A Girl's West Friend

Westside Actress Lily Powell Needn’t Look Far for Tips on Her Tv Career

- Amy Prebble

When actress Lily Powell dons a boob tube and denim miniskirt to play Westside character Mandy, her mum, broadcaster Anna Thomas, gets a strong sense of déjà vu.

“I’m taken straight back to Ashburton in the ‘80s!” laughs Anna. “I grew up there, with Robyn Malcolm [who played the matriarch Cheryl West in connected show Outrageous Fortune]. When I see Lily with her hair done in a banana clip and those outfits, I think she looks exactly like I did!

Lily (19) plays Cheryl’s trouble-making sister in the hit TV prequel and Anna (51) assures the Weekly that her daughter is nothing like the conniving party-girl character.

“She’s a real natural in front of the camera. She has the ability to get into character, like in Step Dave as the wayward teenager – which she never was – and now in Westside as this outrageous Westie chick. She couldn’t be farther from either character!”

In reality, Lily is squeezing in acting roles around studying for a degree in psychology and doing a course in personal training, so she doesn’t have a lot of time to hang around in bars, sinking shots, like her alter ego.

She’s having a ball on Westside and has even found love with her co-star Jordan Mooney (29), who plays larrikin Eric, but she doesn’t plan to head to Los Angeles to carve out a career in Hollywood.