Photo Credit: Dove Shore Photography

Acting, like many professions, is not the easiest to break into. Most aspiring actresses hear “no, no, no” repeatedly before they get a single “yes”—unless you’re Kelsey Chow.

After a stint in community theater got Kelsey hooked on the spotlight, her agent set her up with her first audition ever— a spot on the teen favorite show “One Tree Hill.” “I thought the role was for a cheerleader, so I went in a cheerleading uniform,” says Kelsey, who admits she was an “O.C.” fan and hadn’t seen “One Tree Hill” before the audition. “To book that was absolutely surreal,” she says of her first role ever, which she filmed while in high school. “I was the youngest of them all—I was 13 when I started, and the other actors joked that I was the only actual high schooler playing a high schooler. And I was nervous because it was my first gig, but everyone was unbelievably friendly,” she says. Perhaps that’s why four seasons later, several of her fellow cast members are still working together every day.

While the part didn’t call for any specific ethnicity, most of the auditioning actresses were Asian American, though the character of Gigi Silveri ended up being Italian. “It was fun to play people of different backgrounds,” says Kelsey. “With my mixed background [of Chinese, English and Cherokee], it’s ambiguous.”

Her role called for a nerdy but boy-crazy character who meets series regular Mouth McFadden when they co-host the commentary during the basketball games. Though the guest role was short-lived, producers asked Kelsey to return a few seasons later as a bombshell college intern at Mouth’s news station. “At that point, I was 17 and now playing a 21-year-old,” she recalls. “I read the script every week, and thought, ‘Oh goodness, what am I doing now?’ But it was so fun to play that transition.”

Now, as one of the stars on Disney XD’s “Pair of Kings”, Kelsey plays Mikayla, the tough assistant to the show’s two kings (played by Mitchel Musso and Doc Shaw) and a guard in training. “It’s completely different from ‘One Tree Hill’,” she says. “It’s a world with infinite possibilities. I am so lucky because I love everyone on the show. We have such a family dynamic.”

And while she’s between seasons of the show, Kelsey heads back to the East Coast, where she’ll split her time between the two Columbias—the South Carolina city, where she is from, and the university, where she is studying global health. “I’ve been hearing classic college spring break stories,” she says. “I want to go back!” Despite being in relatively youth-oriented shows, Kelsey does get noticed on campus. “The mailman recognized me from ‘One Tree Hill’, and a girl in the elevator recognized me from ‘Pair of Kings.’ I was like, ‘you watch that?’ But I’m glad they’re watching the shows and enjoying them,” she says.

As the current TV season wraps up and the fate of the show that jumpstarted her career hangs in the balance, Kelsey is open to heading back for a potential series finale. “‘One Tree Hill’ will always be so special to me,” she says. “Mark Schwann has been very good to be me and I would be there in a second.”

At such a young age, Kelsey, who cites Natalie Portman as one of her role models, can take her time choosing her career path. “I’d love to explore different kinds of acting, whether it’s film, theater, or more television,” she says. But some of her short-term goals do have some sense of urgency: “I’d kill to work with people like Annette Benning and Sean Connery. But I read that he’s retiring—I better hurry!”

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Tania Gunadi is one lucky lady. So far, the rising Hollywood starlet’s life has been defined by several fortunate events that have led her to where she is now.

The Indonesian actress, who has a lead role in Disney Channel series “Aaron Stone,” got her first stroke of luck a decade ago when she was selected in the Green Card Lottery.

“I was the happiest person on earth,” the 25-year-old actress said about moving to America. “It is much cleaner in the U.S. than in Indonesia. I could actually breathe. And there were lots of different kinds of food.”

Prior to her immigration, the Gunadi family was geographically split, with Tania’s older brother and sister residing in the U.S. and her parents living with her in Indonesia. After her brother and sister immigrated, her family could not afford to send another family member abroad, so Tania stayed behind in Indonesia.

Every year after that, Tania’s siblings submitted the names of their sister and parents to the Green Card Lottery. The lottery is held once a year and winners must move within a year if they accept the prize.

After she was finally selected, Tania finished high school in Indonesia, moved to California and attended English classes. Before moving to the U.S., Tania desperately needed help with her English speaking and reading skills. Her brother, who was the assistant manager at a Pizza Hut, suggested she work with him to improve her English. His reasoning was that direct communication with people would accelerate her English skills, so he got Tania a job at taking phone orders.

