This is a YouTube video titled "REINVENT YOURSELF & Become The Person Of Your DREAMS TODAY! | Tamera Mowry & Lewis Howes" featuring an English conversation recorded in November 2021. The content is an interview-style discussion between Lewis AI (Lewis Howes) and Tamera Mowry, where they explore themes of personal growth, overcoming self-doubt, career transitions, and redefining success beyond early fame. The dialogue covers Tamera's experiences with fame from a young age, challenges in her acting career, and her journey toward happiness and self-acceptance.
Chapters
I didn't realize that my self value was in those likes.
Wow.
Be prepared, not everybody around you is on your team. Right. You always say you have a final question, but it's not your final question.
This is it. I promise, this is it.
Okay.
It's what, I think you gotta have a dream.
The School of Greatness.
We really do.
Yeah.
Please welcome Lewis Howes. So you kind of grew up pre-social media where you were famous, well known on TV for many years. And you were young. You were like 10, early 20s into that show. What was that like being, I guess, famous, if you want to call it that, pre-social media days? And how did you learn to stay confident, not get insecure, or let things get to your head at such an early age while achieving that much and being famous on the scene?
I know. I would have to say my upbringing, my environment, my mom, my dad, my grandmother, my aunts, my uncles, they were all very proud of what I achieved at such a young age, but it didn't define me in their eyes.
What defined you?
Yes, character. who I was as a person then and who I was becoming. And I feel like that is how I survived. And my parents taught me at a very young age, this is amazing, but it's not going to last.
Really?
Mm-.
They're like, okay, one season, maybe two, maybe three. Did they go for like five or seven?
It went for six.
Six seasons. Something crazy.
Yes. And I remember being upset at my mother. We were at the table read and I was just, you know, so excited and I was like, well, well, dang, like rain on my parade.
When didn't you say that? Was that season one or season... Before.
We even started, she wanted to set us up for success. And in that moment, I didn't know what she was doing, but as we were, you know, shooting, I learned that. I learned to be grateful for every single moment so that when it did end, I was like, okay, it's time to move on. Let's. Let's do, you know, something else. And I was prepared for that transition. And it's because of what she said in the beginning that I didn't like, but she was just, you know, she was very real. And that's the thing about. Our mom still to this day, if you wanted the truth, you ask her. If you didn't want to hear the truth, don't. 'Cause you were gonna get it either way.
Now, I've interviewed different actors who said that, you know, some of them, I won't say their names, but they had some big shows, right? They were on for three, four, five, seven seasons or whatever for big shows. And then for years, they were not able to get anything because they were kind of typecast. You know, how did you, especially being even more kind of pigeonholed as a twin actor, which is very rare, it's a very niche role, it was successful, how were you able to reinvent or continue building your career beyond that original huge show? And did things keep happening right away or did it take some years where you're like, It took some years. We're not getting any phone calls.
Exactly. So I was prepared for the transition of becoming, as Tim Reid would say, a civilian.
Really?
I was ready for that. What I wasn't prepared for was the silence of phone calls that happened after that.
What do you mean? You calling people and no one picking up or you're not getting calls?
Not getting calls. Yeah. Or going out for auditions And people just seeing this young comedic girl when you were actually, oh, a woman. I was 21 when I ended that show. But, I mean, I do have the gift of a young face. Thank God for my genes. But at the same time, it took casting directors, I think, a while to actually see that I wasn't just this young, Girl that did slapstick comedy that I could actually, I can remember going on an audition. I wanted to do a drama. And the casting director looking at me saying, you need to just stick to comedy.
Really?
Yeah.
She says, After your audition.
After my audition. And you think success of Sister Sister. I won a Kids Choice Award. Not once, but like three times.
Yeah, it's a big deal.
The Golden Blimp. Right. That's a big deal. NAACP Image Awards, but what I learned in Hollywood, it's like, I'm just gonna be honest, they really don't care. You have to constantly bring it and constantly grow, and in that moment, two things could have happened. I could have believed her or I could have used it as fuel. And that is what I did. So I took acting classes.
