The Commons of Pensacola's Zoe Levin on Bonding with SJP & Not Playing Just Another 'Bitchy Teenager'

Age & Hometown: 19; Chicago, IL

Current Role: An off-Broadway debut as the whip-smart, precocious and potty-mouthed Lizzy in The Commons of Pensacola.

Trust Your Friends: Growing up in Chi-Town, Levin was into everything, but performing was her favorite pastime. "I was playing soccer, ice skating and taking dance classes, but acting, singing and dancing always stood out to me," she recalls. Levin's first major gig was in a community production of Wendy MacLeod's The Shallow End, but a role in the world premiere of Friends star David Schwimmer's Trust at Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre Company garnered serious attention. "I couldn't believe I was working professionally in theater and going to high school at the same time," she says. Levin's performance landed her an agent, and Schwimmer cast her in the film version of his play alongside Clive Owen and Viola Davis. "It was a snowball effect," she says. "I wasn't expecting it to go that far!"

Way Way Exciting: With her career on the rise, Levin didn't want to slow down, choosing Loyola Marymount University in L.A. as "a place I could keep auditioning and, hopefully, working." She spent the summer before freshman year filming the movie that would become her big break: The Way Way Back. Levin "couldn't speak for three days" after learning she'd be working with Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Allison Janney and, most importantly, Commons of Pensacola playwright Amanda Peet. "One thing always leads to another," she says. "On the last day of shooting, she asked me, 'Are you Jewish?' and I was like, 'Yeah,' and she said, 'I wrote a play and there's a part in it for you!'" After a year of "pestering" Peet, auditions, two readings and, finally, a chemistry read with stage aunt Sarah Jessica Parker, Levin landed the role of Lizzy.

It's Showtime: In Pensacola, the story of a Madoff-like family, Levin is playing a character unlike any she's tackled before. "I've been typecast as the bitchy teenager or mean girl and Lizzy's not like that," she says. "She curses a lot, but she's upbeat and optimistic and she's the innocence of the play...at first." Peet, Parker and stage grandmother Blythe Danner helped the young actress feel like she has a safety net in NYC, where she hopes to live and work after college graduation. "It's a huge, intimidating city, but I feel so connected to them," she says of her co-stars. "We became an instant family." Away from the theater, Levin, who's subletting a "hole in the wall apartment in Chinatown," enjoys seeing shows like First Date and exploring the Big Apple before she heads back to school. "I need to find my reading and writing spot," she says. "Everyone has one! I need to find my little cafe."