“He told me the job was really easy,” Tania said. “All you had to do was read the script next to the phone when people called. I thought, ‘Oh my God, I can totally do that!’” It didn’t turn out to be that simple. In fact, Tania had no clue what anyone was saying.

Tania currently plays girl-next-door Emma Lau in Disney’s “Aaron Stone” series, about a video game that becomes reality. Since the show is filmed in Toronto, Tania was able to experience her first true winter. Having only lived in tropical Indonesia and sunny California, she was not prepared for the Canadian winter. Tania was so cold during the last two weeks of filming that she forced herself to learn how to cook just so she could stay indoors.

“I’m very happy to find this career,” Tania said. “It’s almost like an accident because I didn’t know about it before getting here. I feel so blessed to find acting as my career. It’s something that I love to do and am able to make a living off of.”

And as long as Tania’s lucky streak lasts, we’ll be seeing her for years to come.

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So far, Romi Dames has guest-starred in nine “Hannah Montana” episodes and plans to continue working for the show in the future.

Dames officially got into acting at age nine in Japan after begging her parents to let her audition for the musical Annie, and landing the role of Molly. When she moved to Seattle, the first thing she did was flip through the yellow pages and call every theater asking about auditions.

“Some of the theaters said, ‘No, we’re a movie theater,’” Dames said. Despite these mishaps, Dames began getting cast in plays, thus launching her acting career.

Traci is Dames’ favorite character to play. “I can be as big as I want to be,” said Dames who was born on an army base in Yokosuka, Japan. She was born on November 5, but the year remains a mystery to everyone except close friends and family.

“The more of a blank palate you are, the more roles you are free to play,” she said. “And I want to play everything.” Dames refuses to reveal her real age and enjoys seeing herself as anywhere between 15 and 30 on different websites. While most websites say she’s in her mid-20s, IMDB says she’s 29.

The Disney audition called for a rude and bratty girl, which Dames claims was interesting for her to play because she is the polar opposite in real life. Dames also artificially adds the nasally voice to her character. In fact, according to Dames, the only similarity between Traci and Dames is that they both like clothes and cats.

The actress enjoys playing Traci because the character behaves in a manner Dames does not. In reality, Dames cannot go around making unbelievably snobby comments to people as Traci does. “It’s fun to be the bad guy because people try so hard to make everyone happy,” Dames said.

In the world outside of “Hannah Montana,” Dames is a normal girl with a humorous streak. She passes her time by hiking, watching movies and feasting on salmon sushi. Like many girls, Dames adores shopping for clothes, particularly clothes by English Clientele. She was thrilled when she was allowed to choose which English Clientele outfits to wear for a magazine shoot earlier this year. English Clientele, catering to the more professional woman, launched in 2006 and is inspired by the 1940s fashion styles. The line has been featured in magazines such as Vogue and Genlux and ranges from $89 to $3,000 per article of clothing.

About two to three years prior to “Hannah Montana,” Dames’ agent formed Waiters and Extras in Burbank, California with Dames’ friends. Waiters and Extras is a sketch comedy group in which members write and perform their own sketches. Through this, Dames performed in several theaters and was delegated the responsibility of finding venues to rent. Since landing a role on “Hannah Montana,” however, Dames no longer has much time for Waiters and Extras.

The actress has always had a penchant for acting. When she and her family moved to Seattle, Washington when she was almost 13 years old, Dames liked to fool her neighbor into believing she had a twin by appearing in different clothes. Her neighbor eventually found out Dames was an only child when Dames had friends over. “[My friends] totally blew my cover,” she said. “I could have kept it going for years.”

Although she is living her dream, Dames claims that there is not much to do in between roles. “There’s a lot of patience involved,” she said. “And I’m not a super patient person. I want everything to happen quickly. There’s a lot of downtime in between roles and I can’t do much about it. I try to fill that time by taking classes. As an actor, I don’t feel like I have much control over my career.”

In 2007, the Writers’ Guild of America launched a strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, an organization that represents the interest of 397 American film and television producers. During this time, many actors were out of jobs, but Dames found a job as a host and VJ for Ford auto shows from December 2007 through March 2008.

She considers herself fortunate to have found a job so quickly during the strike, but is happy to get back to acting. In the future, the actress would like to try her hand at movies. In the theater world, Dames’ dream role is Juliet from “Romeo and Juliet.”

“I love that she goes through everything and feels this wide range of emotions from the silly girl who has a big crush to being devastated,” Dames said. “She grows up during the course of the play and I think that’s a fun thing to do. You get to play everything.”

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