It was originally presumed that Lewis was born in Jamaica. However, Lewis later revealed in an interview for the 229th issue of Empire, "So I had lied on my resume. I was born in Trinidad, so I said I had done all this acting in Trinidad, 'cos I figured, who the hell's going to figure that out?" Despite this, Lewis stated on that same interview that he was from the Caribbean. Lewis confirmed in another interview that part of his family is of Jamaican descent. According to Reap Mediazine, Lewis is originally from New Jersey.

At first, Lewis was not supposed to have auditioned as the producers originally wanted A-list stars to have portrayed the four leads. According to Lewis, "I came in to this film at first to coach the players in the authentic accents, but then I was asked to do a screen test -- so here I am." He later said in another interview, " I was helping them cast the movie." At the time, Lewis had been participating in play which was viewed by a casting Director for Cool Runnings. Liking his performance, the casting Director later called Lewis and said, "Hey, we're working on this movie about the Jamaican bobsled team and we want to make sure these guys have a good Jamaican accent. Can you do a good Jamaican accent?" Lewis agreed to audition and on November 1992, he won what became his most recognized role, Junior Bevil.

In 1996, Lewis appeared in the parody comedy film, Spy Hard. He mentioned in the Empire interview how Leslie Nielsen "was already like 70, at least, and he was still so funny," during the making the film. Lewis found Nielsen "brilliant" to work with. Lewis appeared in the film Driven, which was also released that same year. He also played a security guard in the 2001 film, K-PAX.

His most recent project was Hybrids, a 2015 film which also starred Paul Sorvino.

Despite his stardom with the film, Lewis once told Entertainment Weekly, " Sometimes I forget I’m in it."