Claudia Lee is more than just Surviving Jack

LADY IN RED: Claudia Lee visits the Allium Restaurant inside the Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago.

By Courtney Crowder

When 17-year-old actress Claudia Lee landed a role on the 1991-set sitcom Surviving Jack, she set out to discover what that neon-soaked, scrunchie-lovin’ decade was all about. Born in 1996, Lee was three when partying like it was 1999 gave way to Y2K fears.

“I was looking up Tori Spelling, Kelly Bundy and all the ‘Saved by the Bell’ girls to see what they wore and how they did their hair,” Lee said recently at the Four Seasons Hotel while in town to promote the show. “I was very specific about my character. I wanted to create a look for her, and we really did that.”

With her character’s quick quips, gold medal-worthy eye rolls and closet full of denim and spandex, Lee’s research paid off in spades. Indeed, her version of the popular, too-cool-for-school ’90s vixen is just as “fly” as either of the Kellys (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen’s Kapowski and Jennie Garth’s Taylor, of course).

Lee plays Rachel Dunlevy, the oldest daughter of Christopher Meloni’s titular Jack, on Fox’s newest comedy, Surviving Jack. The show follows the Dunlevy family as the matriarch (Rachael Harris) decides to start law school, leaving Jack, an oncologist, former military man and parenting newbie, to take on a larger role in raising their kids, Rachel and Frankie (Connor Buckley).

This arrangement — and Jack’s abundance of unforgiving, blunt advice — isn’t preferable to anyone involved, especially not wild child Rachel.

“It’s funny, because on the show our father is surviving us just as much as we are surviving him and his new parenting skills, which the kids are not used to whatsoever,” Lee said.

Out of her character’s ’90s makeup and clothes and in a stunning Ted Baker dress, Lee carries herself with a maturity and poise that is rare in teenage girls. And, frankly, she looks much older than 17.

“I know, I get that a lot,” she said with a smile.

Lee, whose full name is Claudia Lee Mirkowski, grew up in West Lafayette, Indiana. Her father, Klaudius Mirkowski, emigrated from Poland, and Lee said that culture has always been a big part of her life. Her family often travelled to Chicago to visit friends in the Polish community, and Lee spent her summers between the ages of eight and 13 living in Poland and studying the language. For as long as she, and her dad, can remember, Lee has been obsessed with the arts.

Claudia “would always perform at home,” Mirkowski said. “She would have me build stages in her bedroom with full backgrounds.”

She began taking dance classes at three and started singing, playing piano and acting with the Civic Theatre of Greater Lafayette at about 10. The activities “fed the beast that was growing inside me,” Lee said.

“I remember watching TV when I was younger, knowing that was what I was going to do for the rest of my life,” she said. “I would ask my parents, ‘Why am I not on TV?’ and my mom would say, ‘Well, we don’t live in California,’ and I would say, ‘When are we moving there?’ I was 5, asking for an agent and a manager.”

At 13, Lee begged her parents to go to an arts camp in Vermont sponsored by the New York Film Academy. A fellow camper’s parent introduced her to an agent, who told Lee that if she really wanted to make a go of performing, she needed to move to LA. Her parents gave her three months to prove she could make it in show business.

By the end of her first week in California, she booked a national commercial opposite Zachary Levi, who was starring on NBC’s Chuck. (The commercial was for Comcast.)

Four years later, Lee has recorded an album, filmed a major motion picture (Kick-Ass 2) and landed regular roles on two network shows: Surviving Jack and Hart of Dixie, on which she plays Magnolia Breeland, an uptight, slightly arrogant Southern belle.

“I think Claudia tackles every role, regardless of what it is, with this fearlessness and desire to really walk in someone else’s shoes and show the journey of the character,” said Kimberly Crandell, Lee’s acting coach in LA.

“She really loves what she does, and that shows in her work.”

By all accounts, Lee nailed the audition for Surviving Jack. Producer Bill Lawrence (who also created Scrubs) said Lee “crushed” the reading, and fellow producer Patrick Schumacker said he had “never seen someone, especially a 16-year-old girl, come in that poised.” — Chicago Tribune/MCT

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