Lexington native to appear on 'Army Wives'

Lexington native to appear on Army Wives Image

"I knew where to pull from because I've experienced it," Harris said, noting that her twin brother, Josh Harris, a Navy SEAL, was killed in Afghanistan nearly two years ago and her then fiance died in an airplane crash seven years ago.

"It's a heavy, emotional scene," she said. "And it's an emotion I try not to go to every day, because it's easy to get caught up in the grief."

Harris said she was able to draw on the depth of her own feelings but stay in control during the shooting because she felt like she had been shown a sign during the filming.

"I looked up at the set lights, and they all had numbers on them, and I saw that the spotlight on me was 55 – Josh's number," she said, referring to his now-retired football jersey. "I just knew that everything was going to be OK, that I'd get through it."

Harris, who now lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said her fellow actresses in the scene, Kim Delaney (Det. Diane Russell on "NYPD Blue") and Catherine Bell (Lt. Col. Sarah MacKenzie on "JAG"), and the director, Joanna Kerns (who played the mother on "Growing Pains" and now directs), didn't know before the scene was shot about her own personal history. But she told them afterward.

"They were very supportive and comforting," she said. "They said your brother would be so proud of you."

The Aug. 22 "Army Wives" episode, which was shot in Charleston, S.C., is Harris' first national television appearance. She had tried to land a part on the series several years ago and recalled how she had talked to Josh about it. She told him how she could relate to military families whose loved ones are deployed.

"Being a Navy SEAL, he just joked and said, 'No, you want to a Navy wife,'" she recalled.

Harris' first television part would actually have been a couple of years ago on "Burn Notice," which is filmed in Florida, but she and her family learned the news about Josh just a couple of days after she landed the part, which she then turned down.

"But it's neat that my first role is in 'Army Wives,'" she said. "Sometimes things work in mysterious ways."

Harris said she landed the part for the season finale of the television show when her agent sent in an audition tape. She's hoping that meeting people like Kerns, Delaney and Bell and gaining exposure on national television will help further her acting career.

"We'll see what happens when it airs," she said.

Harris studied the Meisner technique of acting for a year and a half in new York City at the William Esper Studio, where Delaney also trained, she learned, and HB Studios. She said she was in numerous "off-off-off-off Broadway" productions there but moved to Florida after her fiance died for a change of pace.

She has been in several short films entered in film festivals and had a small speaking part as a female police officer in "Sex Drive," a nationally released comedy with James Marsden and Seth Green about a road trip reminiscent of the "American Pie" movies.

Harris said there's not as much work available in Florida as in new York or Los Angeles but noted "it's hard to even get an agent in LA."

"It's a smaller world here, so I know a lot of the casting directors," she said, adding that she has acted in several commercials, including ones for Home Depot and lazy Boy. She was even a featured extra in a Verizon Wireless commercial shot by film director Spike Lee.

Harris, who earned a journalism degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, grew up dancing and performed in a couple of Lexington Youth Theatre productions when she was young but didn't really become interested in acting until her college years when she attended a workshop with her mother, Evelyn Harris, an actress and model. Her mother and father, Dr. Sam Harris, live in Lexington.

"I just really fell in love with acting then," she said of the workshop. "I love the craft of it."

When she's not pursing acting roles, Harris and her husband, Lee Thomas, an Internet entrepreneur whom she married in October 2009, have been helping with fundraising for the Wounded Warrior project to help veterans.

She also likes to return to her hometown to visit family and friends.

"I love the people in Lexington. everyone there has been so supportive of my family."

Vikki Broughton Hodges can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 214, or at vikki.hodges@the-dispatch.com.