Rachel Crow
The first audition ever broadcast on the American version of The X Factor was hers, in 2011. She was the ninth contestant eliminated that season, which in most careers is where the story stops. Crow's response was to contact Walt Disney herself about possible roles, and that cold approach is what produced the run of television and film work that followed. Not many teenagers turn a reality-show exit into a working career by writing to a studio.
What she has is comic timing and a voice with real cut to it, which is why the animation jobs have been the best fit. She voiced Carla, the daughter with the show-tune instincts, in Rio 2, and led Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh as Tip, taking over a feature-film character for a series and carrying most of its episodes. On camera she played Starr in Fred: The Show, Nikki in the Disney Channel film Invisible Sister, and Felicia in Schooled.
She released her first EP in 2012 and the singing has never been separate from the acting: nearly every part above uses the voice for something. The X Factor is still where most people met her, and it is the least representative thing on the list.
Movies (2)
TV (4)
Where to start with Rachel Crow
Her voice work outranks her on-camera roles, so begin with Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh. It is the only lead she has been given, and playing Tip across a whole series shows the timing and the singing doing the same job at once. Kids will watch it happily; adults will notice how much of the character is in the delivery.
Rio 2 is the bigger production and the smaller part, with a musical number that makes the case for her better than a plot summary would. For live action, Invisible Sister is the standard Disney Channel body-swap comedy and she is the most alive thing in it, while Schooled and Fred: The Show are sitcom work.
The X Factor is the origin story rather than the performance. Watch it last.