Even when he was at the height of his fame on Even Stevens, Steven Anthony Lawrence was never raking in the big bucks. You might think that a big Disney Channel show would pay exceptionally well, but Lawrence's living situation made it pretty difficult for him and his family to thrive during that time.
"I was actually living in Fresno, California. About three-and-a-half hours north of Los Angeles. So when we were doing the show, I was living in a motel room five days a week, and I had to be back home during the weekend," he said to HuffPost. "My dad would, you know, God bless his heart, drive me back-and-forth, giving up his life to help me. So, obviously, that isn't exactly cheap, so a lot of the money I made from Even Stevens went to just doing that. ... And, you know, money was a little tight that year."
It's impossible to say what the young actor could have done if he had been able to build a bit of a financial safety net off of that role, but it might have allowed him to be more selective in his career thereafter. The reality is, it sounds like it wasn't feasible for him to sit back and wait for that perfect role to thrust him further into the spotlight.
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