Alaska Sports Hall of Fame

Aaliyah Lewis

Aaliyah Lewis of Anchorage is used to playing a starring role on the soccer field.

Now she’s doing it on TV.

The 24-year-old actor has appeared in two different cable shows this year after quitting her job in marketing and moving to Atlanta (GA) to pursue her dream.

“A few months after graduating, I had a marketing director job for about four months before I decided it wasn’t for me,” she told me. “I packed up and moved out to Atlanta, where the film industry was really starting to take off.”

After one month, she landed her first role. After two months, she hired an agent.

“It’s a very exciting world and I’m blessed to have found it,” Lewis said.

She earned her first role with Investigation Discovery channel’s ‘Murder Comes to Town.’ Then she nabbed her first major network co-star role as a hero witch in a CW show called ‘Legacies.’

Lewis, of Dimond High fame, was a soccer star before turning her attention to TV.

She was a 2-time Gatorade Alaska Player of the Year in high school. Then she was a 2-time Southwestern Athletic Conference Player of the Year at NCAA D1 Alabama State University.

She wrapped up her college career in 2016 as Alabama State’s all-time career leading scorer with 147 points.

Lewis was a star in the soccer world, but in the TV world, she’s just another actor. She had to audition just like everyone else.

She was given 15 minutes to impress.

“I was nervous but confident in what I could do. I read my line four different times in four different ways and scenarios, and that was it,” Lewis said. “They called me back two days later and this time I was in front of the episode director Mary Lou Belli. Mary Lou gave me directions on how she wanted me to give my line. So, I did it two different times and she thanked me for my time after complimenting me on my audition. I felt amazing about it and I was super excited.”

A week later, she got the part for ‘Legacies’ Episode 16: There’s Always a Loophole.

Filming on location was a dream come true for Lewis, who said she had a blast playing a witch.

“My character prevents the main bad guy from doing any of her friends harm in the school,” Lewis said. “So she casts a spell to release a stink bomb, which was featured in Episode 1, in order to stop him. Set was amazing! I knew a lot of people prior because I had been working on the set up until the point where I had to stop unfortunately, but then ended up receiving the audition a couple weeks after.”

Lewis grew up dreaming of playing in the World Cup. She graduated with a degree in Business Marketing. Now she’s an actor.

Life is funny like that.

“Never in a million years did I think that I’d receive the opportunity to chase this dream,” she said.