From her earliest recollections, Nicole Lewis has loved stories.
When she was 3 years old and her mother read aloud to her, Lewis embraced classic children’s titles like Heidi and Little Women. Her father would record her reading aloud from books like Pierre by Maurice Sendak and, even as a small child, she loved the process of bringing words to life. Those early days may have set the stage for her success as an actor, educator, and vocal performer. “I’ve always been into stories and reading and imagination, and I think that’s the root of it,” Lewis says.
The daughter of a microbiology professor and a lawyer, Lewis was encouraged to pursue her educational goals, and after starting as a pre-med major at Yale, she shifted to studying theater and psychology. “A new world opened up for me,” she says.
Lewis earned a Masters degree in acting at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. “After that, it was the professional acting life from there . . . I was obsessed with theater. I was a sponge, soaking it all up.” She returned to New York City to pursue her dream, acting on television and on the stage, performing in Broadway shows like Lennon, Rent, and Hair, which won a 2009 Tony award for Best Revival. In 2019, Lewis understudied Audra McDonald in Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune.
“Storytelling is where my heart is,” Lewis says. “Watching people communicate is very exciting for me to be a part of.” Audiobooks are a natural fit, especially “stories about an underdog, stories that examine questions of morality with detailed unconventional characters and complex relationships. And I always love a good plot twist.”
Over the years, Lewis has worked tirelessly at her craft. When it comes to performing, she says, “It’s an athletic discipline, and narrating an audiobook is like a one-person show.” Performers must know how to manage their breath, and each character requires a certain nuanced and distinct physicality as well as a voice.
Eager to give back to the profession she loves so much, Lewis has been teaching acting, acting for the camera, voice-over, and scene study at Emerson College in Boston since 2020. At around the same time, Lewis built her own studio and still completes regular promotional work for the Food Network in addition to narrating audiobooks.
Audiobook work “feels like such a miracle to me because I just love to read. I love to read aloud, and I love acting, so it’s a great marriage of all these things I really love to do.” The ever-growing popularity of audiobooks makes the role of narrator even more important to Lewis. She loves the idea of getting books out to a wide audience and bringing them to life. “That’s what our job is, really—to bring three-dimensional life to these characters. It’s completely creative, and that’s what’s exciting to me.”
Discover reviews of Nicole Lewis's audiobooks in her audiography.
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Leslie Fine is a longtime reviewer for AudioFile.
Nicole Lewis photo courtesy of the narrator.
