Meet Rawle Lewis

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rawle Lewis.

Hi Rawle, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started in show business as a nine-year-old. My mother Phyllis Esdelle, who was a News reporter for a local station in New Jersey, handed me a piece of paper with lines to memorize. You see, it was the annual Happy Holidays season at the station and the plan was to have the children of the various employees at that station say a Happy Holiday greeting on air. Well, my mother chose me, the shyest kid out of all my siblings. Turns out I was a natural. I memorized my twenty-five word monologue in under 10 minutes and delivered those lines on the air without a hitch. It did not go quite so well for some of the other kids who caught a bit of stage fright under all the studio lights and cameras. For me, I think it was at that moment when I became hooked. I felt like a fish that had just found water.

At the age of fifth-teen, my family moved to the San Fernando Valley in Southern California. I was now officially Hollywood adjacent. That’s where my showbiz dreams became a possibility. I did a few bit parts on television as a teen but it would be stand-up that occupied most of my time at that age. Of course, I had no life experience at that young age so I was mediocre at best with not much to talk about and way too young to be in most clubs. At the age of eighteen, I decided to pursuit acting a little more seriously. Well, actually I was an adult now and needed to make some money, mula, dinero, some duckets and Stand-up comedy wasn’t cutting it.

It was not long after that decision that I got a job as an actor… well my job was reading opposite actors at a casting agency. At that time they happen to be casting a movie about the first Jamaican Bobsled team. Now, I was actually born Trinidad and Tobago. I came to the US at the age of nine. Yes, that same age, I got bit by that showbiz bug. In New Jersey, I was practically raised by Jamaicans because all the Caribbean folks sort of hung out together. So I was well versed on what a Jamaican accent was supposed to sound like. I was also aware that most Americans can’t really distinguish between the various nuanced jargon of a West Indian island accent. So hence, I became extremely valuable at that reading job. I was now judge and jury as far as authenticity. It turns out that I sounded so real in comparison to some of the actors putting on an accent that the writers sitting in the other room eavesdropping on the auditions often remarked, “Hey, that reader guy sounds pretty good.” After about a month of helping them find actors for their movie. Dawn Steel, the producer puts her arm around me and says, “You can’t be our reader anymore, kid.” When I replied; “Why not?” She said, “Because we need you to star in our movie.”

And just like that! I became one of the stars of the hit Walt Disney movie, “Cool Runnings” A film about the first Jamaican Bobsled team. This is the movie that gave me my start in show business.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Like life itself, show business has been hills and valleys. But I honestly can not say that I regret any of it. I have been fortunate to make a living doing the things that I love to do. The bumps in the road have been mostly my doing. I am intrigued by so many aspects of the entertainment business that I have often started over from scratch in an entirely different area of my field. I have been able to dabble in many aspects of Hollywood. I have starred in movies, written movies and directed movies. I have traveled the world doing Stand-up comedy in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Some of my proudest moments have been entertaining the troops in Iraq, right outside enemy lines.

Has there been struggles… yes. But I struggle no more than a person working a minimum wage job for some boss you dislike, stuck in a cubical and under fluorescent lights. Then, you slowly start watching your potential slip away quietly into the night.

It’s my job to provide a temporary entertainment escape for that person with that shitty job or that rough life. Perhaps that temporary break I provided could spark that moment of mental clarity that could cause a permanent change.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am an actor/writer/comedian who has traveled the world doing my craft. I love the entertainment world and I love that so many more of us are becoming Artisans. Creative expression is good for the soul.

I’ve played a Jamaican Bobsledder and a Crackhead. Ha Ha, in what other occupation would this be possible. I am learning so much about the full scope of humanity.

I am currently writing my hour-comedy special and cannot wait to unleash that onto the world.

How do you define success?
Success is having the freedom to fail and excel at the things you love doing. It is also having a loving supportive base that shows up, whether you achieve those things or not…

Contact Info:

• Website: anchor.fm/rawle-d
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/RAWLEtv
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RawleDLewis
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/RAWLEtv
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/RAWLEtv

Image Credits
*All photos are by James Reese photography *The one with the two Detectives are BTS from NARCOS:Mexico