Andrea Powell Ferguson is an actress who lives in Pittsboro. Ferguson has played roles in films and TV series such as Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part II, Ender’s Game, Halt and Catch Fire, Sleepy Hollow and many more. In addition to a professional acting career, Ferguson runs AndiSites Inc., a web design and development company. Quotes have been edited for length.
Could you tell me a bit about your background?
I was always one of those geeky kids that didn’t really know what I was going to do or be. I was going to be a fireman, and I was going to be a mermaid and I was going to be all of this stuff. When I was 12 years old, there was a local community theater production of Oliver, the musical, so I decided I would go do that. It introduced me to a world where I realized I could be a fireman, and I could be a mermaid and I could be whatever I wanted to be, without ever having to truly commit to any one thing. It was one of those things where I auditioned for the next show, and the next show, and the next show, and it was the thing I was looking for. So that’s really how it all started. Then the professional part of it started when I got older and the opportunities started to come because in that time, North Carolina was starting to get some film and TV work here, and an agent had come to see me in a show and offered to sign me. It all happened kind of organically.
Has acting taught you any important life lessons that you would want to pass on?
Absolutely. One of the biggest ones is resilience. When you’re acting professionally, you’re not going to get the job a lot more often than you are going to get the job. Most times it’s because of something you couldn’t control anyway; either you didn’t look quite right for the part or maybe someone’s shorter because the male lead is short, or something like that. So understanding that sometimes when you don’t get things in life, it’s not because you weren’t good enough, it’s just because the other person got it instead and they couldn’t give it to both people.
How do you make an acting career work from Pittsboro?
Nowadays, it doesn’t matter where you live. I have agents and I have my manager in New York, so the opportunity comes to me regardless of where I am physically, because you can travel to wherever you have to go to shoot. Also nowadays, the biggest thing is that it’s very rare to go to an audition in person anymore. Usually what you do is record an audition and then post it to the internet, to a casting site, and then if you get a callback, or you need to do a screen cast or something, then you go to wherever it is. Fortunately, physically being in New York or L.A. isn’t as important, especially when you’ve been around for a while.
Why didn’t you want to live in L.A . or New York while acting?
I’m willing to give up some of the larger opportunities that living in L.A. might afford me, just so that I can be happier in life overall, because acting is just one part of it.
Which well known actors or actresses have you gotten to work with, and what was it like to work with those big names?
Who I’m thinking of right now is Melissa Leo. I did an independent film with her in New York before she kind of got so famous, but she’s really a fantastic actress who I respect a lot. In terms of really big names, I’ve worked with Charlize Theron, Harrison Ford, Viola Davis. I’ve worked with Will Smith and Dennis Hopper. It’s interesting because the actors who are really truly professional, and a very big deal and all of that, tend to be some of the nicest people because they’re secure in their careers, and they tend to be pretty solid professionals.
You were in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn- Part 2. What was it like to be a vampire?
It was fantastic. Because that movie is so famous, and has so many followers, you know that you’re part of something really huge. There’s a lot of security on the set, a lot of that kind of stuff, all this secrecy. The vampire part of it is great because in Twilight, all of the different groups of vampires have different characteristics. We were the super-blonde vampires with purple eyes. What was cool was you have these contact lenses that they make for you; they’re made exactly for your eyes and they have your prescription in them. You’re not even allowed to touch them yourself; you have to go in this room and they put them in your eyes and take them out of your eyes. That was pretty fun, but the cool thing is that the woman who created my contact lenses had made my werewolf contact lenses for the TV show called The Gates that I was on. We were laughing that I had switched teams, and it was funny because I had these Twitter followers who were mad at me because I had been a werewolf in The Gates, and now I was being a vampire in Twilight. They thought I was being disloyal to my pack.
What has been your favorite film or TV series to act in? What made that your favorite?
Honestly, the one that I’m working on now called Outcast. It’s going to be premiering on Showtime this Spring, I believe. It’s based on a graphic novel by the guy who did The Walking Dead, and it’s whole thing is demon possession. It takes place in a very small West Virginia town, and I play a very conservative church lady. The actors are really fantastic. Brent Spiner who was on Star Trek, he’s in it; a lot of other actors who are famous in London. The scripts are fantastic. I haven’t even told my husband anything that happens because I’m like, “I just want you to see it as it’s happening,” because it takes all these huge twists and turns and it’s really crazy. I would say it’s definitely one of my most favorite things. And also, when you play a recurring role in a new series, you get to sort of shape the character yourself with the writers, and it’s a lot of fun.
Will acting be something that you do for the rest of your life?
Absolutely. I think the roles get more interesting as I get older. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a 20-year-old gorgeous woman anymore to get some really interesting stuff. I don’t see any end to it, at all, and I’m very happy with that.
Do you have any advice you’d like to pass on to up and coming actors or actresses?
Keep doing it. If you love it, keep doing it. Do it as often as you possibly can; do theatre, get your friends together and do readings and approach every job as if it could be your last. That’s the way that you really start looking toward the people that you meet, the places you get to go, the words you get to say, and all of that becomes part of the pleasure of it. It’s a difficult profession to be in; there’s a lot that will try to smack you down, but just stay positive, meet as many people as you can, be nice to everybody, and just keep showing up.
– By Leah Kallam