And her parents had no idea that their obedient tennis child went downtown to a serious acting audition. But she got the part and, of course, had to tell them. And after they got over that shock, Andrea later declared that she got an acting scholarship and decided to go to the University of Kansas to study the craft.
After a year of Kansas life, she realized that she had to get out of the Midwest, if she wanted to make it big.
“I was doing very well there [University of Kansas] but I knew that the place was too small for my big soul.”
Andrea immediately searched for schools in New York City and Los Angeles and decided on the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles. She loved the conservatory structure but admits that she was a bit of a rule breaker.
“We weren’t supposed to get an agent,” she laughs, “but I did.”
She would go to the studios and pretend she was dropping off mail just to get a peek of the inside. And her free time was spent flipping through industry magazines looking for casting agent, producer names, and local auditions.
“I hunted down the name and number of a particular director and called him.”
She says she told the director that she got paged for one of the roles in his movie.
“He seemed a little confused at first but asked me which role, the ‘beautiful girl’ or the ‘not so beautiful girl’ and I answered “I’m a transitional actress.”
And she was asked to go to the casting.
She was so different from the other actresses that she landed the part of ‘Striking’ in the short film based on John Updike’s story called A&P. This was also the first movie for other stars like Sean Hayes and Amy Smart.
Fast-forward to her latest performance in Larry Bishop’s film Hell Ride, produced by none other than Quentin Tarantino.
