The teenage sensation and actor, Gavin Lewis, popularly known as Moody Richardson in the American web television miniseries Little Fires Everywhere and as Prince Maxemil "Emil" Vanderklaut III in the Netflix sitcom Prince of Peoria is one of the most appreciated emerging talents in Hollywood.
Early Life
Lewis was born on October 27, 2003, in Utah, USA. The actor was born into a family of theatre professionals where both of his parents Kyle Lewis (father) and Colleen Lewis (mother) were artists.
The Little Fires Everywhere star was homeschooled and was interested in archery from childhood. He wanted to compete in the Olympics in archery.
Following the footsteps of his parents, the teen artist started his career on stage at an early age.
As the son of two theatrical experts, he received classical training at a young age. He went on to win the first position at the Utah Shakespeare Festival's Acting Competition.
In a 2018 Interview with YSnow, Lewis revealed he had lived in eight different cities in his life which included Salt Lake City, Phoenix Arizona, St. George, Studio City, Hermosa Beach, Pasadena, and a few others.
In an April 2020 interview with SAG-AFTRA Foundation, he was asked about being raised in an artistic environment and how he may have had picked up elements subconsciously as a child.
The OMG! star replied he had watched actors for so long that it helped him with ear training and being able to pick up the language flow of a script.
Lewis also confessed he never wanted to become an actor as a kid and wished he had paid more attention to details when he was younger.
Eventually, he started doing theatricals at nine.
As I was overexposed to the theater, I jumped on the train when I was about nine. But it is crazy when you're growing up around it for so long and I feel like there has been quite a lot of pickup subconsciously.
Career
To pursue his career in Hollywood, Lewis moved to Los Angeles in 2014. The 17-year-old got his first acting job in a television commercial for Progressive Auto Insurance.
He shared a throwback picture on Instagram with his co-star in September 2017 and unveiled that it was his first job as an actor.
The emerging actor made his television debut in 2015 after starring as Lone Boy in Comedy Bang! Bang!
The same year, he played roles in the TV series Just Jacques as Brent, and in Paramount Digital's Maximum Ride and Syfy's TV horror movie, Ominous as Jacob Young.
Lewis also appeared in three episodes of the hilarious sketch and comedy show OMG! in 2015, where he portrayed Brent. Apart from that, he also starred in a short 2015 movie titled Real Boy.
However, Lewis's breakthrough role was in the Netflix sitcom show, Prince of Peoria in 2018, where he played one of the lead roles, Prince Emil.
The teenager appeared in eighteen episodes of the series from 2018 to 2019.
Lewis' Dream Project
With his hard work and dedication, the Utah native got his dream project in 2020 as Moody Richardson in the television mini-series Little Fires Everywhere. The Hulu show is based on a 2017 bestseller by Celeste Ng with the same title.
The story of the television drama is based on the entangled fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family, a mysterious mother, and daughter who upend as their lives are explored. It is set in the 1990s in Shaker Heights, Ohio.
Lewis played the youngest brother of the Richardson family, Moody, who is attracted to Pearl Warren, a recent move-in to their hometown.
According to a March 2020 interview with Teen Vogue, the performer opened up about working on the raw emotion of anger to add life to his on-screen character.
I actually had to spend more time than anything probably on his anger, because he's definitely got a layer of animosity toward everybody, which was something that took me some time [to develop]. I've never really had to build a character that had a lot of anger in him.
Like Moody, he considers himself a thinker and observer. However, he believes he is a little more upbeat than his character in actual life.
For the preparation, Lewis, age 17, researched several actors including Benedict Cumberbatch's monologue from Star Trek Into Darkness from 2012.
During the interaction, the young actor also talked about his favorite scenes to shoot, which was the family dinner scenes. Those were some of the rare moments where the entire cast came together.
Lewis confessed it was also an opportunity to see the work of the iconic actress Reese Witherspoon.
Other than that, in six years, the actor has accumulated a diverse range of movies and television credits which includes —
NCIS: Los Angeles (2016), Maximum Ride (2016), The Kicks (2016), Hey Arnold: The Jungle Movie (2017), Odious (2017), The Bugaloos (2017), Roswell, New Mexico (2019), No Good Nick (2019), Inner Child (2020) and many others.
On stage, the artist appeared in The Heart of Robin Hood at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles.
Personal Life
Born as the child of theatrical artists, Lewis credits his professional accomplishments to his parents. He shared a picture of his childhood days with his dad on June 22, 2020, as an appreciation post on the occasion of Father's Day.
The sweet portrait captured the beautiful moment of the father-son duo looking at each other.
In the caption, the actor thanked him for all the sacrifices his father had made for him and said that he couldn't imagine getting this far without him.
Similarly, on Mother's Day, he shared a picture with his mom, appreciating her for all the support. The beautiful picture posted on May 2020 featured his mom, Colleen, carrying the Odious actor in her arm when he was small.
He thanked his mom for coming to Los Angeles to fulfill his dreams as an actor, continuously supporting him since he was six and diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes.
Health Issues
The NCIS: Los Angeles actor was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2010 at the age of six. In an interview with diabetesselfmanagement.com when asked if he remembers the diagnosis, Lewis replied, he didn't understand what was happening and the nurse told him, "you're going to have a shot every time you eat now."
The actor confessed it was not the best way to learn about his disease, but he got the gist of it.
He also talked about how his mom has helped him to take care of himself and make sure he eats healthy.
My mom is a big part of helping me take care of myself. She gets up at night when my blood sugar level drops or goes high. She reminds me to change my side. She makes sure I eat healthy.
Shortly after his diagnosis, Lewis won a contest and got the chance to meet Nick Jonas, who is a Type-1 patient himself.
He considers Jonas as his inspiration for how he has successfully handled the disease and is also a big supporter of the diabetic community.
Other than that, the young actor is a brand ambassador for Beyond Type 1, which is a non-profit organization uniting the global diabetes community and providing solutions to improve the lives of those affected. Lewis's vision as an ambassador is to inspire people and make them feel better about what they can still do whatever they want to do with diabetes.
I’m an ambassador for them. My dream is to inspire people. I want to give whatever information I can to make people feel better about the new diagnosis and show people who have had type 1 for a time can still do whatever they want to do with diabetes.
Net worth
While some websites have reported Lewis's estimated net worth at $650,000. However, the exact net worth of the actor is not available. Most of his earnings come from his work as an actor. He has more than twenty filmography credits to his name.
One of his most successful projects, Little Fires Everywhere, was a big-budget Hulu series. According to stylecaster.com, the leading ladies of the series, Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington were paid $1.1 million per episode. The salaries of other actors were not revealed.
Besides that, the average salary of an actor under 18 purely depends upon their experience and the film's budget. For instance, Miley Cyrus was paid $15000 per episode for Hannah Montana, while Miranda Cosgrove earned a whopping $180000 per episode of iCarly.
Taking that into consideration, the minimum weekly salary for half an hour episode is estimated to be $5258 for a major role.
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