Her career is off the mall
Acting keeps Andrea Lewis from her other passion - shopping
by Rita Zekas
SHOPPING IS good. That's what The Bay tells us. But The Bay doesn't have to convince 16-year-old actor Andrea Lewis. Teenaged girls hang out at the malls, picking up trends, shoes, jeans, boys. "I got a pair of pink sandals that are so cute when I was in L.A. (for the premiere of the Disney TV-movie Cadet Kelly)," enthuses Lewis. "They are platforms with a bright pink strap.
My friends bought me a pink purse on my birthday (Aug. 15)." Lewis knows from malls. In fact, after the interview in the less than auspicious Toronto Star cafeteria, Lewis intends to prowl the Eaton Centre before heading home to Pickering. She was actually discovered in Yorkdale Mall in her stroller when she was 6 months old. A casting person from New Faces was mesmerized by her eyes. Lewis' mom, Carol Ann, was flattered, but mentally filed it away until two years later, when she was on maternity leave, having given birth to Andrea's brother, Anthony. And since she would be at home with the new baby, she'd be able to take her first-born around on auditions.
Lewis has been acting since she was 2, after bagging her first commercial for Christie's chocolate chip cookies. Her brother is now 14 and wants to be an actor but half-heartedly. "He's not as into it as I am," Lewis surmises. "He doesn't want to work for a role. He wants to be like Denzel (Washington and not have to audition), just book him. He's more into sports and art."
The Star photographer keeps encouraging Lewis to smile, to show off those pearly whites. Didn't her mother pay pots of money for those teeth? Actually, mom didn't. They are the family teeth, unbleached and unmarred by alcohol or tobacco. "They're too big," Lewis demurs. "When I smile, I'll put my hand over my mouth."
Lewis' mom is Jamaican and her dad is from St. Vincent. Her maternal grandmother is half-Indian and half-black and her maternal grandfather is Portuguese. "People think we're Spanish or Dominican," Lewis says, which allows her to play diverse ethnicities. Her first major role was playing Loretta Devine's daughter in the TV-movie Down In The Delta. "It is set in Mississippi and I'm a good daughter." "She's like that," agrees mom Carol Ann. "I have no complaints yet.
She doesn't have a rebellious bone in her body. She gets off the phone in 10 minutes." Lewis played Diahann Carroll's daughter in the TV-bio The Natalie Cole Story, and portrayed a student of teacher Naomi Judd in the TV Christmas special A Holiday Romance. In Cadet Kelly, which debuted in the U.S. in March and will be shown here this spring on The Family Channel, she plays Carla Hall, a friend of the lead character, Kelly, whose mother remarries a military man and relocates to an army base. Carla tries to help her friend with protocol: The army brat teaching the mall rat. "I'm the wise girl, the smart one," Lewis explains. "I show her the ropes. She'll be dressing up her uniform with extra earrings, jewellery, and in military school, it's all about the uniform. Carla says, `This is a military school, not the mall.'" And Lewis knows as much about uniforms as she does about malls.
She's in Grade 11 at a private "uniform school" where the girls routinely embellish their clothes. "We shorten the kilts," she admits. "We roll up the sleeves of the shirts." But the worst is the shoes. They are so not cool. They are certainly not pink platforms. "We have to wear black shoes," she sighs. "They have to be closed-up, dress shoes. But I don't really mind it cuts down (clothing choices) in the morning."
Lewis plays Hazel on DeGrassi: The Next Generation, in repeats Fridays at 8:30 p.m. on CTV, sidekick to Paige (Lauren Collins). They're a pair of hoity-toity snobbish girls who everyone despises but who everyone wants to hang with. "We are two popular girls and wear sexy outfits," Lewis says. "Paige is bad; Hazel is cool, but she's a mean gossiper. Friends say, `Andrea, you were so mean. It's not you.'" Of course, she'd like to play a bad girl. "I'd like to play the whole other end of the spectrum," she admits, "but people tell me that I'm too cute and little. They don't believe I could be bad. I'd like to be tough, I don't want to play Sandy in Grease! I'd like to play Rizzo, one of the Pink Ladies."
Lewis recently guested on the series Soul Food as sassy Bridgette, constantly dishing out advice about "bad" boys. "I'm like that in real life," she allows. "Like, if you take him back and he's messed with you, you'll get messed over again." She hasn't been burned herself yet: "I'm sceptical. I watch and listen. I'm wary." And she not only has the teeth, she has the pipes a voice that has been compared to Whitney Houston's. She would love to do both, combine a music/acting career like J. Lo, or whatever she is calling herself these days. Lewis shopped her demo in L.A. when she was there for Cadet Kelly. She wrote the songs herself, leaning toward r 'n' b, with a dash of Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Otis Redding, Curtis Mayfield, Al Green. She's even been known to download "To Sir With Love," a Lulu hit. "I've been writing songs since I was 12 or 13. I like to write songs about love and teen problems like teen pregnancies and drugs."
All of the above are not problematic in her crowd in Pickering. They date in packs. "Me and my friends are all single," Lewis attests. "We're looking and we're not looking. We admire the boys at the mall and at parties." Which is totally unlike Lewis' mom Carol Ann, raised by a single mom who had her when she was 15. "I met my husband (a computer analyst for IBM) when I was 16," Carol Ann reveals. "I had Andrea when I was 23 and we've been together 25 years. He was my first boyfriend." "Mom's preaching me," Lewis laughs. "I won't do like Mom did, find one guy and marry him." If her mom met her dad at 16, that means Lewis has three months to meet the deadline; she turns 17 in August. But when she's blowing out the candles, don't count on her wishing for a beau. She's probably wishing for another pair of platforms.
Note : Andrea is the daughter of Carol Ann and Andre Lewis and the grand-daughter of Carmen Phills. This article was extracted from the Toronto Star, dated Saturday, May 11, 2002.
