‘Run’ Star Kiera Allen Learned One Important Lesson About Her First Movie From Sarah Paulson
Kiera Allen makes her movie debut in Run. She had appeared on stage and the short film Ethan & Skye, but Run was a new experience for her. Allen plays Chloe, a girl who uses a wheelchair and takes various medications for an assortment of ailments. When Chloe suspects her mother, Diane (Sarah Paulson), is keeping big secrets, she tries to escape.
[Spoiler alert: This article contains mild spoilers for the movie Run.]
Allen spoke with the audience at the Nighstream Film Festival about her experience on Run after the film’s premiere. Here’s what she learned about movie acting, from Paulson in particular. Run is now available on Hulu.
‘Run’ is Kiera Allen’s first movie but not her first performance
According to her biography in the Run production notes provided by Hulu, Allen lives in New York and has worked on stage since 2017. She was only 19 then, making her 20 when she filmed Run and 22 now that it has premiered. Allen said there is one consistent thing between stage and screen acting.
“Definitely subtlety and nuance for me are an important part of any performance, whether it be theater or film,” Allen said at Nightstream. “Just bringing a character to life in all of their little personal nuances is a privilege to be able to do in any form. Having not done a feature, there were a lot of things that surprised me in terms of just technical differences.”
Kiera Allen learned the one difference in film
When you watch a movie, you may take for granted that actors are looking at each other. However, a complicated calculation goes into creating that illusion. Allen had to learn quick on the set of Run.
“Things like eyelines, I didn’t know how much goes on behind the scenes in setting up an eyeline,” Allen said. “I figure I just sit behind a camera and talk to the person who’s on camera. They’re like, ‘Oh no, if you look there it’ll look like you’re looking at the ceiling because cameras do all sorts of trickery.’ So they set up an X and Sarah would be over here and I’d be looking over here and talking to Sarah, all sorts of crazy behind the scenes things that I didn’t know about fim. “
Sarah Paulson and the crew of ‘Run’ made her first movie easy
Run is only the second movie from writer/producer Sev Ohanian and writer/director Aneesh Chaganty. Between them and Paulson, Allen said she felt a lot of support for her first movie.
“I had huge support from this team and from our whole crew in learning those things,” Allen said. “And then I found the transition quite natural. It was just kind of getting all these little quirks in my system and then once I felt comfortable in the new format, I was like ready to go.”
