Everything to Know About Dolly Lewis, Star Of Sight Unseen & Jazz Singer

Dolly Lewis stars in the CW crime drama Sight Unseen as former detective, Tess Avery, and while this may be the first time most viewers have seen the actress in action, there's a chance they may have heard her previously. Born on July 12, 1986, Lewis began her professional acting career in 2018, appearing in the short, Vanishing Point as Carlotta the artist. This role was followed by a series of several more short films before she got her first television part, a one-episode role in Dead of Winter as Patricia.

Lewis, like her character in Sight Unseen, has a visual impairment, only Lewis' began around age 5 or 6. (via NYPost). Lewis' retinas are detaching and could possibly detach completely, an event that would require emergency surgery or leave her fully blind. This visual impairment has not stopped Lewis from entering a visual medium like acting, and she has made a career out of doing voiceovers for audiobooks and appearing in narrative podcasts like I Think You're Projecting. Sight Unseen marks her first major onscreen performance.

Dolly Lewis Stars As Tess Avery In Sight Unseen

Tess Avery Is A Sight Divergent Police Detective

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Sight Unseen follows former homicide detective Tess Avery (Lewis) who suddenly begins losing her vision and is forced to leave the department. Still wanting to help and solve cases, Tess becomes a private eye with the help of Sunny Patel (Agam Darshi), who uses a visual assistance app on Tess' person to help her navigate. The show premiered in April 2023 and the show has been renewed for a second season (via TVLine). As the main character, Dolly Lewis' performance makes the show.

Dolly earned a B.A. in Art History from Rutgers University and was trained in acting at The Esper Studio in New York City.

Lewis competed against hundreds of other sight-divergent actors from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia to earn the role (via CW). In order to properly inhabit the role of Tess, whose fictional sight loss is much more dramatic than Lewis', Lewis chose not to wear corrective eyewear on set, though the crew was kind enough to make her transition from eyewear to no eyewear a bit easier,

On the set, I benefited a lot from the wonderful crew putting up neon tape all over the place to give me symbols like, 'That’s the bathroom, that's the exit', and they had signs printed in extra-large fonts."

It's a well-rounded performance from Lewis, who can handle the comedy and drama with equal skill.

Lewis Is An Accomplished Vocalist

Dolly Lewis Has Performed On Audiobooks And She Sings Jazz

Along with her burgeoning acting career, Dolly Lewis has already proven herself a talented vocalist. There are the aforementioned voice performances in podcasts and audiobooks, which can be found on her website, DollyLewis, but she's also an accomplished jazz singer. Her resume states that she can perform as a soprano D3-D6, and do opera, jazz, and musical theater. Lewis can also play advanced piano and has some knowledge of the accordion. Whether Lewis will completely pivot from music to acting remains to be seen.

Dolly Lewis' Upcoming Projects

Lewis Will Co-Star In The Obelisk

Dolly Lewis has two upcoming projects alongside Sight Unseen season 2. One is a short, The Scorpion, where she is set to play Jenna Carter and the other will be Lewis' first movie role. The Obelisk is an upcoming mystery thriller about a drifter, David (Alexey Hartlieb-Shea), who is struggling to survive in a dystopian future in America. There he meets Elizabeth Benning, played by Lewis, a marketing exec who discovers her employer may be contaminating the last remaining water supply. Filming has been completed on The Obelisk, but a release date has yet to be announced.