Not to sound cliché, but as the saying goes, with every ending comes a new beginning.
Actress Angela Lewis is maneuvering through the feelings that come with that as she deals with two major life changes happening: The end of her hit FX series Snowfall and the upcoming birth of her second child. Due in the summer of 2023, Lewis and husband J. Mallory McCree are adding to their brood, which already includes 3-year-old daughter, Brooklyn.
“It’s just been a really interesting experience,” Lewis says over the phone, laughing as she recounts bouts of ongoing morning sickness and heavier fatigue than had during her first pregnancy. Despite the discomforts, she couldn’t be happier.
“I’m always grateful,” she says. “I have an incredible life and even when things are feeling upside down, I still remember to be grateful.”
This newest addition is a surprise gift for the star, who learned long ago that she couldn’t truly plan for motherhood.
“We weren’t trying but we weren’t prohibiting. It was an expected unexpected blessing,” she says. “Even before I had my daughter, I tried twice to have a baby and had a very early miscarriage. I practice meditation and in my meditation I heard the message, There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s just not time. I chose to believe that. And nine months after I heard that message, I booked Snowfall. I was like, ‘Yo that’s crazy!’ And then it was three years after that I ended up being pregnant with my daughter.”
She says in the three years before having Brooklyn, through her meditation work, she was encouraged to get her vessel ready, with the star opting to go vegan to detox. When she’d had the time to make strides professionally, to care for her body and really be in tune with it, she found out she was pregnant. So it makes since that as she prepares to close the door on one chapter of her life, she’s expecting again.
“That has extended over to this baby,” she says. “I couldn’t time this thing if I tried. Babies, before they become fully physical, they are in the spiritual realm and they can time things better than we ever could.”
Lewis nursed her daughter, who recently turned three, up until a few weeks ago, and hopes to do the same extended nursing with her unborn child. A breastfeeding advocate, she touts the health benefits for mother and child, the opportunity to bond, as well as the need to provide representation as a Black birthing woman openly breastfeeding at times when studies have found that many Black moms are not.
“My plan is to let it go as long as they want. In the grand scheme of things, it’s only for such a short amount of time. Even if it’s four or five years, that’s nothing, God willing, in the lifespan of your life and your child’s life. So why not?” she says.
She’s most excited that there will be another little person who takes over their lives in a beautiful way. “I’m really excited, as the baby is growing and making its presence known, to see how your heart and your life can make space for this new being. That to me just blows my mind, every time.”
It’s a special time, made all the more significant by the sixth and final season of FX’s hit, Snowfall, which she’s played Louise Saint or “Aunt Louie” on since 2017.
“I think the pregnancy mitigates the fear. I feel very mixed about the closing of the Snowfall chapter,” she admits. “I’m happy to be moving on and excited about all the things that are coming for myself and for my other cast mates and crew. I think we all have very bright futures. But I’m sad to say goodbye.”
As the cast wraps up their last days on set, things have become more emotional for Lewis.
“It will never be this thing again,” she notes. “I might run into people, I might work with some people but never all of us at one time. That knowing is really sad. And then you go back into the unknown.”
The actress, who owns a production company, is fully aware that soon, it will be back to waiting for roles to be booked, projects to brought to fruition. “I’ve had to make myself comfortable with the uncomfortability of that,” she says. But presently, she’s in a celebratory mood when it comes to what’s next, all thanks to baby number two.
“No matter what’s going on career wise, here’s this other thing I’m planning for that I’m really excited about and it can take my mind off of what I don’t know,” Lewis says. “Here’s this thing that I’m doing actively and it’s beautiful and it’s exciting. I’m really grateful for this perfect timing.”
The sixth and final season of Snowfall premieres on Feb. 22 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on FX.