Q & A With Actress Katelyn Crowley

Actress Katelyn Crowley began her musical theater career in the second grade when she joined a children’s theater production of “The Wizard of Oz” as a fun extra-curricular activity. She was part of the ensemble and found that she had a knack for memorizing everyone’s lines quickly as a child, but didn’t have the courage to audition for the main role. When she finally joined a production that required all performers to audition, Katelyn found herself in a starring role. From then on, she was no longer content to stay in the background and did multiple productions growing up as part of the primary cast.

Wanting to expand her horizons, Katelyn began making the foray into the film and television world a few years ago and immersed herself in on-camera classes and training. She was approached by filmmaker Dana James Jones about developing and starring in a parody about toxic Star Wars fans. Katelyn played the titular role of Daisy Ridley. The short was so successful that Star Wars director Ryan Johnson and actor Joseph Gordon Levitt praised them on social media.

While she gets cast as the girl next door, she loves diving deep into dramatic characters that have to make difficult choices or have come from a very tumultuous past. She just completed filming a pilot in Illinois called, “The Darkness Within,” where she plays the character for Allison who lives in a small town with dark secrets.

“The biggest challenge so far is navigating my way through the business part of Hollywood,” she says. From the success she has already accomplished in the last six months, it looks like she is doing a great job making her way through the industry.

Where are you from originally?

I was born in Mission Viejo in southern California, but when I was a baby my family moved to Virginia for five years. We moved back to Mission Viejo only a few streets down from the original house we lived in, and I grew up for most of my childhood there!

When did you come to LA?

I grew up doing all sorts of musical theater productions in Orange County, but it was in the last several years that I began getting into acting for the camera and working on various projects and classes.

What inspired you to be in the industry?

Getting to take on exciting and challenging roles at a young age really instilled a love for acting. I love storytelling, and that is what this is really about. Everyone has a story to tell, and all I knew from a young age was that whatever I did, I wanted to be a part of that, and there’s no better place to do that than Los Angeles.

What are some of the projects you worked on in the past?

One of my favorite projects that I’ve gotten the chance to be a part of is a short film called, “Revenge of the Incels.” It’s a parody of Rian Johnson’s film Brick, and in it, we explored the toxic side of fandom, particularly the Star Wars fandom. I got to play a role that underlies many of the events in the film, having the ultimate impact at the climax of the film. Both Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt praised the film, so it was a really exciting project to be a part of!

What have you currently been working on?

I am quite thrilled to be a part of an exciting new series called, “The Darkness Within,” the pilot of which I just had the privilege of shooting in Illinois last month. It is a supernatural fantasy series about a city girl moving to a small midwestern town looking for a chance to slow down and have a change of pace, but little does she know that she’s about to get swept up in some dark events brewing in the quiet town!

Where do you see yourself in five years?

In five years, I would love to be a series regular on a major TV show or streaming service and growing my craft in some dramatic film roles.

How do you feel the industry is changing and how do you feel it benefits you as an actor?

One of the biggest changes we’ve seen in the industry in only just the last couple of years is an increase in powerful roles for women both in front of and behind the camera in the wake of the Time’s Up and #MeToo movements. This means more chances for me to get to play empowered women on screen and work with some truly incredible female directors, producers, and other influential professions in the industry that haven’t seen as many women in those positions until now. It is an exciting time for me to grow and be confident in my place as a woman in this industry and this world.

-Giovannie Espiritu