Leah Lewis is only 26, but she’s already spent more than half her life trying to make it as an actor. Anyone just learning about her might think she’s been working non-stop since coming to Hollywood, but she tells CNBC Make It she’s been “hustling” since she first tried acting in Los Angeles at 6 years old.
With the release of Pixar’s “Elemental” out Friday, she’ll have her second shot of leading a feature film — the first time for a major theater release, and for an iconic studio she grew up watching, no less.
In “Elemental,” Lewis voices the lead character Ember, a fire-type living in a world where residents embodying fire, water, air and land co-exist in Element City. Ember is set on taking over her family’s business serving other fire types on the outskirts of town until Wade, a water type, shows up and throws a wrench in those plans. The enemies-to-friends storyline explores how seemingly polar opposites have more similarities than differences.
For Lewis, it’s one of a handful of bigger roles she’s landed in a few short years. She got her start in commercials and TV, then after graduating from high school began landing bigger series roles on “Charmed,” “Station 19,” and since 2019, a main role as Georgia “George” Fan in the CW’s take on “Nancy Drew.”
In 2020, she starred in Netflix’s coming-of-age movie “The Half of It,” directed by Alice Wu; it caught the attention of Peter Sohn, director of “Elemental,” who cemented Lewis’s place as a Disney/Pixar hero.
Here, Lewis discusses the best career lessons she’s learned so far, the meaning behind working with fellow Asian American and Pacific Islander creatives, and what she hopes audiences take away from her new Pixar feature.
On dealing with rejection
I’ve learned from my dad to take on a “live and learn” mentality: Process and take your second, but you have the power to get back on the horse. And you can do that without shaming yourself, too.
There have been times when I have given it my 300%, and I still don’t get the job. I’ve learned to just continue getting back up on the horse and not take it personally, because there’s a million things that could really cost you a job that maybe was never yours to begin with.
My job at the end of the day is just to deliver the best performance I possibly can, and I can’t deliver the best performance if I’m just sitting here feeling sorry for myself.
On overcoming imposter syndrome
In this industry, we’re husting. For a decade and a half I wasn’t working consistently….
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