'Alex Mack' Star's Secret: Her Typical Teen Aura
By Jefferson Graham
HOLLYWOOD - Larisa Oleynik looks like the proverbial girl next door and that has served her very well on Nickelodeon. "Any kid can look at her and say, 'That's my life,' " says Tommy Lynch, who hired her to star in The Secret World of Alex Mack.
But, of course, 14-year-old Oleynik's life has become anything but typical since Alex Mack began airing less than a year ago.
The show already ranks as one of Nickelodeon's top three, along with the animated Rug-rats and the All That Sketch comedy show. And it has been renewed for a new season.
Oleynik now writes an advice column for Tiger Beat magazine and has received a lot of e-mail on Nickelodeon's site on America Online.
She also will be seen this month in the film The Baby- sitters Club, based on the series of books by Ann M. Martin. The life of Oleynik's character on Alex Mack is not quite a typical teen's existence, either. She has super powers that help her get through the trials of teen-age life, but only she and her sister know about them.
"Alex is cool because a lot of people can relate to her," Oleynik says. "She's not the most popular girl in school, but she's also not a geek. I know what it's like to think you don't always fit in, and I think kids can relate to Alex's feelings about being average." (Alex never flaunts or misuses her powers.)
Oleynik started acting at age 8, when she auditioned for a role in Les Miserables in San Francisco. After that, she performed in many school plays, got an agent, went on auditions and filmed the Alex Mack pilot when she was 12. Lynch, the show's producer, hired the actress because of her smile. "We looked at 400 to 500 people," he says. "She came in and auditioned and was quite tentative with the material. But we liked her smile and asked her to read again. This time she relaxed and nailed it. She has a real awareness of the innocence of being a young teen.
Last season's shows were filmed during Oleynik's summer school break. Production will be finished on the second season in December, so she'll work with a tutor for a few months before heading back to the San Francisco area for ninth grade.
Oleynik attends a small school, so kids didn't go crazy when she suddenly became a Nick star, she says. But she has had a little trouble at shopping malls.
"Some people actually believe I have super powers," she says. At the mall, kids asked her to morph into water, like she does on the show, but all she could do was offer her autograph.
Nickelodeon involves her in high-profile public service events such as The Big Help, in which celebrities urge kids to get involved in their communities' social causes. What does she want to do next? "I hope to stay with acting," she says. "I look at Jessica Tandy. She continued with acting until the day she died, and that's amazing. I'd love to have the same kind of career."
Thirtysomething's Melanie Mayron directs The Baby-sitters Club, so after Oleynik was cast in the movie, she watched reruns of the show on Lifetime to study Mayron's work and realized she really enjoyed the drama. But her favorite television show is last season's My So-Called Life, and she's proud to report that she taped all 19 episodes on her VCR when they aired on MTV in April. Her assessment? "Claire Danes is like the best actress in the world."
USA Today, 4 August 1995.
Get your own Free Home Page