Brittany Snow of Tampa stars in American Dreams as Meg Pryor, whose one wish in life is to be a dancer on American Bandstand. The show will debut on NBC this fall. [Photo: NBC]

By ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV Critic

© St. Petersburg Times
published July 8, 2002

It's more than affliction, it's more like addiction. Now Tampa teen Brittany Snow's acting bug has taken her to prime time. And she wouldn't have it any other way.

She'd been in the cast of CBS' daytime soap opera Guiding Light since age 12, taping three or four days in New York before flying back to Gaither High School in Tampa for a few days of classes, only to head back north again for more taping.

For a kid who had been acting on and off in TV commercials and series since age 6, it was a time for a new direction. Fatigued by the constant traveling -- and told by industry types that working a soap opera too long might harm her career -- Snow decided last year to try for a job in a nighttime TV series.

One year later, she's about to star in American Dreams, a family drama about an aspiring American Bandstand dancer coming this fall to TV's most successful network, NBC.

How's that for making your dreams come true?

"In the show, there's a line where my character says (getting on American Bandstand) is the greatest thing to happen in her life," said Snow, now 16. "This whole experience of me getting American Dreams is the same thing."

American Dreams is a show you won't see until September, when NBC and the other TV networks debut their programs for the 2002-03 season. But Snow will begin working on the series this month, including a July 24 appearance at the Television Critics Association's summer media tour.

The series tells the story of a teenage girl who dreams of joining the cast of dancers on American Bandstand -- a teen-oriented afternoon TV show that featured R&B and rock pioneers such as Martha and the Vandellas and the Beach Boys lip-synching their hits before dancing fans from 1957 to 1989 (think Total Request Live meets Soul Train).

In 1963, when American Dreams takes place, Bandstand was telecast live from Philadelphia as the first national TV show devoted exclusively to rock music. And though the times were much more conservative than now -- CBS' Ed Sullivan Show already had refused to show Elvis Presley's gyrating hips seven years before -- Snow said she had little problem relating to her character, 15-year-old aspiring Bandstand dancer Meg Pryor.

"She's a 15 year old from a good Catholic family with a stern dad . . . it was really easy to play," said Snow, whose character is forbidden by her father to dance on the show, at least initially. "I did a lot of research on American Bandstand -- what they danced like and what their mannerisms were like. (But) she was so much like me . . . it wasn't something I had to think about."

Snow started acting at age 6, after begging her mother, Cinda Snow, to help get her on TV. By 10, she was working steadily, traveling to Orlando for commercials and TV roles, appearing in HBO's From the Earth to the Moon and NBC's seaQuest DSV.

"I was one of those kids where, instead of playing outside, I would constantly make up plays for my friends," said Snow, laughing. "I would watch movies and memorize all the lines and show off in restaurants. I would watch TV and be really mad that I wasn't on there."

Eager to expand her experience, she got a New York agent and not long after that, the job playing rebellious adopted daughter Susan Lemay on Guiding Light.

"I could never go to an acting class that would teach me what I learned there," said Snow, who sometimes had to learn 30 to 40 pages of dialogue each day as the second young actress to play Lemay (New York actress Brittany Slattery originated the role in 1994). "I learned a lot about responsiblity and memorizing . . . (but) I still got to be a kid. I don't feel like I missed anything"

Last year, she took an unintended break, leaving Guiding Light in April 2001 to film a test episode (or pilot) for a show called Murphy's Dozen that wasn't picked up by a network. Guiding Light writers simply had Lemay head off to boarding school, keeping their options open, Snow said. "My character will probably come back next year at age 25 with three kids. . . . You know how (quickly) they age kids on soap operas," she said, laughing.

A similar audition for a movie of Janet Fitch's hit novel White Oleander -- which would have put her next to Michelle Pfeiffer and Renee Zellweger -- also didn't pan out.

Disappointing as those events were, they reminded Snow of the central rule in acting: Never give up.

"I remember when I was 11, before I got Guiding Light, I would go forever and not get any (roles)," she said. "I would go on audition after audition -- for a full year I didn't get anything -- I thought I was the worst actress in the world. A key thing about acting: If you really want it, you can't give up."

Now, after filming the American Dreams pilot earlier this year in Vancouver, British Columbia, Snow is preparing to move west with her mother this month (dad John Snow, a retired insurance company executive, will remain in Tampa). Despite all the attention and perks that come with starring in a network series, Cinda Snow hopes to help her daughter keep it all the perspective.

"My husband and I have always felt (acting) was like her version of (playing) sports . . . as long as it was something fun, she could keep doing it," said Cinda Snow, a former teacher who now helps develop textbooks for publisher Prentiss-Hall. "This series is an opportunity for her you can't pass up. It's like going to the Olympics."

Experts say there are lots of pitfalls awaiting young actors who move to Los Angeles for TV series work.

Paul Petersen, who played straight-arrow son Jeff Stone on the Donna Reed Show in the 1950s and 1960s, now leads A Minor Consideration, a non-profit group formed to help protect the rights of child actors. He suggested actors such as Snow stay committed to their education and maintain a life outside of the industry, calling experts at Hollywood's actors' unions at the first sign of trouble.

"The business has a big headstart in taking advantage of kids and their parents," noted Petersen. "If you talk to the experts who have been there before you, it can save you so much grief."

Still, Brittany Snow -- who cites role models such as Reese Witherspoon, Natalie Portman and Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar -- knows that, regardless of how successful American Dreams is, her future is in showbiz.

"The only thing I like is (acting)," she said. "If I can't do this, I'll have to do something else in the entertainment business -- even if it's writing scripts and selling them on eBay. Somehow, I'm always going to be doing this."

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