By Kristi DiLallo
With the help of GIRLS star Zosia Mamet, SNL’s Vanessa Bayer, Portlandia’s Fred Armisen, and others, Jenny Lewis reminded the internet how awesome she is this week. The co-founder of Rilo Kiley and queen of indie rock debuted her new music video for “She’s Not Me,” a single from her 2014 album The Voyager. Like her last video, “Just One Of The Guys,” it features celeb cameos and what can only be called the best pantsuit ever. “She’s Not Me” invites us on a hilarious and colorful journey through Lewis’s career as a child actress.
Lewis first appeared in a Jell-O commercial at the age of three and then went on to star in ads for things like popcorn makers and Corn Pops cereal in the 80’s. She landed roles in shows and movies like The Golden Girls, The Wizard, The Twilight Zone, Troop Beverly Hills and several others. In her new video, Lewis and her pals reenact the roles she performed as a child actress, as Fred Armisen dances in a pink nightgown and Leo Fitzpatrick wears a uniform reminiscent of the Wilderness Girls in Troop Beverly Hills. It’s not a full-on parody, but more of an opportunity for Lewis to give the girl she used to be a new role beside the woman she has become.
Unlike many of her peers who entered into the limelight at a young age, Lewis is an example of childhood stardom gone right. In the late 90’s, she and three friends, Pierre De Reeder, Dave Rock, and Blake Sennett formed Rilo Kiley in Los Angeles. Sennett, her boyfriend at the time, intended for her to sing back-up vocals, but she insisted that she would only join the band if she could have the role of lead singer. In 2004, she launched her career as a solo artist and has since released three albums, one of which was a collaboration with The Watson Twins. In 2010, she and her boyfriend released an album called I’m Having Fun Now under the name Jenny and Johnny. Last year, she returned with her new album and is currently on tour through the end of the summer.
In reference to “She’s Not Me,” Lewis has said, “The video is about former identities and incarnations of one’s self.” Even with a career that has lasted over three decades, she has proved that she can’t be limited to just one medium. Her new video, which she directed herself, blends her former careers with her current one, reminding us to never stop reinventing ourselves.