Ex-Disney star Bridgit Mendler says being rejected hundreds of times by Hollywood gives her the same ‘traditional background’ as other space CEOs

To Gen Z, Bridgit Mendler is a Disney Channel star—known from her hit childhood roles on Good Luck Charlie and Lemonade Mouth. But in Silicon Valley, she’s known as the founder and CEO of Northwood, a space startup that recently closed a $100 million Series B funding round. Looking back now, at 33, she says aspiring for TV stardom and start-up success have more in common than meets the eye: namely a willingness to take risks and endure rejection. “I actually think my background is very traditional when it comes to space CEOs because they tend to just have a very high tolerance for risk,” Mendler said at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech Conference this week in Aspen, Colorado. “And that’s been a part of my life story as well.” Growing up, she admitted she always wanted to “be everything”—making her current role as a space CEO feel less surprising than it might seem. And that her tolerance for the job was forged early by starting out as a child actor at age 11. She slowly landed a few voice actor and guest roles, but faced rejection “hundreds of times,” including from Disney. Among the setbacks was reportedly an unsuccessful 2007 audition for the lead role in Disney’s Sonny With a Chance—a part that ultimately went to Demi Lovato. But Mendler said repeatedly hearing “no” prepared her for the long odds that come with entrepreneurship. “I think a lot of space CEOs they’re confronting enormous odds working against them to have success,” she said. “And so I think you just have to have a certain risk tolerance in the face of pretty significant odds.” Despite fame and fortune, Mendler studied law at Harvard and got a master’s at MIT Mendler grew up in the Washington, D.C., area before moving to the West Coast with her family as a child. During her Disney years, she enrolled at the University of Southern California to study anthropology, but while balancing acting and only taking a limited course load, she ultimately left school in 2016. Two years later, she took