But playing her hero in the Dec. 15 ABC movie Nancy Drew, Lawson wasn't quite so fearless. With no experience on a stick shift, she admits to "some scary moments" driving Nancy's '64 Corvette: "I wouldn't have wanted to be an extra." Otherwise Lawson had Nancy down pat, says a pal, actor Markus Redmond, 28. "She has those down-home values," he says, "but she's aware of the world around her."
The daughter of hotel manager Mike, 60, and homemaker Judy, 47, Lawson got her start because of her resemblance to someone else: Alicia Silverstone. When she read an article about a search for a lookalike to star in a TV series based on Silverstone's '95 film Clueless, Lawson headed to L.A. with her family. She lost the Clueless gig but found work appearing in series like Party of Five and ER. The latter gave Lawson, who dates actor Eric Olsen, 25, a crash course in Hollywood cool. One day, she recalls, she made the mistake of chatting up one of the show's stars while still hooked to medical equipment. "Somebody asked, 'Do you have a thing for Anthony Edwards?' " she says. "I was like, 'No. Why?' And they said, 'As he walked up, your pulse went through the roof.' My face must have been so red."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