Really?
Yes.
After five, seven years of being acting consistently on this massive show, you went back and took classes.
And guess what? I'm still taking acting classes.
Wow, that's great.
I always want to learn and I had to learn the art of auditioning. And I didn't really, 'cause I was working for six, seven years. I forgot how to audition. So, I pretty much had to start all over. I didn't get a series. I was 21 when I ended Sister Sister. I didn't get a series until I was 25. 26. So it was four years.
45 years is a long wait for someone who's been working consistently.
Yeah, and there were moments of doubt. There were moments of, okay, I thought I was just gonna quit. I went to school, I went to college. That's something I always wanted to do.
It's a Pepperdine, right?
Pepperdine University. I was feeling, I was literally, my country accent came out, feeling. I was signing, like, filling out a questionnaire to become a private school kindergarten teacher. Because I literally thought I was never gonna work again.
Shut up.
I swear.
Wow.
The moment I filled that out, I got a call. And it was an audition for Strong Medicine. I said these three words before the audition, 'cause I was like, I remember that last lady, what she said, I remember the room, I remember how I was sitting, I remember it. I said, let's do this. Right before I started my audition, do you know they added, not only did I book that, Show. It's like Dr. Kayla Thornton. They added it into the show.
They added a character.
Dr. Kayla Thornton, she says, let's do this.
That's cool.
So it was, I look back at that and the lesson that that taught me was you shouldn't let people define who you are, even if they might be right in their own opinion. Use that as fuel and I wanted to make sure that I was doing everything that I could possibly do to progress. Yeah, I wasn't prideful in the sense where I was like, I don't know what the hell she's talking about. I knew that I had never done, you know, like a true drama. So I was like, Hmm, she might be right in the sense of I, I maybe need a little work there, but she was not right in defining my future. Yeah, I was not gonna let someone who didn't know me Define my future for me.
Amen.
Yeah.
So when did you start, what was the first season, how old were you?
I was 14 and it didn't air until we were 15-16.
So 14 to 21 you were working. 14 to 21 on the show. So how in those four years afterwards, so you were going to school afterwards, you weren't booking anything, people said, ah, stick to this other type of comedy, you can't do this. How did you overcome the self-doubt? Or were you not doubting yourself?
Oh, major. I went into depression. Really? Yes. Yes. And I was depressed because for so long, I knew exactly where I was going, what I was doing, and then there was an immediate halt. And I was like, what now? Like, what am I gonna do? I had this conversation with myself where I was like, I achieved so much so young. I have so much life to live. I guess this is it.
Wow.
I guess I just achieved it.
You were at the mountaintop, really. I've always felt like this sense of concern for Olympians in their teens, especially gold medal winners when they're like 16, gymnasts or something. Because you can never recreate the feeling of billions of people watching you winning a gold medal. And then all the press and the success that comes with it, probably a year or two later, it's like, okay, who am I now? How do I redefine, how do I recreate a meaningful life?
So this is what I've learned.
Yes.
You have, I mean, success means different things to different people. that was one aspect of my life that was successful. Success to me, as I got older, was defined differently. And success for me now means happiness. No matter what. No matter what's happening in my life, you know, life is a huge. It's. It's a big. I I say it's like. Big journey. You know? And you're gonna have different pockets of these successful moments, if you want to define them that way. You doing the things that you love to do, but it doesn't necessarily mean if I achieve that, that didn't mean that was the end of it. It just meant that there was gonna be something else that came along. But I had to go through all those lessons to achieve my next whatever successful moment. But I didn't want, here's another thing that I just realized as I'm talking to you, you don't want those moments of success in your life to define your success as a whole. Because it's not gonna happen all the time.
It's not who you are as a whole.
No, it's not. I did shows later that only lasted for a season, but it was still successful to me because it was called.
