See Also: Andrea Bowen (Julie Mayer) People Guide

Andrea Bowen (Julie Mayer), who recently starred as a young girl who fears she has contracted HIV, said there is a shocking lack of awareness when it comes to HIV and Aids.

In the movie Girl, Positive (originally titled Consequences), Bowen's character fears for the worst after a guy she slept with dies and he's rumored to be HIV-positive. "When we did some of the research, it was shocking how little people know about what HIV is, the ways of getting it," she told TV Guide. I like that the film gives a lot of knowledge out without being preachy. It doesn't tell you how to live your life or what to do. It just says that everyone is at risk and you have to know how to protect yourself."

Bowen has worked with AIDS charities before so was well informed, but admitted that she still had a lot to learn. "Going into this I knew a lot about it, but I learned so much more," she said. "The statistics and the facts are so scary. It's something like every six seconds a new person is infected with HIV—and most of those people are under the age of 25. There is still such a stigma attached to this disease. It's been stereotyped as [affecting mostly] gay men, and it's really not anymore. That's what drew me to this project, that it's about a young normal girl next door."

Talking of the girl next door, Bowen said she felt Housewives improved in its third season. "It's definitely better than [season] 2. Not that 2 was bad, but it didn't have the same feeling as our first season. We all lost our footing, but that happens a lot with sophomore seasons. There was nowhere to go but down. I believe we came back very strong for our third season, and I'd put it at a tie with our first season. It had a lot of the same quick wit, and the mystery elements, too."

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