paying attention and suddenly it was like "Oh shit, I need to start making a living."

I was never ridiculous with my money, but I would eat out or go on trips when I wanted to. I'd always be living on my savings until the next job came and refilled it, then I'd live on my savings some more. Over the years, supporting-role jobs started paying less in the industry, and at the same time I was booking less and less. The only thing I knew to do was to go get some hourly job and start working my way out of my situation. I got a 9-to-5 for the first time in my life.

It was a real wake-up call for me. My parents also got divorced around this time, so life really just smacked me around for a while. The next level I'd been trying to get to career-wise wasn't happening, and then my personal life wasn't a walk in the park either.

I realized I still had a lot to learn about adult-life. And I know there's people out there who can relate — "Ned's" helped people my age with tips on middle school, but over a decade later, that audience that grew up with me has been in my DMs like, "Where's 'Ned's' guide to college?" or "Where's 'Ned's' guide to adulting?"

I want to talk to other people my age about navigating adulthood — and stoke some "Ned's" nostalgia

I started thinking about ways I could be creative on a regular basis and connect with people about that new-adulthood struggle. It turns out that the "Ned" character I'd been trying to get away from all this time might actually be my opportunity to do that. I partnered up with some great producers for a podcast — "Growing Up with Devon" to talk to some cool guests and experts about what it's like and how to handle it.

Even though I thought I needed to get away from "Ned's" to level-up in my career, it occurred to me that there may still be some good I could do there.