Moving on from Andi Mack! Following her Disney Channel debut in 2017, Peyton Elizabeth Lee started to become a well-known actress. While her starring role as the show’s title character, Andi Mack, put her performance skills on the map, she actually had a few TV show appearances beforehand.

In 2015, Peyton got her start in an episode of Scandal before a brief recurring role in Shameless. Then, she moved on to the Disney Channel and led the groundbreaking series Andi Mack for three seasons from 2017 to 2019.

“The biggest risk I ever took was to try to be an actor,” the New York native told NBC News in May 2018. “I put a lot of things on hold to follow my dreams. I had to put my other activities on the back burner and prioritize acting over anything else (except school). It was hard to let go of my other dreams, but it was one million percent worth it.”

While Andi Mack has since come to an end, Peyton has continued to become a star in her own right. Immediately after saying goodbye to her breakout role, the actress starred in the Disney+ movie Secret Society of Second-Born Royals. Then, she nabbed another big lead. In September 2021, the Disney actress starred as the title role — Lahela “Doogie” Kameāloha — in the female-led series Doogie Kamealoha, M.D. A remake of the famed 1990s series Doogie Howser, M.D., this show puts a new spin on the medical drama.

“I think this show is so fun because it, sort of, builds upon the foundation that Doogie Howser set,” Peyton told J-14 exclusively ahead of the show’s premiere. “We get to take that into the world we live in today and modernize it. One of those modernizations is that the lead is a female doctor instead of a male doctor. I just love that part of it because it’s always been important for me to portray strong female characters that are role models for young people. I think Lahela does a really good job of that.”

 

Despite having moved on from her Andi Mack days years ago, Peyton would always be down to do a reboot!

“I think it’s always scary trying to recreate something, which is what’s so great about our reimagining of Doogie Howser is that it is very similar, but it also steps away from the show,” she also shared with J-14. “So, there’s, I feel, less pressure to recreate what they already did. So, I would be a little bit nervous about an Andi Mack reboot just because it was this, sort of, perfect experience. But I would definitely be open to it.”

Scroll through our gallery to see Peyton’s total transformation over the years. 

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