Almost every little girl dreams of being a movie star, and one girl in particular is getting to live that dream. Freshman Anna Zavelson is an actress that has been in a range of performances including a Chuck E. Cheese commercial, a PSA about underage drinking that aired in Utah and the Netflix Original TV show “13 Reasons Why.”

When Anna was in seventh grade, her manager urged her to send in a video audition for the Netflix Original TV show, “13 Reasons Why.” The casting call was for an Asian girl who was 12-13 years old to play Zach Dempsy’s younger sister.

“I’ve done a lot of auditions,” Anna said. “There’s a saying that ‘every 100 auditions you get one role,’ so I don’t even know how many auditions I’ve done. My manager wanted me to send in an audition so I sent in a video audition. Then I got a call back for it about a couple days later, so then I sent that in. About a week after I found out that I got [the role]. I never actually [physically] went in for my audition.”

Anna was informed of the news that she had gotten the part while supporting the football team at Four Points Middle School. Her mother had just gotten off a phone call with Anna’s manager and forwarded the news that Anna that she was needed for filming within the next couple days. Anna flew first class to San Francisco. She was there for three days but only was on set for one full day. She filmed at a house and a school that the producers had rented out.

“The process of recording was really fun, kind of stressful but I didn’t really have to do much,” Anna said. “The day of [recording], I would go to the little trailer area and go to my trailer and just hang out until they actually needed me. Then I would go to hair and makeup and after we would get into this fancy Paramount van to wherever we needed to shoot.”

Anna says that people she doesn’t even know will come up to her in the halls and ask her what it was like to star in “13 Reasons Why.”

“Before they even know my name they’re kind of like ‘how was it?’ and they always ask that,” Zavelson said. “So it’s a little weird, being a freshman, because you don’t know anyone so it’s a lot of pressure but it’s cool though.”

Her best friend Audrey Bury has stuck with her ever since they met in kindergarten. They now both attend Vandegrift together.

“Honestly I had no idea what ‘13 Reasons Why’ was when she told me about it so I had thought it was just another cool audition she had gone to,” Audrey  said. “Once I had heard more and more people talking about how big of a deal it was that she had gotten the part, I looked it up and was so amazed that I knew somebody who was practically famous.”

Anna plans to take an acting career path in her future years. She says that she enjoys what she does and wants to carry out with acting as a profession.

“I want to be an actress when I grow up and I’ve been training a lot in singing, acting and dancing,” Zavelson said. “But I think that being in a show or a musical can help you grow more than a class could because you can experience first hand how it’s going to be in the real world.”